European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 03, 1948, Darmstadt, Hesse -"5 this three so Ater aircraft is one of Many Light serviceable planes which cannot find buyers Are glutting the Market one of our aircraft companies is missing. " i ". By Bei Ilbak Dilkian air plane manufacturers who banked on postwar Boom in the Light plane Market. Have had their Hopes grounded by an apathetic Public and High production costs to the rapidly mounting stockpile of glories of the atomic age that Tiave faded before their time there can now be added that fond dream of account executives the family air plane. Whether it is to be superseded As Means of whisking the american family Oil the Earth s surface or whether i merely awaits a happier Day has not been established. But one thing is Clear in its third year after the War fhe per Sonal plane like the folding chair. Instill regarded As an infernal machine. This comes As a distinct Shock to thence Happy men who make one two three and four place flying there is Little Consolation from the air minded millions who were expected to cast off the earthly chains of their Chevrolet and Fly into the wild Blue yonder for an afternoon with auntie in Dannemora. For regardless of what their fellow citizens might have been doing in 1947, the country s dispirited Birdman in Large number s have Keitth in. Feet on the ground. Translated into terms of hard Cash the country s most promising neophyte Industry barely got off the , As the Industry refers to the Aerial version of the two door Sedan were produced Only haltingly. Deliveries last year dropped to less than one half the 1946 figure fifteen thousand As com " pared with thirty four thousand. An while the financial pages of american papers fairly glow with profits for manufacturers in general the private plane makers with two exceptions Havethe distinction of uniformly entering 1948 in the red. Of the two exceptions one Hiinson aircraft a division of consolidated Vultee showed a profit and the other Culver quietly folded i swings and overestimated the Public s appetite for private planes one manufacturer said euphemistically. Even the official totals Dis although they Are scarcely show he real extent of this overestimation. Though Culver was the Only Large company to liquidate completely there were significant disappearances. Republic for example had a Small amphibian known As the Seabee. A plane with As Brighta future at War s end As possibly any other single new planer today Republic no longer makes Seabee and has offered the Dies to anyone who wants to buy them. This is a. Case in which the com Pany Jias not failed it makes Jet fighters for the Aap but where a personal plane has. The Johnson rocket once billed As a hot twentieth Century flying machine is off the Market. Other companies folded but sold their Dies. The Globe Swift a postwar plane is now the Temco Swift. The North american Avion is now the Ryan nation. Perhaps the most significant develop ment however is the experience of the Piper aircraft corporation. Before the War its Piper cub was so popular that for the average Layman any Small plane in the sky was a cub. At the time of this writing the Piper Plant at lock Haven Pennsylvania has been close Down for four months. We just Aren t Selling any air planes an official of the company said. According to the manufacturers the potential Light plane Boom has been deferred by rising costs and Scarcity of material. Considering theorising Cost of automobiles and the re ported Scarcity. Of their makings an comparing the record of car deliveries with plane deliveries this explanation seems Overly simple. But whatever the reason there is Little Consolation for those who were charmed by the War time ads in which the plan maker promised their new household necessity. In 1943 the advertisements for private planes would have tempted Ahenry Ford to abandon the automobile. A typical display showed an impeccable gent in White tie and tails his hand stretched in an effete gesture toward the controls of a cozy air Lasne. Beside him was a magnificent Blond precariously enveloped in Green Satin she fingered a Long cig Aret Holder an peered Aloo Fly at the sparkling night lights below. They Are flying to Sanfrancisco for the opera it said of the postwar a Ljusic lovers. As the War progressed a few admin were haunted by the fear that they might have understated the prospects of private flying. After All they told each other three million men and women flew or helped Fly american planes another couple of million Nvart the planes in factories. Everyone watched the flying machine during the War. Be sides planes were being made for the first time by mass pro Luction techniques. People the admin discovered at conferences Are air minded. Magazines became swollen with air age ads. Sleek aluminium Birds hundreds of them in a smoothly curving formation receded to a pin Point at the Back of the Page. Which one is yours it demanded. The resulting advertising boomerangs probably the most vigorous Man Euver in postwar aviation. As the War Drew to a dose at least two manufacturers saw the Lush promotion turning in midair and ducked. Culver and Waco bought space in newspapers and magazines to ridicule the idea of an instantaneous Fleet of family air planes. But it was too late. From last year s maelstrom of mergers coalitions transfers and failures there emerged Nineteen major manufacturers of personal planes. About half have announced air planes designed during by after the War. And of these Only half Are in production. Continued on. Next Page 5
