California Uber Alles

You forgot Timm aircraft at VNY, Vega at Burbank. Also Hughes.

While some of the US hydro projects predated FDR’s election – the law authorizing the funds to start work on Hoover dam was signed by President Calvin Coolidge on December 21, 1928 – just 2 1/2 months before Herbert Hoover was sworn in as President.

So naturally the dam was named after HH.

Bubbles speaks out

[QUOTE=J Boyle;2186989]
and is possibly a complete idiot without a firm grasp of the aviation history[QUOTE]

I admit loosing a few neural connections listening to the Dead Kennedys and I do not know a lot but I do enjoy learning. I don’t mind asking silly questions and I probably will ask a lot more. I also don’t mind a good passionate argument so if we are fired up that’s better than being cold and bored.

I have travelled the roads from Washington State down to California. Subject to the San Andreas Fault sinking the whole show into the Pacific it is probably one of the most wonderful road trips you could do, and I would heartily recommend it. I do know where Boeing is and I have read their most excellent 1966 biopic Vision by Harold Mansfield. I have also eaten nuts on a Boeing aeroplane, which I probably have in common with Bubbles, the late Michael Jackson’s chimp.

I am in Australia which most Americans lump with Austria, so probably lumping the North West USA with Southern California was a subliminal geographic act of revenge, but again, any second, with that ol’ San Andreas Fault, I might end up being right after all. For the sake of the discussion, it is west coast USA.

I am interested in aloominum and the history of Alcan and Alcoa, and the connection between the hydro schemes of the 30’s and the helix in the development of the aluminium industry and the stressed skin aircraft industry. None of this happened without massive government assistance, and a lot of it was Roosevelt New Deal. I do not know much at all about the government of California in the 1930’s, but there is something in the DNA of that place that puts it on the forefront of innovation and industries that changed the world.

The way I figure it the nascent, struggling aircraft companies of the 1930’s looked at pin jointed biplanes, played with the welded steel tube designs of Fokker but then emphatically chose to develop monoplane, monocoque, stressed skin aluminium structures pushed by French and Polish innovators and run with that, and started something that still the dominates global aircraft, otherwise I would be eating nuts on a Handley Page Dreamliner. Massive unemployment and the Roosevelt New Deal pumped Federal money into job creation schemes, and it all seemed to come together with aluminium in the American West.

I think the first scale aluminium sheet rolling mill was on the Missisippi, so water transport of alumina and finsihed products seems to be a common theme. I am not sure where American bauxite came from in the 1930’s, probably from some South American country with a heavy Marine presence.

I do like the USA a lot, for its encouragement.

Yes, Hoover dam supplied electricity, but it is not in the Pacific Northwest…

My point was with this quote offered by the original poster.

The Pacific Northwest became the center of aircraft production during World War II…

Emphasis added.

The quote (see above) says aircraft production was based in the Pacific Northwest…but as I pointed out, Boeing in the Puget Sound area is the only aircraft producer in that part of the country.
And its location was established long before the dams…thus disproving the thesis that power and aluminum plants were the cornerstone of the region’s aircraft production.

However, the power from Grand Coulee did enable the construction of aluminum plants in this region. One (closed for the last 20 years) is about 5 miles from my home. The electricity generated was also a factor in building the Hanford Nuclear Complex in the Central Washington Desert. That facility processed the plutonium for the early atomic weapons.
Any yes, with the completion of the major Northwest dam in 1942, I was off my dam date by a couple of years. 🙂

That’s true, there were huge aluminum plants that were made possible by the electricity generated by the Grand Coulee dam…

But whoever wrote (or believes) that is missing one huge point….and is possibly a complete idiot without a firm grasp of the aviation history
The only major aircraft maker in the northwest is Boeing. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. 🙂
And it started in 1916…long before the dams were built…and long before aircraft were made of aluminum.

March 1, 1936, Hoover Dam is opened – just east of Las Vegas, Nevada. By September 1939 the dam’s power plant became the largest hydroelectricity facility in the world. Note that when Grand Coulee opened in 1942 only half of its generators could run year-round – it was not until decades later that it was expanded to the current size (similarly, Hoover Dam’s generation capacity was regularly increased until 1961, then in 1986-93 it was again increased – by 55%).

Hoover Dam’s powerhouse was run under the original authorization by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and Southern California Edison, and most of that power was fed to Southern California during WW2.

The Pacific Northwest became the center of aircraft production during World War II because alumina could be easily transported there by boat, and because the vast amounts of electricity needed to refine the ore to aluminum were readily available from the massive hydroelectric projects built during the 1930’s. Once established, the aircraft industry has remained centered there to this day.

That’s true, there were huge aluminum plants that were made possible by the electricity generated by the Grand Coulee dam…

But whoever wrote (or believes) that is missing one huge point….and is possibly a complete idiot without a firm grasp of the aviation history
The only major aircraft maker in the northwest is Boeing. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. 🙂
And it started in 1916…long before the dams were built…and long before aircraft were made of aluminum.

As far as cheap labor….in the 30s, all labor was cheap. The idea that Texas or other southern sates would have had vastly cheaper labor in the 30s is nonsense. It was true post war, but not in the 30s.
The fact is most aircraft firms were built where their founders lived or where there were financial backers.

Aviation started in California for the same reason the movie industry did…weather.
Rueben Fleet moved there from cold, snowy Buffalo, NY in the early 30s because their main product was flying boats…and water freezes in Buffalo. Besides, the US Navy, had a large base in San Diego.
The Loughead Brothers were born there.
Donald Douglas moved to California in 1920, he wasn’t thrilled with living in Cleveland while working for Martin. In LA, he found wealthy backers to help get his company off the ground.

To further deflate the theory….Larry bell bought the old Buffalo Consolidated plant for his new firm. With contracts scarce, would he have founded his firm there if labor rates were appreciably higher than elsewhere?
And don’t forget guys like Lloyd Stearman who moved back to Wichita from California.
And plenty of firms….like Curtiss, Grummanm, Vought/Sikorsky…plus Pratt & Whitney, Hamiliton Standard, Wright and other engine /prop makers… not to mention the war plants built by the auto industry (Willow Run, MI) remained in “high labor ” states.

The US government built the B-29 plant in Georgia during the war, it is still in use by Lockheed. It was built there in part because of labor, not CHEAP labor, just labor….and a desire not to have all the aircraft factories built in California. It’s difficult to say whether fear of Japanese bombing was still in people’s minds, but I’m sure it may have played a small part.
Likewise the Consolidated B-24/B-36 plant in Ft. Worth.

Love the Dead Kennedys reference! I thought this thread was going to be wayyyy off topic!

Yes it all started with a little innocent hard liqour, cigarettes, damaged eardrums and soon went down a slippery demon slope to standing next to Merlins at full roar and sniffing jet fumes..

Love the Dead Kennedys reference! I thought this thread was going to be wayyyy off topic!

I’ll take it there, seeing as the question has been answered. Just a pity they sang about the wrong neighbour of Thailand or we could bring a Spitfire quest into the mix!

Not neccessarily completely true. Due to an accident of history (basically, the folks who came together to form Travel Air, then split off to form their own companies) the GA manufacturers congregated in the Wichita area in the late-20s and have remained there ever since. Boeing have remained in the PNW, LA has become too costly, the remaining major plants are spread around in various locations, mainly also for historical reasons (Fort Worth and Connecticut) or investment for political reasons (Charleston)

Love the Dead Kennedys reference! I thought this thread was going to be wayyyy off topic!

However, in reading 1939 literature, it astounds me just how much of the US aviation effort was already in California prior to US entry in WW2. Douglas, Lockheed, North American, Northrop, Vultee, Consolidated.

Surely if it was just about space and cheap labour somewhere in Texas might have been better to gestate the US aviation effort. California was so far from the established East coast industrial base, it would have made more sense to build large aircraft plants on the east coast, perhaps somewhere like Georgia, lots of peanut farms to turn into industrial complexes, no winter snow, same time zone as New York, lots of cheap southern labour and railways to get management back to Grand Central station for cocktails.
Was there some incentive given by the state of California to encourage newly fledgling aircraft concerns to set up shop in the 1930’s ?

I have just read a 1942 publication on the setting up of aluminium rolling mills for aircraft sheetmetal which explains the following, that :
The Pacific Northwest became the center of aircraft production during World War II because alumina could be easily transported there by boat, and because the vast amounts of electricity needed to refine the ore to aluminum were readily available from the massive hydroelectric projects built during the 1930’s. Once established, the aircraft industry has remained centered there to this day.

So no doubt port infrastructure, cheap electricity, cheap labour (all those Okies travelling to California in the Grapes of Wrath),cheap land, proximity to the Pacific theatre, designs based on stressed skin aluminium structures combined with Federal government and Lend Lease orders stimulated the industry into rapid being.

Now that Boeings are being made with carbon fibre materials it is probably only the sunk costs of existing infrastructure, intellectual property within the existing workforce and cultural yoghurt of California and simple momentum that keeps the industry there. With the next paradigm being space tourism then I guess proximity to desert test ranges is a factor.

An interesting place to be.

Re 5

The biggest bit as well as the bit not occupied by Douglas, Lockheed, North American, Northrop, Vultee and Consolidated.

………the only other a/c of any real note was the Corsair which, in the Pacific, distinguished itself in no uncertain fashion. Bell and Grumman produced unremarkable but useful aircraft.

So, by comparison with the American industry in California………

And which part of California did they come from????? :confused:

With all that workplace luxury in their favour, you could be excused for thinking that they should have taken out the first patent for a workable jet turbine. They should have produced aircraft equivalent to the Spitfire, Mosquito and Lancaster within the same time frame. Then continued under such favourable conditions, to manufacture an early cruise missile (V1) followed by the first rocket missile (V2).

In fact, apart from the Mustang which itself was a fifty fifty British/American effort the only other a/c of any real note was the Corsair which, in the Pacific, distinguished itself in no uncertain fashion. Bell and Grumman produced unremarkable but useful aircraft.

So, by comparison with the American industry in California, British aircraft, designed and manufactured in the equivalent of your garden shed and supplying not only its own war effort, but also that of the Commonwealth countries and America and Russia, performed quite well, in an understated and modest way.

I have just finished Steve Job’s bio and I am glad I did not work under him. Brilliant designer with pathological tendencies. Bit like the forum !

Mr Job’s Silicon Valley grew from the engineers who operated the WW2 military industrial complex in California. I understand why great aircraft plants were built in California from 1941 in respect of servicing the Pacific war effort. However, in reading 1939 literature, it astounds me just how much of the US aviation effort was already in California prior to US entry in WW2. Douglas, Lockheed, North American, Northrop, Vultee, Consolidated.

Surely if it was just about space and cheap labour somewhere in Texas might have been better to gestate the US aviation effort. California was so far from the established East coast industrial base, it would have made more sense to build large aircraft plants on the east coast, perhaps somewhere like Georgia, lots of peanut farms to turn into industrial complexes, no winter snow, same time zone as New York, lots of cheap southern labour and railways to get management back to Grand Central station for cocktails.

Was there some incentive given by the state of California to encourage newly fledgling aircraft concerns to set up shop in the 1930’s ? It seems there is a theme to state based encouragement of fledgling industries in California that has give us everything from Boeings to Iphones. It makes me think how gormless and short sighted most of the government I live in is. Please tell me I am wrong and nothing is encouraged in California and a state of institutional apathy towards new industry is the healthy norm for government the world over.

California at the time was a very alluring place, not just cheap land. It was a place of dreams, with hollywood glamour, miles of citrus orchards, great weather and just a great place to live and work. In that regard, a much more desireable place than Texas or Georgia. Industrial centers were brand new and not tied to old union rules and the already built out rust belt cities. You had space to grow and expand. Aircraft designers could build thier own airstrip and factory. I think all of these factors made California a very attractive place for aircraft innovation. Who wouldn’t want to live there?

For ‘California’ you should really substitute ‘LA’. California is a big place, nearly twice the size of the UK (albeit with only about half the population), and almost all the current and former aircraft plants are in a relatively small area around LA. Even today, with many of the plants closed, there are still manufacturers such as Robinson based in the area, as well as Plant 42 at Palmdale and the Boeing plant at Long Beach.