"Geoffrey Sinclair" <gsinclairnb@froggy.com.au> wrote in message news:k9adnUMD0-8DdADKnZ2dnUU7-W3NnZ2d@westnet.com.au...

Update time.

British military aircraft production, including "Queens" looks
like this, versus the published totals,

1944 26,476, versus 26,461
1945 13,536

New totals,

1944 26,477 (+1 Lancaster)
1945 13,535. (-1 Lancaster)

The adjustment is trivial, the reasons contain more of a lesson.

The British production reports system left the original reports
intact and adjusted cumulative totals when required.

There is an entry in the February 1945 monthly production report
for a Lancaster Ic, under the Transports and Air Sea Rescue
category. Given a number of Lancasters were converted to Air
Sea Rescue or General Reconnaissance versions in 1945 it
initially appears one was officially built as such.

Then in March two Lancastrian I are reported as built that month
but the cumulative total says three built to date, then in April the Lancastrian I cumulative total is reduced to zero and stays that
way. Military Lancastrian II production starts in October.

The RAF contract cards report the only two RAF Lancastrian I
were delivered in August and October 1945, but they are not in
the military aircraft production reports.

In fact the February entry is for a Lancastrian (Lancaster I cargo),
for civil use, the March entry is also for two civil Lancastrians, hence
three built to end March. Then being civil aircraft they were deleted
from the military production report cumulative totals The civil
Lancastrian production details are confirmed by Avro records.

So the military Lancastrian entry in March is "corrected" by the later omissions, you end up with the two known military Lancastrian I
either way, but at different times.

Simply put civil aircraft production began again but the reporting
system took a while to reflect this and made a couple of near
self correcting errors.

Then comes the change of the Lancaster Ic to Lancastrian, meaning
there is now a missing Lancaster, which is PB414, it has no contract
card or delivery log entry, it is reported built in 1944 then put on exhibition, no RAF service. Not to be confused with ND575 which
has its contract card and delivery log entries deleted and was also
not delivered to the RAF, but was counted in the monthly reports.

Aircraft might be very expensive items but that does not stop some
becoming officially difficult to trace.

For the record including the Lancastrian prototype, 2 out of 23
mark I were civil aircraft, all 33 mark II military and all 18 mark
III and 8 mark IV were civil types, with 7 of the mark IV reported
as mark III in the monthly reports.

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

1938 1,800, of which 925 for the US

Using the USAAF and USN production reports, military aircraft produced
for the US

1938 1,246

No explanation has been found for the difference in the 1938 figures.

However there is a very suggestive possibility.

The US stopped publishing production figures for the US military
aircraft after September 1938. The 9 month total comes to 944.
Given adjustments to the monthly figures could be made in later
reports there is a possibility that 944 became 925. Then an initial
error was made, only counting the 9 months but reporting it as the
yearly total, and this has been repeated ever since.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

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