Let's Go, Dutch

Once someone asked North American Aviation's able president, James Howard ("Dutch") Kindelberger, about North American's prospects at war's end. Said he: "It will be like taking a full-grown eagle and attempting to stuff him back into a hummingbird's egg--without breaking the shell."

Dutch Kindelberger got his war-grown eagle back into the shell by cutting his payroll from 97,000 to 4,964, letting go all but his West Coast plant. By last week North American was breaking out of the shell again. It had leased from the Government, and started to move into, the 500,000-sq.-ft. Long Beach, Calif, plant operated by Douglas Aircraft Co., Inc. during the war.

One reason the postwar shell was too small was the Navion, North American's new four-place light plane (TIME, April 15), which accounts for 20% of the company's current business. So far, by shrewd selling tactics, Dutch Kindelberger has dodged the slump that has hit small planemakers. He is well aware that the upkeep of a small plane is much too high for most private flyers; the cost of operating a high-priced executive-type plane is too much for most companies. So the $7,750 Navion is being plugged--and sold--more as a work plane for companies than a play plane for individuals. Of the 559 sales to date, 90% have been sold for business uses. At present production of ten a day, there is already a four-month backlog. By year's end, North American hopes to have 2,500 Navions off its assembly line.

The bulk of North American's business, however, is still in new military planes. Besides its twin-fuselaged P-82s (one of which was poised to try for a fighter-plane nonstop record by flying from Honolulu to New York), the company is testing a four-jet bomber, the B-45, and a Navy jet fighter expected to fly upwards of 500 m.p.h. Thanks to its backlog of nearly $180 million, North American had to spend so much on expansion that it lost $216,784 in the first quarter of its 1947 year (which ends in September) on a gross of $2,162,108.

Unless economy-minded Congress forces a cut in military plane orders, Dutch Kindelberger hopes to have his peacetime eagle full grown by year's end, with 14,000 employees on the payroll. (Wartime peak in the West Coast plant: 24,000.) By then, he also hopes, his bird will be paying for its keep.

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