Plane Figures

U.S. military aircraft are now being turned out at the rate of better than 2,000 a month. So authoritative Aviation reported this week. Still about 10% behind schedule, the aircraft industry will catch up by year's end, by the middle of 1942 will be turning out military planes at the rate of 36,000 a year.

Summing up aircraft industry's prodigious wartime growth, Aviation calculated its manufacturing backlog at $8,343,000,000. Biggest was the yule log on Curtiss-Wright's hearth, only $5 million less than a billion. Second largest: Ford Motor Co. (engines, four-motored bombers) with $736 million. Third: Consolidated Aircraft, $725 million.

Target Planes

Off the assembly line of the Stearman aircraft factory at Wichita are now coming planes built only for the purpose of being destroyed. Radio-controlled, they are flown without pilots, to give antiaircraft gunners maneuverable targets.

CIVILIAN FRONT

S.S.V.'s

At Winona, Minn. 15 recently discharged draftees, released from the Army for dependency and for being more than 28 years old, organized the first post of the Selective Service Veterans of America.

Just a Minute!

The 505,170 New York City men deferred from the draft for dependency found that deferment did not mean that the Government was through with them. To 14,000 of them will go letters from the Office of Civilian Defense carrying a pointed request: Come in and sign up for service as air-raid wardens, fire wardens, etc.

Persuasive point in the request: "This is not being asked of you as a matter of patriotism but as your duty in return for the consideration [i.e., deferment] you have already received."

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