PARACHUTE JUMP FROM AN ALTITUDE OF 7,900 FEET, NOVEMBER 12, 1918.
Picture taken at Love Field, Tex., from an airplane.
CHAPTER II.
AIRPLANE PRODUCTION.
Sketchy and incomplete as was our knowledge of airplane construction in the early days of 1917, it was no more hazy than our notion of how many planes to build. What would constitute overwhelming superiority in the air?
As an indication of the rapidity with which history has moved, it may be stated that in January and February of 1917 the Signal Corps discussed the feasibility of building 1,000 planes in a year of construction. This seems now to us a ridiculously low figure to propose as representative of American resources, but in the early weeks of 1917 the construction of a thousand airplanes appeared to be a formidable undertaking. In March, when war was inevitable, we raised this number to 2,500 planes within 12 months; in April, when war was declared, we raised it again to 3,700.
But once we were in the war, through the exchange of military missions our designers were taken into the confidence of the aviation branches of the French, British, and Italian Armies and shown then for the first time a comprehensive view of the development of the war plane, both what had been done in the past and what might be expected in the future. As a result our Joint Army and Navy Technical Board in the last week of May and the early part of June, 1917, recommended to the Secretaries of War and the Navy that a building program be started at once to produce the stupendous total of 19,775 planes for our own use and 3,000 additional ones, if we were to train foreign aviators, or approximately 22,000 in all. This was a program worthy of America's industrial greatness. Of these proposed planes, 7,050 were for training our flyers, 725 for the defense of the United States and insular possessions, and 12,000 for active service in France.
Such was the task assigned to an industry that in the previous 12 months had manufactured less than 800 airplanes, and those consisting principally of training planes for foreign governments.
The expanding national ambition for an aircraft industry was also shown by the mounting money grants. On May 12 Congress voted $10,800,000 for military aeronautics. On June 15 an appropriation of $43,450,000 was voted for the same purpose. Finally on July 24, 1917, the President signed the bill appropriating $640,000,000 for aircraft. This was the largest appropriation ever made by Congress for one specific purpose, and this bill was put through both Houses within the period of a little more than a week.