Mosquito construction film

[bozon]

Boats already had established manufacturers.  Small furniture makers in the midlands weren't going to be contributing to those efforts. 

Really? the air ministry did not need furniture? what were they sitting on? weren't more desks desperately required to be manned by conscripted bureaucrats? There were some brave souls there holding Jerry off with nothing but a filing cabinet.

[morfiend]

No worries.

For what it's worth, AVIA 46/116 says the Mossie required 30,000 man-hours to build, the Lancaster 84,000. (The document was put together in September '43, no doubt both aircraft required fewer hours by war's end).

Not sure how one relates man-hours to aircraft size, or volume, or weight, or indeed expected tons of bombs delivered before the aircraft was lost. There must be some kind of standard calculation.

Edit, had a quick look at the empty weights of the Mossie XVI and the Lanc I on wiki  - empty weight on the Lanc was 36.5k, on the Mossie 14.3k (again, it's wiki, your Lanc may vary). So, it took 2.8 times as many hours to build an aircraft which was 2.6 times heavier.

I suppose it was all labour-intensive back then.

  I wouldn't say it's a fair comparison! Two totally different constructed A/C so comparing weights and saying Xplane took less time or Yplane required more time isn't exactly fair.

  The mossie was almost totally wooden,where as the lanc was metal frame and cloth covered for the most part.  However it is interesting to know how many manhours went into each airframe,often overlooked in the grand scheme.

  You cant pick 2 plane that mean more to me than the mossie and the lanc. as I said before I had an uncle who worked for DH and I grew up listening to stories from I guy who flew Lancs and 25s.


   

[Karnak]

I recall reading that Curtis looked into producing Mosquitoes on license, but decided to keep producing P-40s.  I think the Mossies would have been more useful.

[Scherf]

  I wouldn't say it's a fair comparison! Two totally different constructed A/C so comparing weights and saying Xplane took less time or Yplane required more time isn't exactly fair.

  The mossie was almost totally wooden,where as the lanc was metal frame and cloth covered for the most part.  However it is interesting to know how many manhours went into each airframe,often overlooked in the grand scheme.

  You cant pick 2 plane that mean more to me than the mossie and the lanc. as I said before I had an uncle who worked for DH and I grew up listening to stories from I guy who flew Lancs and 25s.


   

Point taken - I imagine man-hours required changed with experience, etc etc.

[save]

No worries.

For what it's worth, AVIA 46/116 says the Mossie required 30,000 man-hours to build, the Lancaster 84,000. (The document was put together in September '43, no doubt both aircraft required fewer hours by war's end).

Not sure how one relates man-hours to aircraft size, or volume, or weight, or indeed expected tons of bombs delivered before the aircraft was lost. There must be some kind of standard calculation.

Edit, had a quick look at the empty weights of the Mossie XVI and the Lanc I on wiki  - empty weight on the Lanc was 36.5k, on the Mossie 14.3k (again, it's wiki, your Lanc may vary). So, it took 2.8 times as many hours to build an aircraft which was 2.6 times heavier.

I suppose it was all labour-intensive back then.

Compare that with German man-hours
I guess figures can not be compared, it depends how you calculate them, still impressive though.
 
Bf-109G (1943)
4,000 Man Hours
   
Bf-109G (1944)
2,000 Man Hours

How many man-hours did Germany need to build a comparable size Ju-88 or me-410 for example ?

[Karnak]

Keep in mind that the Bf109 was unusually efficient for production though.  I wouldn't assume a direct correlation between the hours it took to build a Bf109 and the hours it took to build an Me410 or an He177 compared to the Mossie and Lanc.

[save]

Anyone knows how many hours it took to build a contemporary spitfire IX ?

[Scherf]

This one says 13k hours for a Spit vs 4k hours for the 109

http://blogs.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/2012/05/building-spitfires-slowly/

But like I say, this is a thing for Management Accountants. ("Get thee behind me, Satan.    )

"You want a number? We got whole big boxes of numbers here. Which one you want?"

[GScholz]

The 109 was very producible, and when you factor in slave labor it is more understandable how they managed to make so many of them. Many have the mistaken belief that if the P-51 was the Cadillac of the skies, the 109 was the Porsche. In reality it was the Volkswagen.

[MiloMorai]

Are these man/hours just for the airframe construction or do they include the man/hours for the engine, weapons, instrumentation, etc?

[GScholz]

In 1944, the man-hour cost for the 109G: 50 units/month = 460,000 hours (9200 hours/unit ). 200 units/month = 1,300,000 hours (6500 hours/unit). 500 units/month = 1,900,000 hours (3800 hours/unit). These numbers are for complete aircraft including engines and armament. I've seen a German report that also broke down the numbers into various subassembly groups, but I can't find it now.

[nrshida]

Many have the mistaken belief that if the P-51 was the Cadillac of the skies, the 109 was the Porsche. In reality it was the Volkswagen.

I like this analogy. Very true! Old Willy was indeed a holistic designer.

[Karnak]

This one says 13k hours for a Spit vs 4k hours for the 109

The Spitfire was the polar opposite of the Bf109 when it came to ease of production.  So much so that the UK considered canceling the Spitfire in 1941.

The fact that they ended up building more than 22000 Seafire/Spitfires despite the production difficulty is pretty astounding.  Highest production for a fighter outside of Germany or the USSR.

Other production tidbits:  The N1K2-J was a major redesign that reduced the number of parts in the aircraft by approximately 50% as compared to the N1K1-J in order to ease production.  The Ki-84 required significantly fewer hours to build than did the Ki-43 because Nakajima took manufacturing it into consideration while designing it and the Ki-84 ended up having the highest one year production numbers for an aircraft built in Japan.

[Scherf]

Are these man/hours just for the airframe construction or do they include the man/hours for the engine, weapons, instrumentation, etc?

I *believe* (no more than that) the hours quoted represent the time required at the aircraft factory to deliver to the forces a functioning aircraft suitable for deployment. So, I don't believe the time represents the time needed for sub-contractors or for large pieces of kit such as engine and armament.

[GScholz]

I like this analogy. Very true! Old Willy was indeed a holistic designer.

VW-109



This is in all likelihood the most German thing I've ever seen!