Tremendous Incr ease in Lumber Requirements Making Aviation Outlet of Primary Importance

N.L.M. A. sifting Govemment Reports to Ger All rhre on Ficrds Needing Housing Facilitie*Also to Furnish Dealer Hdpu

Washington, Sept. 30.-Man's mastery of the mystery of flight has iesulted-in a twelve thousand-percent increast in lumber requirements of the aviation industry in the past fifteen years. And this represents only essential needs. Housing facilities for planes now using the air are woe- fully inadequate. While a spirit of 'tir-mindedness" is actively developing in practically every village and hamlet in the country, recently available government reports disclose that there are literally thouiands of landing fields where no facilities are available for visiting planes.- These include not only so-called airports, but field! that already have some importance and would become increasingly available to flyers if they had adequate accommodationi.

To take advantage of this situation and help the local lumber dealer "cash-in" on community needs. Trade Extension Manager Walter F. Shaw, of tfre National Lumber Manufacturers Association, has written retail association s_ecretaries, city, state and regional, asking them to join the National in a campaign to put lumber-b-uitt hangari ott every _o. n_e of the.se fields where the government reports show "Hangar-None" or "Hangar-Small shed". - The campaign is to begjn at once with a list of one thousand fields that the National has already sifted from the government reports.

The plan for this concerted drive for lumber hangars contemplate the furnishing by the N.L.M.A. to the retail associations of the names of the fields together with all available information. These will in turn be distributed to lumber dealers in the communities where the fields are located. This information will include the name of the owner of the field, its present facilities, its present and possible future importance in a system of air transportation, and other pertin- ent data that will help the dealer make a sale.

The N.L.M.A. has prepared a variety of sales literature relating to lumber-built hangars. This will be made available, most of it free, and the balance at production cost. Both the official report and the graphic review of the recent government tests which showed the fire-safetv of lumber hangars when orotected by water sprinkler sysiems will be included in this literature. The Nitional will furnish a thousand copies of the official report at its own expense and is arranging with'the National Committee on Wood Utilization to handle for retail secretaries additional orders they may wish to place with the Public printer. This report will become available about October l5 and gives lumber such a clean bill of health that it should be in the hands of every lumber distributor. In lots of a thousand it will cost from three to five cents per copy. The National's "Pictorial Review of Hangar Fiie Te6ti" showing pf vivid photographs just how well the sprinkler-protectel lu.mb-er hang--ar withstood a holocaust of gisoline-fe-d flames, will be available free to deaters particilating in the campaign.

Other material to be made available includes the National's booklet on "Airplane Hangar Construction", telling of the advant_ages of lumber as a-material and giving the government's field rating requirements as well aJidea-s for lumber construction anddesign ; blueprints.of four hangars of different sizes to be built o-f lumbei, together with sp-eci- fications and bills of material, available at- cost of prinfing; 1el_{{s from an article appearing in the AMERICA-N LUMBERMAN on .Wood-'s Su-periority for Hangars Dem.onstratgd", bI the late Joseph P. guinian, specialisi on landrng field requirements; and reprints of an article that appeared in AVIATf9{ ly N. S. Perkins, Civil Engineer, on "Lumber-Built Airplanl Hangars,'.

Mr. Shaw asked the secretarieJto advise their members that this material is available for their use in any locality if they wish.to sell a lumber hangar and specialty to inteiest them in "selling" the thousand fieldi that- have been "spotted". He has promised that the National Association rvill make a continuous process of "spotting" additional fi-elds as rapidly as the government reports &come available and -will 99 along on its share of the campaign as long as-a- single field remains unsold. He pointed out-that thesi fields are prime prospects both becauie of communitv pride which makes the torvn council or the private o*'ntf am- bitious to have the local field become a link of importance in aviation routes and because of the definite teniency of pilots to avoid landin-g at the fields where the governrient records show unsatisfactory facilities for planesi

The letter disclosing plans for the campaign and asking cooperation was sent to the retail secretaries-on Septembei 18. Assurances have been received from several'sources_ indicating-that the_proposal witt be well received. fn fact, the- p-lan developed from repeated requests received from individual lumber distributois by the National for help in supplying sales_literature to promote local lumber hangar construction. It is expected the program can be puiin complete working order not later than the middle of'October.