B-29s from Georgia: Building the Superfortress - 1944

this is a battlefield of total war not in Normandy or in Poland not in the Far Pacific this is Georgia USA the Chattahoochee here is no River barrier to be stormed no gun emplacements are dug into the red clay of these pine covered hills here memorials of wars past look down on a new kind of war which gets its fighting strength from every part of America a war of production for which all peacetime activities have been mobilized the work of town and village and of the great city has been coordinated smoothly and effectively into the overall plan of a nation at war north of Atlanta near Marietta and the shadow of historic Kennesaw Mountain is a new and important part of this flag a huge war flag its product long a closely guarded military secret here is one of the greatest industrial plants in the country with a floor area of more than 4 million square feet more space is enclosed by these walls than in any other similar Factory in the land here working night and day some 25,000 people are creating what has been called the Industrial miracle of the war they're building in record time and in large numbers the giant b-29 the super fortress Pearl Harbor caused it army engineers built it brought in their big shovels and tractors leveled the hills and filled in the valleys moved 8 million cubic yards of Earth with the precision of a well-planned military maneuver brought in more than 28,000 tons of steel 45 acres of concrete were needed to make floors and foundations enough material was used to build a medium-sized city speed was the word for it speed and efficiency but as the steel went up and the walls around it there were some who wondered at this huge plant in Georgia and asked where would they come from the thousands of skilled workers that are needed to build the airplanes the answer was simple and direct the plants in Georgia isn't it well that's where the workers come from 82% of them and another 11% come from bordering states clerks and housewives office people chopped workers farmers and mechanics people who'd never been close to an airplane before they came to work in the plant getting started meant training at a large scale as part of a long-range plan and that was the first big job of the Bell Aircraft Corporation chosen by the army to staff and operate the big plant even while it was still under construction hundreds of Georgians were being trained in Buffalo and Niagara Falls where the Airacobra fighter plane is built there they learned basic aircraft skills and the quantity production methods which made it possible to supply the cannon carrying pursuit ship to all the war fronts of the world big training centers were set up in Atlanta and Marietta to use the six story building in downtown Atlanta and kept it going day and night on a three-shift basis one of the chief subjects is riveting all the different sizes and shapes are each handled in a different way and it's just as important to know how to drill out a rivet when that's necessary today as before trainees are regular employees and they draw their paychecks just as they will when they finish training and become full-fledged builders of the b-29 this program of employment and training is continuing today on a large scale to meet the requirements of increased production this is everybody's war and in the total mobilization with which the people of America have answered the threat to their freedom no skill has been overlooked no handicap has been found too great for willing and determined half inside the plant another training program prepares for supervisory jobs those who through actual production experience have become skilled workers besides their skill at specific jobs supervisors must take a broader view must know how these jobs fit into the whole pattern how the thousands of different skills needed to build a big bummer are united by a master plan of production key to this master plan is a system known as lofting developed by Bell engineers to serve every phase of quantity aircraft construction it simplifies the work speeds production metal patterns called templates are the basis of this system they're laid out with exacting care accurate to the thousandth of an inch they bring to every job a precision that cannot bury the thousands of templates used in the flat have been designed by the lofting department so that all parts made from them will fit perfectly when assembled these templates are used throughout the plant to every job done with them is transferred the accuracy of the highly trained men who designed them take this stack runner for instance as it's guided along the edge of the template it cuts many sheets of aluminum at the same time each piece is exactly the shape of the template and they're all exactly alike templates are used with this stack driller to spot the holes that will be used for riveting and to spot the pixels which are used as guides in assembling the different parts they're even used to make the dies for the big presence and they're carefully designed by the lofting department to allow for shrinkage of the die metal so that the parts form bottom will be sure to fit properly with the fabrication of every part controlled by this master plan workers assemble the units by lining up the pixels the parts are held together with temporary fasteners until they are riveted from small sections which successively become part of larger sections the great wing is gradually build up as the size increases so does the need for accuracy in this work so sensitive are these metals to variations in temperature that the entire atmosphere within the plant must be carefully controlled this requires one of the largest air conditioning systems in existence capable of delivering more than 7 million cubic feet of cold or warm air per minute as the wing passes through successive stages and grows to its full length and breadth the assembly become so large that the work is done on two storeys at once built as a complete unit the wing contains a complicated system of tubes wires and special devices each step of the production process each rivet must undergo rigid inspection and must be without flaw or in the role these bombers will play there is no margin for error perfect in every detail yet produced in the shortest possible time but showed us possible time could mean a lot of things before bell engineers designed this milling machine it meant 24 hours for eight men to shape a wing spar today it's turned out in 22 minutes flat other special methods to speed up production the side blisters for the fuselage for instance are made from softened Plexiglas by literally blowing it into a bubble this makes possible a clearness that can't be gotten any other way these methods have worked so well that the plant supplies not only its own needs in these parts but those of other companies that build the b-29s building an airplane fast means turning out the parts fast and it means getting the right part to the right place at the right time it's a tremendous job of industrial planning which has been worked out in Maynooth the tape from the time raw materials are first brought into the plant the flow of production follows the most direct route possible resulting in an important saving of time the manufacture of the fuselage is an example of how this system of production control works single pieces are formed from raw material and moved across an aisle to be joined into a skeleton sub assembly at the same time throughout the plant other small assemblies are being formed section by section each piece fitting snugly into place for riveting the work is planned so that whenever possible each job is done while it is still easy to reach and is made more accessible by specially designed fixtures the manufacture of these assemblies has been centralized so that they are completed at the proper times to be joined to other units into a finished section of the airplane ready for the final assembly line this method of breaking down the airplane into separate manufacturing units each build independently of the others makes fund reproduction on so large a scale possible and is itself made possible by the overall planning which has organized the work but the production of these stacked up parts which are the product of many skilled hands requires another flag a human plant part of it is expressed in this antebellum home on the plant site where an employee service division takes care of housing problems rationing and transportation the workers share rides with each other many come by streetcar or bus some travel as much as a hundred and fifty miles a day to work in the bomber plant they bring their lunches or they eat them hot in the flat cafeterias there are eight of them serve some 10,000 pounds of meats and vegetables a day and after lunch there's time for friends to get together I got me a bomb load and a plane to fly in I'm gonna drop the whole load on the middle of Berlin for those who want exercise there's always plenty of company these are the people of democracy on them and on others like them our war potential defends their purchases of war bonds have been so great that the Treasury Department has presented them with its tea award more than one Superfortress as it nears completion on the final assembly line is being paid for by the war bonds of the people who are building it on one of the largest crane installations in the country the giant wing complete with missiles and wing flaps is lowered inch by inch into the fuselage all the sections which have been built separately in the flap are brought together in this last phase of production as double rows of the big bombers move toward the great doors that lead to the air for the work of final assembly is largely a matter of unifying the different sections of the airplane by interconnecting them with the network of tubes and wires tubes are necessary for fuel and oil lines for piping breathing oxygen to various stations for the crew and for hydraulic booster brakes most of the devices inside the airplane however are upgraded electrically and they require a hundred and fifty electric motors eleven and a half miles of wire wind through the great ship givenness cells are added the powerful 18 cylinder radial engine that make the airplane faster than any previous heavy bomber the efficiency of these engines is increased by a special nacelle design for cooling each engine is equipped with twin turbo superchargers for extremely high altitude flying out of reach of enemy interceptor planes the sixteen and a half foot propellers are the largest ever installed on an airplane they turn at slower speeds than the propellers of other aircraft reducing the noise the ship makes as it flies and giving it a characteristic muffled sound ample visibility is provided for pilot Bombardier and gunner enemy fighters will find no blind spots on the b-29 the immensely complicated equipment in the ship is still a military secret a secret which the people build and install this equipment are helping to keep as they do their final work on the airplane before it leaves the assembly line they are dwarfed by its giant size its tail stands 28 feet high and scaffolding tall enough for a three-story building is necessary for workers to reach the top of it this great assembly line with the huge ship standing nose-to-tail is a tribute to American ingenuity for here one of the most intricate machines ever designed is being built in quantity numbers but thousands of skilled men and women in a factory that didn't even exist two years before and here it is the Boeing design Georgia Belt b-29 here's a large length 99 feet horsepower 8800 wingspan 141 and three-tenths feet range very long bomb load very heavy number built per month here in Georgia quite a few the sound of the engines as they warm up for takeoff mean something special to the people of the bomber plan to them their work is an investment an investment in the future they've already begun to build for themselves within walking distance of the planted Mariana is a new kind of industrial community pleasant and attractive some 2,500 new homes have been built here with the friendly help of the folks in Marianna permanent houses designed for comfortable living they're well-equipped with refrigerators and electric stoves in the kitchen and other conveniences that make housekeeping easier there weren't enough churches at first so new ones were organized this one used to be a civil war home the schools are good and there are nursery schools for the young children yes it's an investment in the future that's already paying dividends the people of this community have a double interest in the b-29 they share with the rest of the nation the added security front by this powerful weapon of democracy whose long-range and tremendous striking power will speed the day of final victory but it means even more to these people of the southeast through it they found the opportunity to create a new way of living as complete and as well-designed as the airplane they're building for them the b-29 and the plant where they built it although conceived in war are dedicated to the peacetime development of a new modern industrial America to come you

Channel: ZenosWarbirds

Views: 340,913

Keywords: Boeing B-29 Superfortress, Marrietta Georgia, Bell Aircraft, Aircraft construction

Id: ybGGmjm9JZ4

Length: 19min 23sec (1163 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 30 2013