FORTRESS OF THE SKY

[Music] come on mac here we go again okay [Music] hiya gal [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] say that's really good news isn't it yeah those fortresses sure can dish it out and bring the boys home safe too when news of a successful raid by the flying fortresses comes in these are the people who get the biggest thrill the thousands of boeing workers who build them they are the makers of flight with rivets and rivet guns with hard biting routers with their own two hands [Music] in huge boeing plants out of tough metal they forge america's fighting bomber [Music] the army air forces take over and from the field she takes off to join the fighting forces [Music] the flying fortress where did it all start how did america have this plane ready when war came well in the lean years of the early 30s boeing designers thinking of tomorrow's airplane talk of a huge military plane tough fast and rangy it'd be hard to build they say a lot of problems to lick think of the mechanical problems how big the landing gear must be to carry those tons and tons of weight [Music] she'd need four mighty motors to give her extra power extra speed and extra punch [Music] and the controls wouldn't the pilot get dizzy trying to handle them all [Music] it looked as if the plane would always remain a dream [Music] but in 1934 when the army air corps asked for new bomber designs the boeing men went to work in earnest they figure her size and weight anew she'll cost a lot to build and there's a depression on shall they tackle a brand new field cut loose from the past shall they build tomorrow's plane today the decision is made these are the men to do it for 18 years from 1916 to 1934 they had been pioneering constantly improving aircraft design [Music] they built america's first low wing monoplane transport the famous monomail [Music] the united states army's first all metal two engine bomber the b9 [Music] and the first modern type commercial transport the 247 [Music] here was the plane of tomorrow the fortress that is to come and the plane of the future has to be translated to the details of the big plane itself this wing truss design must be light yet strong enough to carry the load of four huge motors and the plane itself and every thought the pilot has must be made to flow along a network of controls but the job was done and in july 1935 she took off boeing 299 you are clear to take off you are cleared to the control boundary she flew non-stop to dayton for her army tests breaking all speed records designed to be the guardian of a hemisphere she had a greater cruising range than any bomber ever built this 1934 plane forecast today's great fortresses of the sky which carry ever larger loads of bombs and bristle with guns the army orders 13 plans to give them a service test the engineers who went all out for a plane of the future win their point but problems of aircraft design and manufacture are no sooner solved than others appear or without continuous research today's super plane can be as outmoded as this jalopy the engineers work constantly to step up speed altitude stability make the great fortress function like a precision instrument [Music] then make a scale model of the big plane and mount it in the throat of a wind tunnel there in a man-made gale they duplicate real flight conditions [Music] and in the balance room of the tunnel you can read the story of the flight to study performance of a new wing the engineers will watch these tufts of yarn as they react to the airflow [Music] the wind roars through the tunnel [Music] and as the model simulates a stall the even flow of air breaks into whirling eddies [Music] through research such as this they continually build up new data on airplane performance and design improve revise redesign your fortress flies faster but anti-aircraft guns are reaching higher now how are you going to get above their deadly range above 18 000 feet the air becomes too thin to breathe without a normal supply of oxygen the human system doesn't function efficiently and twenty five thousand feet even the engines gasp for breath [Music] at 35 000 feet the mercury drops to 60 below oil freezes and lubricated controls won't work freely well that's the stratosphere and to beat it boeing engineers bring the stratosphere down to earth and duplicate conditions existing more than eight miles up into the strata chamber they go to test the performance of equipment at high altitude [Music] they read the story of the test on a battery of pressure gauges [Music] and for a test in the cold room huge refrigeration machines chill the air down to 75 below and lower these equipment engineers dressed for the stratosphere even though they'll never leave the ground are going to test a valve to see whether it will work in such intense cold [Music] no it won't work not in the sub-zero temperature of the stratosphere well better to have a trees now than when the plane is in the air but it means figuring and testing and tinkering until they find controls that will always work it's 70 below in there and what wouldn't they give for a hot cup of coffee okay coming up oh it's too late [Music] coffee popsicle style but flat research isn't all done on the ground boeing flight test engineers have spent more time about 35 000 feet than any other group of engineers in the world [Music] they scrape the stratosphere getting the answers that make the flying fortress a better combat plane [Music] so day by day the big bombers mature lifting bigger loads flying faster and further higher higher into the blue but the search for perfection is never ending in the sound laboratory acoustical engineers study sound producing vibration from high-pitched twines to deafening clatters [Music] and with this knowledge they go to work on the plane itself quelling engine noise cutting out other causes of sound and then in the factory what can't be killed is muffled until the roar of the engines is hushed to a purr the big bomber is as quiet as the average streamlined train and what did these six years of pre-war research mean to a world that was still at peace well out of research such as this commercial as well as military comes the big boeing clipper the ship that established trans-oceanic plane service on a commercially practical basis and the boeing straddle liner the world's first high altitude completely pressurized commercial airplane [Music] but for years the flying fortresses are a subject for controversy they're expensive for a peacetime budget and they have never been tested in combat but with faith in their own design in their vision of the future boeing kept on testing experimenting improving [Music] [Music] america is attacked so the united states is at war what mighty weapon have we got what war birds have we hatched the army's flying fortresses are ready they take to the air laden with steel for enemy targets speed altitude precision gunfire are all at their command striking in broad daylight they become the plane best able to get to the target hit the target and get back again now with our country at war a new problem comes up america needs hundreds thousands of fortresses can it be done [Music] boeing production engineers are ready for that too their unique multiple line assembly system rolled into action at a faster tempo by breaking down the ship into these seven major sub-assemblies and completing each on a separate line they were making better use of available floor space [Music] prefabrication on a massive scale complete the parts of separate units then bring them together the system turned out more production per square foot than any other aircraft factory here in giant forms as big as a house inboard sections of the wings are built then after the engines have been mounted and controls installed the wings join the fuselage but fast as they roll out our war machine calls for more more parts more planes so boeing tooling engineers look for new ways to make more parts faster for instance here are some of the ribs of a flying fortress the old way of making these parts was too slow so they invent an octopus monster to bite into metal turn out those ribs 45 times faster [Music] and they develop an automatic spot welding table that a woman can run now this former housewife stitches the metal hide for the toughest bomber in the world [Music] but skeleton and skin are not enough to complete these giant fighting bombers nerves are needed nerves to call for more speed and power to tell the guns to bark and the bombs to fall and send back the message mission accomplished that means electric wires five miles or more for every fortress once thousands of wires were hauled individually through conduits too slow they say though blowing men speeded it up with a new system whole sections of the nervous systems are bundled together outside the plane then they're installed quickly as a unit [Music] all through the plant the temple quickens faster machines are made more efficient tools america and the whole world needs those planes [Music] [Music] the call for better faster production methods goes out and in the shops the men and women who are giving their time and their muscle they give their ideas too they're gathered from suggestion boxes all over the huge plant they pour them in [Music] one man develops a new grommet punch and thanks to him boeing fortresses are built faster and somebody thought of a way to number parts of their cut this little gadget saves untold hours and in growing numbers women are taking over in the plants replacing men who have gone off to war these women used to drive the family car now they're driving hitler crazy and obeying all the rules of safety too this inspector checks hard to see rivets inside the huge wing the eternal feminine here they are americans at work housewives and farmers mechanics and teachers all races and all creeds young and old alike each contributes to the building of the bomber that has been called the backbone of the american air offensive [Music] they're sending out a steady flow of fortresses [Music] foreign uh [Music] so [Music] to england australia india africa alaska they go making it possible to hit the enemy by day as well as by night in ever increasing numbers striking at the heart of the target the bombay doors open [Music] bombs away [Music] while the mighty fortresses of the sky strike the enemy again and again boeing's engineering staff one of the largest ever assembled by a single industrial concern is building still better weapons for war [Music] secret weapons and what of peace out of boeing research in hydraulics and structures aerodynamics and acoustics refrigeration metallurgy may come new methods for making new things for the years to come but today first and most important boeing bills for victory [Applause] you