Geoffrey Sinclair
2016-07-31 14:27:44 UTC
This covers 1935 to 1949.
So we start with what is an aircraft. Most statistics do not
count gliders and balloons/dirigibles. Then comes autogiros,
the British count them, the US does in the military but not
civil figures Next the remote controlled targets, the British
Queen, the USAAF PQ and the USN TD series and what
to do given they had a cockpit to enable things like ferry
flights, are they drones or aircraft? The British say aircraft,
all 465 of them 1935 to 1946, the US says maybe, some
figures include them, others do not, to the tune of nearly
3,000 units 1941 to 1946.
By the way the British called their initial remote controlled
aircraft the Queen Bee, hence the USN deciding to go with
the name Drone.
Then comes the many military experimental types, mostly
prototypes, the British exclude them, around 400 aircraft
1935 to 1949, the US usually counts them. In addition the
British often did not count production aircraft diverted to
development work.
Next is when is an aircraft counted as produced and what
to do if it crashed before the official definition of produced
was met, for example on a flight test. The US normally
counts them, of production aircraft only 1 B-25B, 1 PT-23,
1 PB4Y-2 and 1 AD-2 flew but were not counted, along with
21 military aircraft prototypes, for the British the aircraft may
or may not be counted, the decision could take years and
could be reversed.
Aircraft destroyed before flight are not counted, a number of
British factories were attacked (including no less than 3
attacks on the factories making the Supermarine Walrus,
the Luftwaffe clearly knew what posed the biggest threat,
the first time the factory was also making a minor type called
the Spitfire, the other two times were due to the factory being
on the Isle of Wight).
Prototypes and other experimental aircraft could have been
flying for months before they were officially counted as produced.
Having said no flight no count we naturally come to the exception,
during WWII Canada produced airframes, not engines and some
of the airframes were simply shipped to Britain to be flight tested
there, of which a number did not arrive. They are counted. Also
a number of British aircraft were marked as "slaved to purgatory
storage" without engines, though it seems they were test flown
then the engines removed. Sabre engine production could not
keep up with Typhoon and Tempest airframe production, similar
for Vulture engines and Manchester airframes at least.
Now for the by country figures, the US counts aircraft it paid for
but built in Canadian factories as US production, the Canadians
think they should be counted as Canadian. It comes to 5,260 out
of 13,797 aircraft built in Canada from December 1941 to
September 1945.
Canada and Australia followed the British counting system.
I have no figures for British civil aircraft production pre WWII, it
is clear such production continued into 1940 and resumed in
1945.
The British official military aircraft production figures for the
1935 to 1939 period are a reconstruction largely based on
the RAF Contract Cards system of tracking new aircraft orders,
which means export orders are only partially accounted for in
1935 and 1936. After that the need for more timely information
and that most such orders were treated as diversions from RAF
orders meant they were usually included. However in numeric
terms the foreign military orders for Tiger Moth and Avro 626,
which are not included even in 1940, far outweigh the other
missing export production. Some 89 Tiger Moths 1935 to 1938
and 157 in 1939 and 1940, the latter includes some civil orders
built in 1940. Avro reports some 32 model 621 Tutor in 1935
and 1936 and 126 model 626 from 1935 to 1940 built for the
military export market.
Being a reconstruction the report is vulnerable to an omission,
in this case most of February and March 1936 production,
amounting to nearly 170 RAF order aircraft, also orders for
30 Tiger Moths in 1937 and 27 Magisters in 1937/38 placed
outside the regular contract system are missing. These three
omissions account for over half of the nearly 400 production
aircraft omitted from the official totals 1935 to 1945. Another
omission from the published figures is around 60 built for export
in 1939, about a third of such production in 1939, they are in the
unpublished reports.
So the British military aircraft production, including "Queens" looks
like this, versus the published totals,
1935 916, versus 893
1936 2,004, versus 1,830
1937 2,280, versus 2,218
1938 2,840, versus 2,828
1939, 8,009, versus 7,940
1940 15,088, versus 15,049
1941 20,105, versus 20,094
1942 23,679, versus 23,672
1943 26,273, versus 26,263
1944 26,476, versus 26,461
1945 13,536
1946 2,151
1947 1,132
1948 1,459
1949 1,825
The total for the first nine months of 1945 is 12,083 versus the official
total of 12,070
Missing from the above are around 246 Tiger Moth and 158 Avro
trainers plus some small export orders pre WWII, plus around 400
prototype and experimental types.
Civil production according to the Ministry of Supply, which may include
some non combat aircraft for foreign air forces,
1945 74
1946 476
1947 562
1948 267
1949 103
In contrast to the British the US has a large number of published
contemporary reports, usually in yearbook format, mainly by the
Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce of America and the Civil
Aeronautics Administration. Except the figures are revised from
year to year including presentation, and some include the targets
and others do not. Published civil production data is deliberately
presented to make identification of individual aircraft types and
makers impossible.
Pre war the US considered a new aircraft produced when it was
1) accepted by the US military or 2) when it was registered as a
civil aircraft in the US or 3) when it was exported, so if you can
find the first registration dates you should be able to reconstruct
the civil production figures. So for reports published up to 1945
the figures are presented under these three categories. Later
presentations use two categories, either 1) US military then others
or 2) Military then Civil. Ignoring the targets the various sets of
figures closely agree on the yearly grand totals.
For 1935 yearly totals are 1,748 (1945 CAA report), 1,710
(1948 CAA report), 1,720 (1959 Aviation facts and figures),
for 1936 the totals are 3,022, 3,010 and 3,010, in 1937 the
totals are 3,778, 3,773 and 3,773, in 1938 all references
agree on 3,623 and in 1939 again agreement, 5,856 total
aircraft production. The different references diverge again
from 1940 onwards.
One issue is the US Coast Guard new aircraft production,
some 90 from 1935 to 1949 of which 40 are reported as
USN production, the rest are currently assumed to be in the
civil production figures.
they were all for the US military, that is they are counted when
accepted, not when exported, which leaves an issue of export
orders in production 1939/40, the aircraft accepted in but not
exported in 1939, so not counted in the 1939 production as
exported and then not counted in the 1940 production as they
had been accepted in 1939. The USAAF reports this amounts
to 204 aircraft, remembering there was an export embargo for a
time from September 1939 plus the switch to wartime shipping
created a backlog. In addition for 1940 and 1941 all 12 or
more seat civil transports built were reported as military types
even if for civil customers, this does mean the possibility of a
few such aircraft being missed by the reports in the same was as
the military aircraft exports or alternatively counted a second time
in civil production figures. All up some 212 DC-3 and 129 Model
18 Lodestar were accepted as civil aircraft between 1940 and 1943.
When civil aircraft production resumed in 1945 new civil aircraft
were counted when reported in monthly industry surveys, replacing
the registered/exported categories. It seems this change was a
trigger to revise earlier totals.
The switch in reporting definitions can be seen in the 1945 CAA
report which has 985 civil aircraft in 1942, later reports have 0.
US military aircraft production, for all customers, from Aviation
Facts and Figures, 1959 edition, with the "for US" figures from the
1950 CAA Statistical Handbook
1935 459, of which 336 for the US
1936 1,141, of which 858 for the US
1937 949, of which 858 for the US
1938 1,800, of which 925 for the US
1939 2,195, of which 921 for the US
It is also clear the 1939 figures need to add the 204 aircraft accepted but
not exported. A USAAF report puts the number of new military aircraft
exported in 1939 as 1,285.
The larger pre war export orders include 274 Curtiss H-75/P-36 (In 1938
and 1939), 190 Martin model 139/166 (B-10) between 1935 and 1939,
215 Martin model 167/A-22 1939/40, 430 North American NA-16/AT-6
1938/39, 230 North American NA-57/BT-9 in 1939.
Using the USAAF and USN production reports, military aircraft produced
for the US
1935 318, including 15 for the Coast Guard.
1936 853, including 1 for the Coast Guard.
1937 846
1938 1,246
1939 870, including 3 for the Coast Guard
No explanation has been found for the difference in the 1938 figures.
The 1939 USAAF figure includes 64 for the National Guard, which, if
double counted, would close the gap between the published totals
and the USAAF and USN reports.
Using the CAA 1945 Statistical Handbook figures and assuming consistency
across the different published data indicates military aircraft exports were
123 in 1935, 283 in 1936, 91 in 1937, 875 in 1938 and 1,274 in 1939. In
percentage terms 37%, 54%, 14%, 100% and 100% of total exports
respectively, which only appear reasonable for 1935 and 1936 given the
state department's report on actual exports. If the 1959 edition total of
1,800 military aircraft includes the 1,246 US military types the USN and
USAAF report that drops military aircraft exports from 875 to 554.
The State Department issued export licenses for military aircraft, they
were valid for twelve months and could be cancelled and/or reissued,
the nett total amount from 10 October 1935 to 31 December 1939 is
nearly $213,000,000 for 30 countries, counting the Netherlands and the
Netherlands East Indies as two countries. Countries with more than
$10 million in licenses issued were, Argentina $12.2 million, Australia
$10.9 million, China $12.7 million, France $97.6 million, Great Britain
$37 million and the Netherlands Indies $12.8 million. By year 1936 to
1939 license amounts were $7.1 million, $15.2 million, $55.8 million
and $133.8 million. Actual exports were valued by the State Department
at $12.7 million June to December 1938 and $68.7 million in 1939. In
addition another $9.2 million of civil aircraft were exported in the final 7
months of 1938 and $7.6 million in 1939.
The 1940 and later figures use military aircraft acceptances, from the
1959 edition of Aviation facts and figures / the 1955 figures which include
the targets,
1940 6,028 / 6,019
1941 19,445 / 19,433
1942 47,675 / 47,836
1943 85,433 / 85,898
1944 95,272 / 96,318
1945 46,865 / 47,714
1946 1,417 / 1,669
1947 2,122 / 2,100
1948 2,536 / 2,284
1949 2,592 / 2,544
The 1959 figures exactly match those reported in the USAAF Statistical
Digest except the digest has 3 less aircraft in 1948, note the digest
includes 2 Bell XS-1 in April 1948 and 2 Vought XF5U-1 in January 1949,
the XF5U were accepted but never flown.
Figures from the USN and USAAF production reports, including US
financed aircraft built in Canada,
1940 6,027, including 7 for the Coast Guard
1941 19,449 including 8 for the Coast Guard, plus 31 targets
1942 47,674, including 17 for the Coast Guard, plus 184 targets
1943 85,433 plus 500 targets
1944 95,281 plus 1,086 targets
1945 46,865 plus 894 targets
1946 1,417 plus 272 targets
1947 2,125
1948 2,537 (excluding 2 XS-1)
1949 2,589 (excluding 2 XF5U-1)
Apart from the 4 production aircraft omitted, the 1 PB4Y-2,
1 B-25B, 1 PT-23 and 1 AD-2, the remaining differences with
the Statistical Digest is counting prototypes, mostly USN,
including 1 XPBY-4 and 1 XPBM-1 the USN says were accepted
in 1939 not 1940 as in the Digest and 2 XF7U-1 the Digest says
were accepted in 1949 and the USN says accepted after 1949.
US civil production for US and foreign customers, from Aviation
Facts and Figures, 1959 edition,
1935 1,261
1936 1,869
1937 2,824
1938 1,823
1939 3,661
1940 6,785
1941 6,844
1945 2,047
1946 35,001
1947 15,617
1948 7,302
1949 3,545
Jane's All the Worlds Aircraft 1951/52 reports Piper produced 707
Cubs in 1937, 737 in 1938, 1,806 in 1939, 3,016 in 1940 and the
10,000th Cub was built during 1941, implying over 3,000 Cubs were
produced in 1941. These figures indicate Piper was about half the
US civil aircraft production 1937 to 1941.
The Book Mr Piper and his Cubs by Devon Francis indicates Piper
built and sold 8,020 out of 17,727 private aircraft 1939 to 1941, the
figures for 1941 are given as Piper 3,197, Taylorcraft 1,000 and
Aeronica 999.
The contrast in British and US civil production post WWII is striking,
compared to the much closer military production figures, which in
their turn are hiding a growing performance gap between the best
US and British aircraft.
The best references to Canadian military aircraft production are found
in the US War Production Board Report and the British Ministry of
Aircraft Production Monthly reports. An example of the wartime exchange
of production information can be seen in an imaged file in the Australian
Archives, Series Number A1695 Control 3/101/Tech (3 parts), part 2
Mar 43-Sep 43, part 3 Sep 43 to Aug 44.
Figures for production outside of World War II have been drawn from
RCAF Taken on Strength dates.
1935 0
1936 15
1937 14
1938 46
1939 40
1940 852
1941 1,723 (12 US financed)
1942 3,782 (653 US financed)
1943 4,105 (2,416 US financed)
1944 4,052 (1,660 US financed)
1945 1,715 (519 US financed)
1946 0
1947 9
1948 11
1949 7.
No data on Canadian civil aircraft production, it was extensive post
WWII, mainly by de Havilland.
Australian Military aircraft production,
1935 and 1936 6
1939 33
1940 379
1941 907
1942 798
1943 563
1944 434
1945 482
1946 108
1947 59
1948 49
1949 41
Plus 5 prototypes.
Civil production was essentially zero in the 1930's and
1940's, around 11 civil types produced, mainly the 8 Tugan
Gannet 1935 to 1938 including some that were sold direct
to the RAAF, and 2 De Havilland Drover in 1949.
Australia kept building Mustangs until July 1951, apart from
1 in April 1952, this explains why they are over represented
in the number of Mustangs still flying today.
Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.
So we start with what is an aircraft. Most statistics do not
count gliders and balloons/dirigibles. Then comes autogiros,
the British count them, the US does in the military but not
civil figures Next the remote controlled targets, the British
Queen, the USAAF PQ and the USN TD series and what
to do given they had a cockpit to enable things like ferry
flights, are they drones or aircraft? The British say aircraft,
all 465 of them 1935 to 1946, the US says maybe, some
figures include them, others do not, to the tune of nearly
3,000 units 1941 to 1946.
By the way the British called their initial remote controlled
aircraft the Queen Bee, hence the USN deciding to go with
the name Drone.
Then comes the many military experimental types, mostly
prototypes, the British exclude them, around 400 aircraft
1935 to 1949, the US usually counts them. In addition the
British often did not count production aircraft diverted to
development work.
Next is when is an aircraft counted as produced and what
to do if it crashed before the official definition of produced
was met, for example on a flight test. The US normally
counts them, of production aircraft only 1 B-25B, 1 PT-23,
1 PB4Y-2 and 1 AD-2 flew but were not counted, along with
21 military aircraft prototypes, for the British the aircraft may
or may not be counted, the decision could take years and
could be reversed.
Aircraft destroyed before flight are not counted, a number of
British factories were attacked (including no less than 3
attacks on the factories making the Supermarine Walrus,
the Luftwaffe clearly knew what posed the biggest threat,
the first time the factory was also making a minor type called
the Spitfire, the other two times were due to the factory being
on the Isle of Wight).
Prototypes and other experimental aircraft could have been
flying for months before they were officially counted as produced.
Having said no flight no count we naturally come to the exception,
during WWII Canada produced airframes, not engines and some
of the airframes were simply shipped to Britain to be flight tested
there, of which a number did not arrive. They are counted. Also
a number of British aircraft were marked as "slaved to purgatory
storage" without engines, though it seems they were test flown
then the engines removed. Sabre engine production could not
keep up with Typhoon and Tempest airframe production, similar
for Vulture engines and Manchester airframes at least.
Now for the by country figures, the US counts aircraft it paid for
but built in Canadian factories as US production, the Canadians
think they should be counted as Canadian. It comes to 5,260 out
of 13,797 aircraft built in Canada from December 1941 to
September 1945.
Canada and Australia followed the British counting system.
I have no figures for British civil aircraft production pre WWII, it
is clear such production continued into 1940 and resumed in
1945.
The British official military aircraft production figures for the
1935 to 1939 period are a reconstruction largely based on
the RAF Contract Cards system of tracking new aircraft orders,
which means export orders are only partially accounted for in
1935 and 1936. After that the need for more timely information
and that most such orders were treated as diversions from RAF
orders meant they were usually included. However in numeric
terms the foreign military orders for Tiger Moth and Avro 626,
which are not included even in 1940, far outweigh the other
missing export production. Some 89 Tiger Moths 1935 to 1938
and 157 in 1939 and 1940, the latter includes some civil orders
built in 1940. Avro reports some 32 model 621 Tutor in 1935
and 1936 and 126 model 626 from 1935 to 1940 built for the
military export market.
Being a reconstruction the report is vulnerable to an omission,
in this case most of February and March 1936 production,
amounting to nearly 170 RAF order aircraft, also orders for
30 Tiger Moths in 1937 and 27 Magisters in 1937/38 placed
outside the regular contract system are missing. These three
omissions account for over half of the nearly 400 production
aircraft omitted from the official totals 1935 to 1945. Another
omission from the published figures is around 60 built for export
in 1939, about a third of such production in 1939, they are in the
unpublished reports.
So the British military aircraft production, including "Queens" looks
like this, versus the published totals,
1935 916, versus 893
1936 2,004, versus 1,830
1937 2,280, versus 2,218
1938 2,840, versus 2,828
1939, 8,009, versus 7,940
1940 15,088, versus 15,049
1941 20,105, versus 20,094
1942 23,679, versus 23,672
1943 26,273, versus 26,263
1944 26,476, versus 26,461
1945 13,536
1946 2,151
1947 1,132
1948 1,459
1949 1,825
The total for the first nine months of 1945 is 12,083 versus the official
total of 12,070
Missing from the above are around 246 Tiger Moth and 158 Avro
trainers plus some small export orders pre WWII, plus around 400
prototype and experimental types.
Civil production according to the Ministry of Supply, which may include
some non combat aircraft for foreign air forces,
1945 74
1946 476
1947 562
1948 267
1949 103
In contrast to the British the US has a large number of published
contemporary reports, usually in yearbook format, mainly by the
Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce of America and the Civil
Aeronautics Administration. Except the figures are revised from
year to year including presentation, and some include the targets
and others do not. Published civil production data is deliberately
presented to make identification of individual aircraft types and
makers impossible.
Pre war the US considered a new aircraft produced when it was
1) accepted by the US military or 2) when it was registered as a
civil aircraft in the US or 3) when it was exported, so if you can
find the first registration dates you should be able to reconstruct
the civil production figures. So for reports published up to 1945
the figures are presented under these three categories. Later
presentations use two categories, either 1) US military then others
or 2) Military then Civil. Ignoring the targets the various sets of
figures closely agree on the yearly grand totals.
For 1935 yearly totals are 1,748 (1945 CAA report), 1,710
(1948 CAA report), 1,720 (1959 Aviation facts and figures),
for 1936 the totals are 3,022, 3,010 and 3,010, in 1937 the
totals are 3,778, 3,773 and 3,773, in 1938 all references
agree on 3,623 and in 1939 again agreement, 5,856 total
aircraft production. The different references diverge again
from 1940 onwards.
One issue is the US Coast Guard new aircraft production,
some 90 from 1935 to 1949 of which 40 are reported as
USN production, the rest are currently assumed to be in the
civil production figures.
From January 1940 onwards all military aircraft, including for
export, were accounted for in the USN and USAAF reports as ifthey were all for the US military, that is they are counted when
accepted, not when exported, which leaves an issue of export
orders in production 1939/40, the aircraft accepted in but not
exported in 1939, so not counted in the 1939 production as
exported and then not counted in the 1940 production as they
had been accepted in 1939. The USAAF reports this amounts
to 204 aircraft, remembering there was an export embargo for a
time from September 1939 plus the switch to wartime shipping
created a backlog. In addition for 1940 and 1941 all 12 or
more seat civil transports built were reported as military types
even if for civil customers, this does mean the possibility of a
few such aircraft being missed by the reports in the same was as
the military aircraft exports or alternatively counted a second time
in civil production figures. All up some 212 DC-3 and 129 Model
18 Lodestar were accepted as civil aircraft between 1940 and 1943.
When civil aircraft production resumed in 1945 new civil aircraft
were counted when reported in monthly industry surveys, replacing
the registered/exported categories. It seems this change was a
trigger to revise earlier totals.
The switch in reporting definitions can be seen in the 1945 CAA
report which has 985 civil aircraft in 1942, later reports have 0.
US military aircraft production, for all customers, from Aviation
Facts and Figures, 1959 edition, with the "for US" figures from the
1950 CAA Statistical Handbook
1935 459, of which 336 for the US
1936 1,141, of which 858 for the US
1937 949, of which 858 for the US
1938 1,800, of which 925 for the US
1939 2,195, of which 921 for the US
It is also clear the 1939 figures need to add the 204 aircraft accepted but
not exported. A USAAF report puts the number of new military aircraft
exported in 1939 as 1,285.
The larger pre war export orders include 274 Curtiss H-75/P-36 (In 1938
and 1939), 190 Martin model 139/166 (B-10) between 1935 and 1939,
215 Martin model 167/A-22 1939/40, 430 North American NA-16/AT-6
1938/39, 230 North American NA-57/BT-9 in 1939.
Using the USAAF and USN production reports, military aircraft produced
for the US
1935 318, including 15 for the Coast Guard.
1936 853, including 1 for the Coast Guard.
1937 846
1938 1,246
1939 870, including 3 for the Coast Guard
No explanation has been found for the difference in the 1938 figures.
The 1939 USAAF figure includes 64 for the National Guard, which, if
double counted, would close the gap between the published totals
and the USAAF and USN reports.
Using the CAA 1945 Statistical Handbook figures and assuming consistency
across the different published data indicates military aircraft exports were
123 in 1935, 283 in 1936, 91 in 1937, 875 in 1938 and 1,274 in 1939. In
percentage terms 37%, 54%, 14%, 100% and 100% of total exports
respectively, which only appear reasonable for 1935 and 1936 given the
state department's report on actual exports. If the 1959 edition total of
1,800 military aircraft includes the 1,246 US military types the USN and
USAAF report that drops military aircraft exports from 875 to 554.
The State Department issued export licenses for military aircraft, they
were valid for twelve months and could be cancelled and/or reissued,
the nett total amount from 10 October 1935 to 31 December 1939 is
nearly $213,000,000 for 30 countries, counting the Netherlands and the
Netherlands East Indies as two countries. Countries with more than
$10 million in licenses issued were, Argentina $12.2 million, Australia
$10.9 million, China $12.7 million, France $97.6 million, Great Britain
$37 million and the Netherlands Indies $12.8 million. By year 1936 to
1939 license amounts were $7.1 million, $15.2 million, $55.8 million
and $133.8 million. Actual exports were valued by the State Department
at $12.7 million June to December 1938 and $68.7 million in 1939. In
addition another $9.2 million of civil aircraft were exported in the final 7
months of 1938 and $7.6 million in 1939.
The 1940 and later figures use military aircraft acceptances, from the
1959 edition of Aviation facts and figures / the 1955 figures which include
the targets,
1940 6,028 / 6,019
1941 19,445 / 19,433
1942 47,675 / 47,836
1943 85,433 / 85,898
1944 95,272 / 96,318
1945 46,865 / 47,714
1946 1,417 / 1,669
1947 2,122 / 2,100
1948 2,536 / 2,284
1949 2,592 / 2,544
The 1959 figures exactly match those reported in the USAAF Statistical
Digest except the digest has 3 less aircraft in 1948, note the digest
includes 2 Bell XS-1 in April 1948 and 2 Vought XF5U-1 in January 1949,
the XF5U were accepted but never flown.
Figures from the USN and USAAF production reports, including US
financed aircraft built in Canada,
1940 6,027, including 7 for the Coast Guard
1941 19,449 including 8 for the Coast Guard, plus 31 targets
1942 47,674, including 17 for the Coast Guard, plus 184 targets
1943 85,433 plus 500 targets
1944 95,281 plus 1,086 targets
1945 46,865 plus 894 targets
1946 1,417 plus 272 targets
1947 2,125
1948 2,537 (excluding 2 XS-1)
1949 2,589 (excluding 2 XF5U-1)
Apart from the 4 production aircraft omitted, the 1 PB4Y-2,
1 B-25B, 1 PT-23 and 1 AD-2, the remaining differences with
the Statistical Digest is counting prototypes, mostly USN,
including 1 XPBY-4 and 1 XPBM-1 the USN says were accepted
in 1939 not 1940 as in the Digest and 2 XF7U-1 the Digest says
were accepted in 1949 and the USN says accepted after 1949.
US civil production for US and foreign customers, from Aviation
Facts and Figures, 1959 edition,
1935 1,261
1936 1,869
1937 2,824
1938 1,823
1939 3,661
1940 6,785
1941 6,844
1945 2,047
1946 35,001
1947 15,617
1948 7,302
1949 3,545
Jane's All the Worlds Aircraft 1951/52 reports Piper produced 707
Cubs in 1937, 737 in 1938, 1,806 in 1939, 3,016 in 1940 and the
10,000th Cub was built during 1941, implying over 3,000 Cubs were
produced in 1941. These figures indicate Piper was about half the
US civil aircraft production 1937 to 1941.
The Book Mr Piper and his Cubs by Devon Francis indicates Piper
built and sold 8,020 out of 17,727 private aircraft 1939 to 1941, the
figures for 1941 are given as Piper 3,197, Taylorcraft 1,000 and
Aeronica 999.
The contrast in British and US civil production post WWII is striking,
compared to the much closer military production figures, which in
their turn are hiding a growing performance gap between the best
US and British aircraft.
The best references to Canadian military aircraft production are found
in the US War Production Board Report and the British Ministry of
Aircraft Production Monthly reports. An example of the wartime exchange
of production information can be seen in an imaged file in the Australian
Archives, Series Number A1695 Control 3/101/Tech (3 parts), part 2
Mar 43-Sep 43, part 3 Sep 43 to Aug 44.
Figures for production outside of World War II have been drawn from
RCAF Taken on Strength dates.
1935 0
1936 15
1937 14
1938 46
1939 40
1940 852
1941 1,723 (12 US financed)
1942 3,782 (653 US financed)
1943 4,105 (2,416 US financed)
1944 4,052 (1,660 US financed)
1945 1,715 (519 US financed)
1946 0
1947 9
1948 11
1949 7.
No data on Canadian civil aircraft production, it was extensive post
WWII, mainly by de Havilland.
Australian Military aircraft production,
1935 and 1936 6
1939 33
1940 379
1941 907
1942 798
1943 563
1944 434
1945 482
1946 108
1947 59
1948 49
1949 41
Plus 5 prototypes.
Civil production was essentially zero in the 1930's and
1940's, around 11 civil types produced, mainly the 8 Tugan
Gannet 1935 to 1938 including some that were sold direct
to the RAAF, and 2 De Havilland Drover in 1949.
Australia kept building Mustangs until July 1951, apart from
1 in April 1952, this explains why they are over represented
in the number of Mustangs still flying today.
Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.