CURTISS ENGINE, MODEL OX-5.
HALL-SCOTT ENGINES BEING INSTALLED IN AIRPLANE FUSELAGES.
TWO VIEWS OF LE RHONE 80-HORSEPOWER ENGINE.
This is one of the successful rotary engines.
If speed in production was required at any point in the aviation development it was here in the manufacture of the elementary training planes and engines. Without training material, no matter how many aviation fields we set in order nor how many student aviators we enlisted, the movement of our flying forces toward the front could not even begin. And here entered an interesting engineering and executive problem that had to be worked out quickly by those in charge of our aircraft construction. If it were plotted on paper, the curve of requirements for aircraft training material would climb swiftly to its peak during the first six or eight months of the war and then decline with almost equal swiftness until it reached a low level. In other words, we must produce the great number of training machines in the shortest time possible in order to put our thousands of student aviators into the air at once over the training fields; but when this training equipment had been brought up to initial requirements, thereafter our needs in this direction could be met by only a small production, since the rate of wastage of such material is relatively low. Once our fields were fully equipped, the same apparatus could be used over and over again as the war went on, with little regard to the improvements of the type of battle planes, so that the ultimate manufacture need be large enough only to keep this equipment in condition.
It soon became evident that the production of Curtiss planes and engines, even under the heavy contracts immediately placed, would not be sufficient to take care of our elementary training needs; and the aviation administration began looking around for other types of aircraft that would fit into our plans. The experts in all branches of war flying which the principal allied nations had sent to the United States, warned us against the temptation to adopt many types of material in order to secure a quick early production. If the training equipment were not closely standardized in types, it would result in confusion and delay, both in training the aviator to fly and in preparing him for actual combat. Such had been the experience in Europe; and we were now given the benefit of this experience, so that we might avoid the mistakes which others had made. We were advised to adopt a single type of equipment for each class of training; but if that were not consistent with the demands for speed in getting our service in the air, then at the most we should not have more than two types either of planes or engines.
In the elementary training program it was evident that we could not equip ourselves with a single type of plane, except at considerable expense in time. Consequently we went ahead to develop another.