News Letter 1941 Jul-Dec - Air Force Historical Studies Office

would have been consumed in filling the original
order from Fairfield Depot.
Under the old setup, it would have been necessary
for the depot needing the engines to check
individually with other depots, or to have the'
~intenance Command at Wright Field make such a
check, whenever such a borrowing was required.
But now the central office can check its master
file and see at once where it can get the necessary
equipment, making it possible to service any
Army air field in the country, from any of its
depots, in emergency.
The new network is also available for communication
between any office at Wright Field and any of
the Air Corps fields and depots, and by relay permits
the various fields to communicate with each
other.
An Example
Suppose Selfridge Field wishes to communicate
with Hamilton Field, California. The message
leaves Selfridge Field and comes into Patterson
Field to be recorded on a relay tape. This is fed
into another send ing machine and relayed to Wr ight
Field. By similar process" the message is relayed
to the Sacramento, California, Air Depot, and
from that station to Hamilton Field. Since the
relay message is punched on the tape for each relay,
the three relays may be made without the operators
at Patterson, Wright or Sacramento fields
knowing what the message was.
Wright Field officials believe that the new
system's cost is more than compensated for, in the
savings resulting from the speeding up of the entire
supply and maintenance service. While no accurate
estimate can be made of the airplanes that
were grounded for lack of parts, the time wasted
as a result of shipping orders issued and subsequently
cancelled due to lack of stock at a particular
depot and the inaccurate procurement of
replenishment stocks as a result of inaccurate
knowledge of stock on hand under the former system,
it is apparent that all these were important
cost items in operating the maintenance and supply
service.
But the saving does not stop there. An actual
net savings is shown in the use of the new system,
over the former system, despite the cost of the
new machines and their operators, by eliminating
the use of billing machines and their operators
and the laborious hand filing processes of the
former setup.
•
Air Corps officers assigned to the Headquarters
Army Air Forces or The Air Force Coubat COlllllllnd are
still officially reKarded as Air Corps, and not Air
Forces, officers, according to a Headquarters Ar~
Air Forces interpretation of recent War Department
and Air Forces rulings and organizational changes.
30
The Army Air Forces, through the Air Force Coubat
COIIIII8ndand the Air Corps, will direct training,
both individual and organizational, and the operation
of all air units in the four air forces in
the'cont inental United States and in the terr itorial
and outlying posts of the growing air defense
system.
The training program required in connection with
the 84-Group program would make The Army Air
Forces one of the world's largest universities for
applied science, with a total of more than 100
flying and technical training schools in operation.
A nuuber of the 84 coubat groups to be created
as the goal of the new program will be assigned to
overseas departments. The greater part, however,
will be assigned to the Air Force Coubat Command.
Aviation components of the Hawaiian and Panama
Canal Departments will be organized into depart --
ment air forces under command of their respective
department commanders, to attain the unity of command
so essential for successful operations.
Completion of the 84-Group program, with necessary
airplanes, materiel, personnel, bases and
equipment, presents a problem worthy of the utmost
effort, efficiency and coordination.
C::AMERA••• (Continued 'ro. P.,e Z9)
instructor, who takes a few frames of pictures of
the pilot who is to use the film in his plane.
The daylight-loading magazine is then taken out of
the hand camera, and loaded into the GSAP camera
for use.
Processing Almost AutCllllltic
Early in the use of gun cameras, it was learned
that a principal advantage to the trainee was to
see the results of his training flight as quickly
as possible after it was made. So Wright Field
technicians and camera manufacturers have developed
a very near ly automat ic process ing technique,
which the armament mechanics without expert photographic
knowledge can use. Without divulginc the
details of the processing it may be said that it
develops the negative reversed as a positive, so
that it can be used in a projector immediately,
and that it comes out of the process spooled on a
reel ready to go into the projector in a very
short space of time. Thus the student is enabled
to see his pictures the same day he makes them.
Deliberately
Made Heavy
One gun camera developed at Wright Field in the
late 1920's was made of very heavy materials,
simulating as nearly as possible the weight as
well as the size of the gun it replaced. The
usual Air Corps search for liKhter metals was
abandoned, and parts were made of bronze and other
(Continued on P.,e 32)
NO PEMBER /91/