Wellington Bomber

[mike65]

Following Smithy's Cosford report and the Wellington bomber just came across this on the BBC website

Apparently they built one in a day.

Also on BBC 4 on Tuesday 14th at 20:00 and its role during the Battle of Britain

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11107561

 

 

Mike

[steveo578]

useful post , I must make an effort to view it.

 

I wonder how valid a competition to build a bomber was -different bombers would take different time and assume the bomber in the USA -california would be either a B17 or B24 although it could be a B25 or B26 which is about a similar sized aircraft- however it is difficult to weigh one aircraft type against another, I would imagine the Wellington with its geodesic structure would lend itself to a comparatively rapid build although British construction practices may not.

 

As an aside did they really think using a Canadian to do the commentry would be more sympathetically heard by a U.S audience?

[schliesser92]

These built in a day films were pure propaganda. They had everything laid out ready and available to accomplish this. The reality was different.

[mike65]

These built in a day films were pure propaganda. They had everything laid out ready and available to accomplish this. The reality was different.

 

Won't expect it to have been anything other than a propoganda exercise.

But it is still pretty impressive (even with all the parts set out and ready) to assemble and fly a bomber in the time they did it.

 

What would be interesting to know is could we do it again. Not a Wellington but say a Tornado or Eurofighter in the same time?

 

Mike

[schliesser92]

Won't expect it to have been anything other than a propoganda exercise.

But it is still pretty impressive (even with all the parts set out and ready) to assemble and fly a bomber in the time they did it.

 

What would be interesting to know is could we do it again. Not a Wellington but say a Tornado or Eurofighter in the same time?

 

Mike

 

With the technology incorporated today ? Extremely doubtful!

[ArtistsRifles]

With the technology incorporated today ? Extremely doubtful!

 

Oh - I don't know - modern aircraft are all modular construction so if anything it ought to be easier. Hard part will be routing the wiring harness and hydraulics...

[steveo578]

I would imagine doing the computer set up in a modern weapons system would take best part of a day- considering that it couldn't be done in paralel to the construction. but the point about a propergander exercise is very valid- many aircraft components particularly in the US were almost modular -allowing kits of parts to be shipped to other plants for final assembly.

 

Steve

[schliesser92]

I would imagine doing the computer set up in a modern weapons system would take best part of a day- considering that it couldn't be done in paralel to the construction. but the point about a propergander exercise is very valid- many aircraft components particularly in the US were almost modular -allowing kits of parts to be shipped to other plants for final assembly.

 

Steve

 

I think that the Yanks were building Liberty Ships at the rate of one a day before D-Day - again due to prefabrication and modular assembly.

[steveo578]

schliesser92

I think that the Yanks were building Liberty Ships at the rate of one a day before D-Day -

 

I thought it was 48hours but I could be wrong,

 

I saw the documentary,- reasonably interesting but I would have been happier to see more of the original movie, typical BBC style -group hug documentary which no doubt appeals to the majority of viewers.

[schliesser92]

I thought it was 48hours but I could be wrong,

 

I got that off a German documentary. They do a lot about the war (maybe because they lost it!). Knowing German efficiency from first hand, they probably did get it wrong. Even so, building ships (even glorified tramp steamers) in 24 or 48 hours was an achievement!

[steveo578]

Kaiser who developed the Liberty ship building programme and Keller of Chrysler were both of German immigrant stock additionally the architect Albert Kahn who designed many Army-Navy and Air bases was born in Germany and one business magnate in the US war effort was an ex WW1 U boat officer -it was great thing about America.

 

The record for Liberty ship building was actually 111.5 hours

Edited September 16, 2010 by steveo578
correction and addition

[Ivor Ramsden]

This has got me wondering what the actual time was to make a Wellington. If you look closely at the geodetic structure it consists of a vast number of components riveted together. Each individual component is made, inspected and AID stamped - often several times following different procedures and all this must have taken thousands of hours in total. Then the individual components are assembled on a jig and riveted, then inspected etc again. These assemblies are then combined and so it goes on.

 

Has anybody got any idea how long this would take?

[steveo578]

Ivor Ramsden

This has got me wondering what the actual time was to make a Wellington.

 

There must be a figure for the total man hours involved as the aircraft like anything else has a production cost -which wil include labour costs= time x rates of pay, unless it was recorded at the time the labour time/cost will have been lost in the fog of history.

 

I wondered about whether the 21.5 hour build time included sub assemblies - considering that even if the engines were assembled during the build of the airframe things like casting block and fleting components would have already been done elsewhere.

 

Propergander is a wonderful discipline:cool2:

[mike65]

From watching the programme one of those involved and alot of bits were preassembled ready for bolting in. As has been mentioned it was a big propaganda exercise.

Shortly after the factory was turned over to the profuction of prefabricated housing.

 

It would be interesting to know how long it took to actually build from scratch.

By all accounts normall production (finished roll off) was 28 aircraft a week.

I also never realised that the Wellington had the yhitd highest production run either.

All in all quite an interesting programme, although as someone has mentioned previously it would have been nice to see more of the original film.

 

Mike