Word: curtiss
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Like an unexpected break in a Shostakovich symphony, the grinding cacophony of production in the great Curtiss-Wright aircraft plant near the Buffalo airport clattered to a deep, silent stop one day last week. For an hour the production line stood still while Big Bill Knudsen and other national defense bigwigs dedicated a low-lying, businesslike monument to U.S. ingenuity and industrial speed...
Better than that, it had been in production two full months. In the crowded yard alongside the speaker's stand stood scores of lean camouflaged pursuit planes and potbellied observation planes (O-528). Close by stood the 2,000th fighter produced by Curtiss-Wright since the war began...
Unlike the superpowered, high-altitude fighters now in the works for the U.S. Army and Navy flying services, the Kittihawk is this year's airplane, will do plenty of fighting before the snow flies. From the Curtiss-Wright plant at Buffalo, better than 250 a month are coming off the line, complete to the last machine gun. They start to grow in an older and smaller (827,000 sq. ft.) plant across town at Tonawanda where fuselages are built, engines and armor are installed. At the new airport plant wings and landing gear are added before they are flown...
...biggest shout went up when a pilot ripped across the field in next year's airplane, an XP-46, leaner and trimmer than its blood brothers. Still experimental, the XP-46 is Curtiss-Wright's bid for speeds above 400 miles an hour. Secret in design, it is reputedly chalking up fast performances with an old Allison...
Last week, as Curtiss-Wright's flight show ended and the speakers departed, a few visitors stayed in the test yard to catch a glimpse of the youngster pilots who put on the show. But no workmen were there. They had gone back to their tools. The factory was clattering its symphony again as it does through the 24 hours of the day. Within a few months, 12,500 men will be working in the new plant and 500 of this year's fighters will be coming off the line every month: one of the reasons why Bill...