Aviation History - July 2016

EXTREMES

12 AH july 2016

EXTREMES

Flying

Railroad Car

THE E.G. BUDD COMPANY DUBBED

ITS STAINLESS STEEL CARGO PLANE

THE CONESTOGA, BUT “PULLMAN”

MIGHT HAVE BEEN MORE APT

BY ROBERT GUTTMAN

drive-in A crewman guides

an ambulance up the ramp of

a Budd Conestoga in 1943.

strong profile A WAVE

and a WAC pose with an RB-

at Budd Field in January 1945.

D

uring World War II, the United States became the

“Arsenal of Democracy,” supplying vast numbers of

vehicles, ships, aircraft and weapons to the U.S. armed

forces and Allied nations. Not surprisingly, shortages

of certain strategic raw materials were anticipated. Of

particular concern was the supply of aluminum and light

ITTWa[VMMLMLNWZIQZKZIN\XZWL]K\QWV)[IZM[]T\[XMKQÅK

requests were issued to design aircraft manufactured from

non-strategic materials that could be produced by companies

outside the normal aircraft industry. Such sources were seen

as particularly desirable for aircraft designated for second-line

or non-combat uses, including training and transport. Of the

many such airplanes developed, most were constructed using

_WWL*]\WVMUIV]NIK\]ZMZ\WWS\PMLMÅVQ\QWVWN ¹VWV

strategic materials” in a whole new direction.

Ragsdale had come up with a

new process for fabricating

structures from stainless steel.

Known as “shot welding,” it

allowed sheets of stainless

steel to be welded together

without distortion, and with-

Philadelphia’s E.G. Budd

Company was not really part

of the aviation industry.

Founded in 1912, it had pio-

neered the fabrication of

pressed-steel bodies for auto-

mobiles, and later manufac-

tured stainless steel railroad

passenger cars. In the early

1930s, however, Budd

mechani cal engineer Earl