This organization saw the light officially in December, 1916, and in twenty-one months had turned out some 2,900 aeroplanes, valued at nearly fourteen million dollars. Incidentally, the factory covered about six acres, and employed something over two thousand hands.

It was some time before Canadians realized that the undertaking was that of the Imperial Government acting through the Imperial Munitions Board, more familiarly known as the “I.M.B.” The primary purpose was that of supplying aeroplanes for the Royal Flying Corps, but actually some four and a half millions’ worth of output went to aid training in the United States.

The officials of the Company were:—

Work commenced in leased premises, where the plant of a small factory which had a year or so before turned out a few experimental machines was for three months utilized. This, admittedly a makeshift, expanded in April into permanent premises on Dufferin Street, covering ultimately some six acres of floor space, with innumerable mechanical appliances specially designed for the work. The building of this factory proved something of an achievement, being completed in about two and one-half months, a notable record even in a country where quick construction was the rule of the day. The site, carefully chosen, lay surrounded by the homes of large numbers of technical tradesmen, and this helped in no small degree to ensure at all times a full force of highly skilled employees.

The machine adopted for use by the Royal Flying Corps was the Canadian JN4, of simple design and presenting no unusual difficulty in manufacture. As work progressed, however, it became apparent that the type could be largely improved by change of design and fabrication, and there was evolved a machine which, while presenting the same appearance as its predecessor, contained nevertheless certain fundamental and radical alterations. Among other points remodelled were the landing gear—the substitution of the “joy stick” for the former control wheel, the adoption of split trailing edge instead of flattened tubing, and, most important, tail units made principally of metal instead of wood, resulting in an increased factor of safety, especially in the rudder and vertical stabilizer. Progress without change is impossible, and thus it proved in this undertaking.

It will be understood that given soundness of design there remains to be provided good workmanship and the best and most suitable materials. The former was procured without much difficulty, but the supply of the latter involved much thought and experiment, it being always remembered that the ideal machine combines a maximum strength with a minimum weight.

Linen for the covering of wings, etc., was imported first from Ireland, but submarine activity made it imperative that a substitute be secured. It was found at the Wabasso Cotton Company’s mills in Three Rivers, Quebec. Here was secured, for the special purpose required, a cotton fabric of remarkable strength. One inch in width is able to support some eighty pounds, and this with a weight which does not exceed four and a half ounces a square yard. Its adoption was at once successful, and it proved capable, when treated with “dope”—a waterproof and windproof solution with celluloid-like finish—of performing the same service as that of the most expensive Irish linen.

After fabric came wood, the quality of which was required to be above anything hitherto known in the lumber trade. Free from knots, of extreme length, with no “wind shakes,” swirly grain or “pitch pockets,” it seemed at first unprocurable. Ash for the longerons or longitudinals of the fuselage, and spruce for wing beams, wing edges, etc., was of imperative necessity. The market was searched, but what material was available proved to yield but a fraction of its total in satisfactory timber. Then, driven by urgent need, the “I.M.B.” organized a department in Vancouver and began to buy for itself on the shores of the Pacific. That its first purchase was rushed by express in carloads from the Western Coast will indicate how extreme was the pressure for sound material. The illustrations on pages 32 and 34 give some idea of the magnitude of the operations required to produce that exact quality of lumber which the modern aeroplane demands.

It is interesting to note that even with this admirable supply secured, it was found that certain members were so long that it proved necessary to build them up, and, in the building, the Canadian Aeroplanes Limited evolved a scarfed, saw-toothed splice, since adopted as standard by Britain and the United States. Repeated tests proved that greater strength was thus secured than that of solid lumber of the same dimensions.

The Canadian Aeroplanes Limited propeller is five-ply white oak, glued, compressed and formed up by machinery that is almost human—and took its origin from a lathe designed by Peter the Great to make gun stocks. It is a far cry from Russia to Toronto, but the principle is identical. No “C.A.L.” propeller has shown manufacturing or engineering defect. The successor of Peter’s lathe carves them, four at a time, to one thirty-second of their finished form, and the final touches and balancing are hand work. To anyone who has seen a nine-foot propeller running at 1,500 revolutions per minute, its blade points cutting the air at the rate of eight miles a minute, it will be apparent how fine a workmanship and accurate a design is embodied here.

From wood pass to metal. Fuselage and internal wing bracing is with piano-wire which will stand a pull of a ton, though the members to which it is anchored weigh but a few pounds. Inter-plane bracing will live up to a ton and a half, and the control wires will stand the same test. So accurate are these latter that in process of their manufacture the heated metal is drawn through a forming die made of an aperture in a diamond.

In the autumn of 1918 it was decided to undertake the manufacture of a faster and more modern type of machine—the Avro—and to this object the factory diverted its energies. At the date of the armistice two had been turned out. These machines, equipped with 130 horse-power Clerget engines, promised excellent service, and underwent all tests to the complete satisfaction of all concerned. No less than one hundred additional had been fabricated and were ready for assembly when hostilities ceased.

Design—material—workmanship—inspection! These are the four cardinal features of the modern machine. That all have been amply provided in the output of the Canadian Aeroplanes Limited is best evidenced by the fact that not a single one of nearly three thousand aeroplanes turned out has been charged with any accident attributable to any fault in design or manufacture.

From aeroplane to flying boat was a natural transition in an organization so finely balanced and completely equipped, and in April, 1918, the Canadian Aeroplanes Limited undertook to build for the United States navy a fleet of 30 F-5 flying boats, the largest produced to date on this side of the Atlantic. The contract involved competition with two other companies. The latter had been in the business from two to four years, and had on hand not only ample material but also a large staff of assembling mechanics. In the race that followed, the Canadian Aeroplanes Limited finished three weeks ahead—an illustration of the fact that the best type of organization is that which is not so wedded to one class of output as to be unable to adapt its methods and its plant to kindred, if varying, undertakings. So satisfactory was the work to the U.S. authorities, that it called forth the following letter from the American admiral in charge:—

The feat was not without effort. The thirty boats contracted for have been delivered, the first being turned out within three months from receipt of order. The shipments included spares to the extent of one additional boat in every three, exclusive of hull. It was not necessary to engage any additional staff, but it was necessary to give the training required to convert the aeroplane builder into the boat builder. This construction filled in a period between orders for machines for the Royal Air Force, but it involved the purchasing of special material from the United States, in which market the U.S. competitors of the company were already firmly established.

Boat building was, however, but a side issue of the primary purpose of the organization. It was formed to supply an Imperial brigade with ample and satisfactory aeroplanes. That this was done is unquestionable; but it is questionable whether those responsible for its organization and those under whose guiding hands it grew so amazingly foresaw the proportion the business was to assume or the peculiarly intimate relationship it established with the work of the brigade. The various reports of the General Officer Commanding on this subject pay unstinted tribute to the excellence of the service rendered. More than this, it is due to the qualities of the Canadian JN4 machine as manufactured in Toronto by the Canadian Aeroplanes Limited that training in flying by the Royal Air Force was so advanced that it covered the practice of all aerial manoeuvres and “stunts” possible on any machine.

In the graphs on pages 54 and 55 will be found certain data of interest giving the progress of manufacture, etc., but the essential figures are those not written. They are to be found, if computable, in the service rendered to the Empire by some three thousand pilots who first took to the air in machines made by this great national plant.