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rotra medford (orecowi mail tribune
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tmi Time' To iake Airplanes Hinges on
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. .Air Force asked eonvir to de-.eept slso entered the picture "dogs." They failed to meet one ,
Seven V
Bring F1
2
fl!d"A"' "t: ThU i the tklrC t
a rlV 4x article Joruanntln( a
fi-ious Situation ia military sirrraft
wfeuch Imperils our national Mcuruy.)
o
B ROBERT S. BIRD and
TOM LAMBERT
New Yrk Herald Tribune
New Service
T Washington The making of
modern Owarp!anes rr.ore than
any othej irSusVy in existence
today, (pi a business of making
decsinn countless thousands
of jfcem.
O All the h?ic arid rost of the
other,- critical decisions about
warrIanes speed, altitude
raftgeare made in the Penta
Eon and by the Air Force; the
r manufacturer is -bound by them.
C Allfcisecisions on manufactur
ing0 details, which also are
rr,y?iad must he approved by the
official agencies.
Thjrf. he "lead time" to make
C a warplarjp,cfrom first study to
completion of the first produc
Q tion model, ohinees to a very
Preat extent on .he quality and
timeliness-Q-esperially the time
liness of official decisions.
Theio Ht0t'nc pace for each
-phase of the design, development
and production of the airplane,
anK they0 speed or retard the
whole flw of detailed manufac
turing operations.
No Count cf Decisions
u There is no count of the hun
dreds of decision made over a
seMi-yean lead time period to
bring into production this year
this country's newest and finest
supersonic, all-weather fighter-
Interceptor, the F102.
(3"hi hit? rlplta-winiy Ipt flpritpr
Mvhjeh Can hit up to 1,000 miles
arvjhour and can streak to alti
tudeseever 60,000 feet was a
long, time emerging, and the Air
0 JSrce chiefs breathed easier this
summer when It finally began
0 movinjpinto squadrons.
GtTntil the F102 materialized,
tfils country's fighter had trou-
jile climbing to or fighting at the
Altitude of 50,000 feet credited
to the Soviet's high-flying, inter
continental jet bomber, the Bi-
0 JThe latest-known Russian all
weather fighter interceptor, the
flashlight, is inferior in perform
c3 anco the P102. The Flashlight
is not believed to be supersonic
T to be able to fly as high as
thi country's B52 or B47 bomb-
ersr although it probably can
jnatch their speed.)
U "But thnucEi it took seven years
O towering' the F10Z into opera
OtionQ it' stilt1 is not the plane
which the Air Force in 1949 had
Sloped to have by 1954.
Dream Plane in 1959
-TbeCFlO?, is an "Interim"
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-9 Open Till 9:00 Until Cc. 51
Used To
Into Air
plane. The 1949 rlream plane
scheduled for use in 1954 may
not be operational until 1959 t
the earliest. The 1949 dream (the
F1QS), instead of taking to the
air two years ago may fly only
in prototype model later this
year. ,
It is the history of the "in
terim" F102 that will be exam
ined here in the framework of
two major reasons outlined by
aircraft producers and some top
Pentagon officials to explain this
country's perilously long lead
tjme in making warplanes to
meet the Soviet air threat. Those
reasons are:
1. It takes the Pentagon and
Air Force too long to make up
their minds on what kind of
combat planes they want. And
when they finally do reach go-
ahead decisions they continue to
slow action by engulfing manu
facturers in red tape and exces
sive paper work.
2. New-type warplanes are so
complex and precise that it takes
longer to build them. (This prob
lem doesn't seem to bpther the
Russian military brass too much.)
Manufacturers admit they make
mistakes building planes beyond
the frontiers of technology lose
time correcting errors.- But of
ficial indecision and red tape,
they say, only lengthens already
lengthening lead time.
In the F102, both of these rea
sons contributed to stretching
out lead time.' This was danger
ous, because in the same, period
the Soviets were making the Bi
son, a high-flying jet bomber
which can carry the hydrogen
bomb to this country.
The F102's supersonic delta
wing (a nearly perfect triangle
with the base toward the tail
and the apex near the needle
nose) was foreshadowed in stud
ies going back to 1930,. in Ger
man reports captured in World
War II and in government wind
tunnel and laboratory tests in
1947.
Research Plana Built
Also, preceding the first for
mal studies for the F102 proper,
an experimental delta wing re
search plane was built - from
which, in an aerodynamic sense,
the F102 was largely derived.
For the sake of convenience,
this research plane and the F102
are considered in arbitrarily-se
lected time spans. Both the re
search plane and the F102 were
projects assigned to Consolidated
Vultee Aircraft Corp., which in
1952 became the Convair divis
ion of General Dynamics Corp.
First Time Span (56 months):
In April. 1946, the (then) Army
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sign a high-speed interceptor
with a delta wing. It was to be
used for aerodynamic studies and
would not include weapons.
Designated the XF92, the re
search plane was built and made
its first flight on Sept. 18, 1948.
Extensive test information was
studied by the Air Force and
other agencies through 1950
when a decision was made to go
ahead with the new airplane that
became the present F102.
Second Time Span (15 months)
The Air Force invited aircraft
companies to submit designs for
the new plane and in January,
1951, several manufacturers en
tered their suggestions.
Some aircraft company execu
tives, including Gen. Joseph T.
McNarney, (U.S.A.F., Ret.) presi
dent of Convair, feel that such
design competitions are one of
the unnecessary time-consuming
procedures in getting out urgently-needed
combat planes.
Would Say Time .
Nobody knows better than the
Air Force the capabilities and re
sponsibility of each major air
craft manufacturer, they assert,
and . the Air Force would save
time and move aircraft programs
faster if it would give a project
to an aircraft maker of its own
selection and let him go ahead.
Or at least, they say, limit the
competition to the manufacturers
best qualified for the particular
project in mind.
Aircraft makers also point out
that Air Force design competi
tions which formerly cost about
S25.000 now cost up to $500,000
a heavy penalty for a loser to
bear.
In this case, the Air Force
seven months later authorized
Convair to start design on the
airplane: And here again lead
time lengthened. Numerous
boards, committees, report
groups, and individuals scruti
nized each step of the F102 pro
gram under the Pentagon "sys
tem" for such procedure, a pro
cess which leads to delay because
it is so difficult to obtain unanim
ity of view from all the partici
pants.
Fifteen months elapsed before
authorization came in March,
1952, to build an F102 prototype.
. Third Time Span (33 months):
The Air Force had developed
a logical, new concept for this
plane. It was to be a "weapons
system," In which the supersonic
airframe, jet engine and almost
the entire automatic assembly
of radar; fire-control apparatus
and missiles were "married"-to
each other from the very start
of the design.
The Hughes Airplane Co. was
to make the electronics system
and the six-foot-long Falcon
guided missiles for the F102.
Pratt & Whitney was to provide
the J57 jet engine with about
10,000 pounds thrust. Convair,
as prime contractor and airframe
manufacturer, was to see that all
these elements meshed together
as precisely as possible.
'Densest' Plane Ever Built
Up to this time, no combat
plane had been so designed from
the beginning. One result was
that the F102 ended up as the
"densest" plane ever builtj the
most tightly packed for its size
of any aircraft. The "fit" of the
components is literally "skin
tight" with the thickness of the
airframe's aluminum hide held
in manv nlaces to five or ten one-
j thousandths of an inch.
' Another, recent Air Force con
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here. Under former programs,
only a couple of prototype planes
were ordered, then flight-tested
extensively, perhaps for two
years, before production was
speeded up. That method, of
course, greatly stretched out lead
time. On the F102, the Air Force
tried the so-called Cook-Craigie
plan ordering a larger number
of early models on which more
testing could .be done more
quickly.
This called for earlier tooling
in the aircraft plant, highly de
sirable' from a lead time view
point but not without risk that
the plane to be made may turn
out to be a failure.' The Soviets
take this risk in their effort to
surpass this country in advanced
type planes.
It turned out in the case of
the F102 that the first 14 pro
duction planes were, in fact.
A Nichol's Worth of .
Comment On
y HARMAN
Unitarf Presi
Washington (U.R) The ladies
in my house love Mamie.
So they thought they would
try out the
formula M r s.
Ike calls- mil
lion dollar
SS p-J fudge." I . was
f j an unwilling
' f 1 witness.
Til The first lady
iK of our house
X3P"A.4 first saw the
recipe for the
armaa Nicbola brown ffoo'die
in the National Women's Press
Club cook book. That fine little
periodical ran a dizzy gamut
from apple pan dowdy to Missis
sippi river catfish.
So my first lady and -her s
sistant, our 17-year-old relative,
ran around the neighborhood
stores gathering . the wherewith
al. Some of the stuff they had.
Some they didn't the German
sweet chocolate, for one, and we
were out of nutmeats.
Veronica, the first lady, fig
ured that if Mamie could sweeten
the future for Ike with a pan
full of fudge 40 years ago when
he was a shavetail, maybe she
could make me sit up and fly
right. Bev, the 17 -year-old,
agreed. So the two gals went to
work, despite my advice to aban
don the project.
The Recipe
The recipe went something like
this, with arguments all along
the line between Mom and
daughter:
' First, 4V4 cups of sugar.
"Isn't that an awful lot of
sugar?" Bev said.
"If Mamie likes that much
sugar," Mom said, "we'd better
go along. Want us to get thrown
out of the party?"
So 4Vi cups of sugar went
into the bowl. A pinch of salt.
Then two tablespoons of butter.
Examinations Announced
For Civil Service Jobs
The civil service commission
has announced examinations for
geologist, social worker, public
welfare adviser, public welfare
research analysis, public assist
ant and equipment specialist.
Applications and additional
information may be obtained
from Chester W. Silliman at the
Medford post office. -
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of the F102 requirements, as will
be seen.
The F102 production contract
came in Augus';, 1952. Within a
few months, while the prototype
was being hastened to comple
tion, production tooling and pro
duction was-started on planes
scheduled for operational serv
ice. : In October, 1953, the F102 pro
totype took to the air. It would
not go through the sonic bar
rier as it was supposed to do.
This was a tremendous setback
to the engineers, to Convair, to
the Air Force. Convair says it
had miscalculated the perform
ance of the jet engine which was
to have pushed the plane beyond
the speed of sound the point at
which air streams and shock
waves cause erratic behavior
which was imperfectly under
stood then and not fully under
stood now.
This and That
W. NICHOLS
Feature WriUr.
Also one tall can of condensed
milk.
Things were boiled for six
minutes. Things then were put
into a mixing bowl. :
"Twelve ounces of semi-sweet
chocolate bits. That's a bit too
much," Bev said. "And what
about this? It says here 12
ounces of German sweet choco
late?" She lost. It all went into the
hopper.
Plus a pint of marshmallow
cream and two cups of nutmeats.
Something Colossal
"Mom," Bev said, "I think this
will simmer into something co
lossal." "Oh no," said our first lady,
"it will simmer down."
Plain facts are it didn't sim
mer any place but up. And
when well, we'd better give
you the end of the recipe.
According to Mrs. Eisenhower:
After you' have done all of the
above you are supposed to pour
boiling syrup over the stuff in
the bowl. Beat until chocolate is
all melted and then pour in the
pan. Let it stand a few hours
before cutting. Store in a tin
box.
My two ladies did all. of that.
The result was fine.
But by following Mrs. Eisen
hower's formula we wound up
with more than three people
could handle. We have been
passing it around the neighbors.
It sure is good.
"' mlUmiim V .lifMtWMMy,.pJ!Walt. ? ialaaaaaitaaMapwaMwaMaagaa
'8 " i ' ' zkfr' r"-
You btiy refrigerator only two or, tine times
in your lifetime. " ."''
Yet you don't heeitate.to buy one without
getting to mueb as a look at the intricate "works"
that make it run. ' . ' '
How. do yqu dare 'make such -an important
purchase without having an expert check it over
for you? What makes you so sure .you're getting"
your money's worth when you say, "I'll take
that one"?
"
The answer's obvious. You Ipok for the brand
name on the refrigerator your "guarantee."'..
You've learned to fellow" this first rulff'of safe
and sound buying: '
A food brand is your best guarantee . .
No matter what kind of product you wajit to .
Timeline
Problem! Under Study
But the problems of supersonic
flight were under intensive study
and in 1952 the government's Na
tional Advisory Committee for
Aeronautics had made a tremen
dously important technological
discovery. Through wind tunnel
and other tests, a mathematical
formula known as the "area
rule" gave engineers new knowl-
edge of how to fashion super-!
sonic shapes.
The F102 was redesigned, with !
the "area rule" which pinches i
the fuselage waist in "Coke bot
tle" style. Certain that this new
shape would solve the' F102's
troubles, Convair in April, 1954,
started up a new production line. !
By December, the new model ,
F102 was zooming past the sound
barrier even on the climb. Pro
duction rales and numbers of:
F102's in. squadrons are secret
but it is estimated we have over
200 of them and are turning out ,
more than 10 weekly. . j
The F102 was late in arriving i
in combat units for as the read-!
er has seen several different
reasons: Pentagon and Air Force
sluggishness in decisions, a ma-!
jor technological mystery, manu-1
facturing mistakes and difficul-1
ties. Competent authorities un
doubtedly will, argue over how i
to assess the blame for this tardi- j
ness. ' .
But the cold fact is, after seven
years lead time the F102 squeak-,
ed into operational use only this
year, perhaps just in the nick of
time considering, that is, the
surprise appearance in the air
two years ago of the Soviet inter
continental jet carrier of ' the
hydrogen bombs, their Bisons. . !
Tomorrow: "Dream plans"
survives Pentagon indecision.
(Copyright, 1958. New York
, Herald Tribune, Inc.)
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FAMILY BUDGET MEAT ORDER
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Open Sundays
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Weekday Store Hours.' c8 'A., to 7 P.M.
ft
buy, you know a good brand
Yau fcnaw the maertandifi back ctf it guar-?
. n tees jf And o, when you kiry a gdbd brand e
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Read this newspaper to find out which are
the good brandf (and the stoteg that selfcthem.) e Q
The more good 6rand yoxi knw?the sueryqu
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