Aircraft output
- Thread starter Merlöwe
- Start date
You can but you would really need to build component infrastructure up to do it. Carbon fiber etc are more labour intensive than pressing aluminium, and titanium is harder to work with. CF ovens aren't thick on the ground in most countries.
The electronic parts are easier to mass produce than the old analog parts.
Automation means you can make things faster and with higher quality. War time usually resulted in lower quality higher quantity.
Spitfires were peices of wood with a thin skin of metal with a lump of iron up front. To mass produce you just needed more people.
The electronic parts are easier to mass produce than the old analog parts.
Automation means you can make things faster and with higher quality. War time usually resulted in lower quality higher quantity.
Spitfires were peices of wood with a thin skin of metal with a lump of iron up front. To mass produce you just needed more people.
remember this, as an example car production back couple decades ago had a very slow production rate. though when you look at present their production rate is much much higher, and the car technology has risen and materials and technology are far greater. the production increase is related to development methods, construction methods, machinary aided. So as time passes on the more complex an aircraft gets, so do the construction methods and technology. So answering your question, if the time came to mass producing aircraft it is definatly possible, to approach the production ratings simular to Cold War. Though military budget will increase, production lines will be working around the clock, more people will need to be hired to keep the production lines going. Though you wont get the equivalant to low technology aircraft, that are extremely easy to manufacture, you can still mass produce the aircraft in substantial numbers.
Ananda
The Bunker Group
The matter is 'economics', are there needs and demand for large scale productions exists ? Capacity can be developed to match the increasing complexity of the productions. Current consumers goods actually are much more complex than what 60's, 70's or 80's consumers produces. A decades ago people will say providing LCD's or Plasma technologies for consumers TV set will be crazy..and much more reliable to just improving CRT's technologies. However at this moment CRT's being phased out..
If the needs arrise even stealth technology can be made more affordable..
In the quick ramp up to a large scale and prolonged conflict would it not be easier to up-grade mothballed fleets of retired aircraft? Outfit the old airframes with new electronics and weapons. Not a perfect solution but it would have to be a lot quicker then building thousands of new airframes. This would fit the “less quality more quantity” mentality. This prolonged conflict scenario would also certainly result in a large downturn in civilian air travel and would free up many civilian airframes for transport or specialty roles. I believe a large difference between WWII and now is there was almost zero pre-WWII civilian air industry and I don't believe there were many retired military aircraft sitting in the desert some where.
^^ Before you can field some mothballed returned-to-service jets, we all might see nuclear mushrooms rising all around the globe.
Any prolonged conflict leads to involvlement of more countries &or escalation to more deadlier systems in the inventory.
Economy of scale has some limitations: As long as you expand production the unit-cost will drop, but at a certain point the unit-cost will rise again, due higher prices for raw materials & labour shortage
(No! You can't send housewives & teenagers & old folks to build Raptors!)
Any prolonged conflict leads to involvlement of more countries &or escalation to more deadlier systems in the inventory.
Economy of scale has some limitations: As long as you expand production the unit-cost will drop, but at a certain point the unit-cost will rise again, due higher prices for raw materials & labour shortage
(No! You can't send housewives & teenagers & old folks to build Raptors!)
It's an industrial process. There's absolutely no reason not to.
PeterCrisp
Member
Would the UK be at an advantage due to the number of high tech sports car manufacturers? I imagine if we got really desperate we could put the F1 technical teams to work on manufacturing the the more complex parts of the Eurofighter.
your joking right? car experts to assemble fighter jets? but anyway nope completly different, with fighter jets you wanna create lift in the aircraft while F1 you wanna do the opposite and keep your vehicle on the ground. If it was that easy, the Chinese toy factory could be used to create tanks, armoured personal carriers, etc.. ;P Car technology is basically at its limits with little more technological evolution, while fighter jets are still in its infincy, with boundaries of flight still yet to be tested in theory and practical.
Aluminium alloy frames with a stressed aluminium alloy skin riveted to them (my grandfather spent the war making those rivets - and for other aircraft types, of course), held together by metal longitudinal stringers. A few bits of spruce in some low-stress areas, but I think that was only in very early models, like the fabric-covered ailerons.
Perhaps you're thinking of the Hurricane, which did have a lot of wood in it - but even that had a metal frame.
PeterCrisp
Member
I was thinking about the fact that the people are all highly qualified engineers who are used to working with Carbon Fibre, complex engines and systems.
Have you looked at the electronics in a car nowadays? Car technology is developing very quickly - you just don't see it.
I think you are also poorly informed about Formula 1. Composite structures, control systems, aerodynamics ... pretty relevant to aircraft. Some people switch between them.
Aston Martin...
And?
None...
Oh wait there are some ex TVR employees waiting for a job but It's not very handy is the wings or weapons would fall of in flight...
PeterCrisp
Member
What? The UK produces most of the F1 cars as well as all the cars for A1 GP and a lot of the Rally Championship cars as well. One thing the UK doesn't lack is know how where Motor sport is concerned.
On the sports car side I agree the UK lacks many large scale operations but what we do have is small companies such as Westfield, Morgan, Lotus, Caparo and Caterham to name but a few.
Not a bad list and more than enough expertise to help out in a time of war.
Sorry for going off topic so wildly it just gets right on my nerves when people try to do down the UK car industry yet again.
I agree any prolonged large scale conflict involving major powers would probally go nuclear before long. But for the sake of this discussion I was assuming it would not.
Lots of car, lorry, etc. factories in the UK (two big ones within cycling distance from here), & lots of automotive designing (do you think firms like Nissan & Toyota do all their design work in Japan?). But what he was discussing, & you are obviously unaware of, is the pool of engineering & design expertise in the motor racing industry. The F1 (and rally, & other motor racing) teams are actually engineering design & test firms, employing thousands of highly qualified & skilled people.