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p r e p a r i n g f o r w a r b e f o r e p e a r l h a r b o r 45 American industry built approximately 300,000 military aircraft in 1940–1945. These required 802,161 aircraft engines, including spares, to keep them flying. The U.S. Army Air Force bought 81 percent of the aircraft engines manufactured during this period, with the U.S. Navy purchasing most of the rest. The contributions made by the automobile industry to these impressive results are noteworthy—it accounted for 56 percent of all military aircraft engines built during the war. When overall production of aircraft engines peaked in August 1944, the automobile industry made three-quarters of the engines used in combat aircraft. The auto industry also accounted for more than one-third of the 714,000 propellers turned out by U.S. manufacturers during the war. There were only three significant manufacturers of aircraft engines before the war: the Wright Aeronautical Corporation, operating an engine plant in Patterson, New Jersey; the Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Division of United Aircraft Corporation in East Hartford, Connecticut; and the Allison Division of General Motors Corporation, with a plant near Indianapolis, Indiana. The government decided to concentrate production on the existing (and proven) air-cooled radial engines already developed by Wright and Pratt & Whitney. Allison had developed a liquid-cooled engine that was in full production in 1940, and the Packard Motor Car Company produced liquidcooled Rolls-Royce Merlin engines a year later. The British had 3 aircraft engines and propellers 45 46 c h a p t e r 1 great success with the Merlin engines, but the U.S. Army Air Corps preferred air-cooled radial designs. They believed the radial engines were less vulnerable in battle, more durable, and easier to service and repair. In the early 1930s, Allison had developed a liquid-cooled, V-12 engine, which was refined by the late 1930s to generate 1,000 horsepower. With engine orders from the U.S. Army Air Force, the French government, and the British government in 1939, Allison was in full-scale production a year later. The Allison V-1710 engine went through numerous design modifications during the early part of the war, and by October 1943 it had a combat rating of 1,750 horsepower. By the end of the war, Allison produced 69,305 engines, the only Americandesigned , liquid-cooled engine used in the war. The Packard Motor Car Company in Detroit agreed to make Rolls-Royce– designed, liquid-cooled Merlin engines in May 1940, after the Ford Motor Company and the Chrysler Corporation declined the opportunity. The Merlin was a V-16 engine that developed 1,800 horsepower. Packard did not start large-scale production of Merlins until October 1941, but it completed 55,000 engines by the end of the war, with three-quarters of these sold to the British government and the rest to the U.S. Army Air Force. Virtually all of the radial aircraft engines produced for the war effort were manufactured by Wright Aeronautical and Pratt & Whitney or by automakers licensed by the two firms to make their engines. The two firms used contrasting production strategies during the war. Wright preferred to directly manage the production of its engines and built new plants near Cincinnati, Ohio, and Wood-Ridge, New Jersey, to accomplish this. Wright licensed only two car companies to make its engines: the Studebaker Corporation and the Dodge-Chicago Division of the Chrysler Corporation. Wright engine production during the war was 223,036 units, and licensees manufactured 37 percent of the total. Although Pratt & Whitney expanded its East Hartford, Connecticut, plant and built a branch plant in Kansas City, Missouri, the firm preferred to license others to make its engines. Licensees included Ford, Buick, Chevrolet, Nash-Kelvinator, Continental Motors, and the Jacobs Aircraft Engine Company. Over the course of the war, Pratt & Whitney engine production totaled 355,985 units, with licensees making 60 percent of the total. Virtually all military aircraft were equipped with variablepitch propellers, which allowed pilots to change the angle of the propeller blades for maximum power on takeoff and landing, but lower power at cruising speed. Only three firms manufactured these propellers at the start of the war: Curtiss Electric, a subsidiary of Curtiss-Wright; Hamilton Standard, a subsidiary of United Aircraft; and Aeroproducts, a division of General Motors. Curtiss Electric preferred to directly produce its...

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