It's a good thing to be in ownership of the United Aircraft, but then the problem arises. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 As the founder of the company, with the support of many minority shareholders, info Fleet was able to control the company's situation with a little more than one-third of the shares and resist the invasion of AVCO.

But now John doesn't have the ability, and if he wants to control the United Aircraft, he has to fight with AVCO. If it were normal times, the point was that it would have been March 1939, and all the Nazi tanks had entered Prague. John doesn't have time to compete with AVCO to win over minority shareholders.

After John and Hughes put it together, they simply sat down with Victor Emmanuel in front of him to negotiate a deal. John: Their meaning is very clear, Hughes Aircraft is not interested in the water patrol aircraft business that United Aircraft is focusing on today, they are interested in the B-24 bomber that has just been halfway through, and the B-36 bomber project that has just been established, as well as the company's design and development team and a large number of skilled workers. On top of that, even the San Diego factory can be ceded to AVCO.

Intense negotiations lasted three days. Eventually, the main part of the United Aircraft Corporation merged with the Voltier Aircraft Company, a subsidiary of AVCO, to form a new company, Convair (two years earlier than in history). Hughes Aircraft received all of United Aircraft's original bomber research and development, technical team and military cooperation projects, the previously established Union-Hughes Laboratory, half of United Aircraft's skilled workers, and 6% of AVCO's American Airlines stock and a board seat. The last one is the compensation they received after the transfer of the San Diego facility to AVCO.

On the surface, Hughes Aircraft worked hard to make a wedding dress for AVCO, and most of the head was taken away by the other party. Only John knew in his heart that what he got was the true essence of the United Aircraft (historically, in 1940, the United Aircraft bomber sales revenue exceeded $100 million). Moreover, he also received a ticket to enter the civil aviation market, which is really satisfying.

Satisfied, John, a big fat man, returned to Washington and began to fulfill his previous promise to the DPC - to build a new aircraft factory in the interior of the United States. Originally, after Hughes received the military order, the new factory in Inglewood was not enough. Now it is a win-win situation to be able to build a new factory with the financial support of DPC. Moreover, Texas and Kansas are both looking forward to it, and there are really a lot of preferential policies to give.

In the end, John picked Fort Worth, North Texas. At first, he had his eye on Dallas, but the North American company had already taken the lead and was negotiating with the local government to settle a new factory. For even more benefits, John chose Fort Worth on the shores of Lake Worth.

Fort Worth has wanted to develop the aviation industry for many years. This year, the federal government launched the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP) to fund the opening of 13 aviation schools, and Fort Worth fought hard to secure a spot.

This time, in order to allow the new Hughes aircraft factory to settle down, Fort Worth offered very favorable conditions: including mobilizing farmers to transfer large tracts of land, jointly building surrounding roads and airports with Hughes aircraft, and providing housing, living, medical care, and children's education discounts for the employees of the aircraft factory. To this end, they did not hesitate to issue $3 million in local bonds.

The DPC was also generous, and after John's activities, they finally approved a construction budget of $1.75 million. The money was nominally used for the construction of a military airfield next to the plant. But the airport is said to belong to the military, and is actually a supporting facility for the Hughes Aircraft Company's Fort Worth plant. The DPC saved John money on the construction of airfields, hangars and oil depots.

Since there are so many discounts, and considering the scale of production during the war in the future, John also made a bloody investment this time. The final assembly line of the new plant even surpasses Boeing's plants in Renton, Washington, and Vicheta, Kansas, and is currently the first in the world.

By the end of May 1939, John, who was busy speeding up the construction of the Hughes Aircraft Factory, saw the news that Germany and Italy fascists had signed a strategic alliance agreement. On the 22nd, the two major Axis powers of Germany and Italy signed a 10-year "Iron and Steel Agreement", openly stating that they would aim to transform Europe and unite the two countries politically, economically, and militarily in order to devote themselves to the development of the two countries and the "justice and peace" of the world.

For a time, Germany and Italy would join forces to start a war in Europe, with rumors of German domination of the land and Italian control of the seas rife. Many Americans believe that war in Europe is coming. To that end, the National Assembly also convened a special session to discuss the possible consequences of the agreement.

Although the "isolationists" are still shouting the slogan of staying away from war, there are high-ranking military, political, and business circles who are already quietly preparing for war by tacitly. John knew very well that his long-awaited order for 50,000 military aircraft was about to come out. However, with the current situation of Hughes aircraft, it is difficult to digest this order.

The reason is not in the money, for the deep-pocketed United States, the problems that can be solved with money are not a problem in wartime. The key reasons are spare parts and labor. Today, the U.S. aviation industry is concentrated in Los Angeles, Seattle, Kansas, and Texas. These states are traditionally agrarian, with underdeveloped manufacturing and most of the spare parts needed for aircraft factories come from the Great Lakes region. Now several aircraft manufacturers are already fighting each other in order to get parts as soon as possible.

The shortage of manpower was also a headache for John, and even with half of the United aircraft's skilled workers, the labor gap for Hughes aircraft was still large. In the case of the new Fort Worth plant, for example, the local community wants to provide as many jobs as possible. But it was a traditional agricultural area, and it was not possible to just pull a farmer into a factory to produce airplanes. Recruiting workers from the eastern region is also time-consuming and requires a lot of effort to resettle them.

These problems are not the problem of Hughes Aircraft alone, and the entire industry is suffering from them. Although John has a solution, he is not a "living Lei Feng" and will not pay for it himself to help others solve the problem. So, he took the solution to the Munitions Production Committee and found the general director, James Burns.

James is also struggling with aircraft production these days, and General Arnold has been in trouble with him several times. Seeing John's plan, he immediately took John straight to the War Department. Confronted with General Arnold and the generals of the Operations Planning Division and the Supply Department, John elaborated on his plan.

The first is the shortage of human resources. The current basic education situation in the United States is still good, and the literacy rate is not low. Aircraft factories all use assembly line production, and the technical requirements for individual workers are not too high. Haven't you seen that in history, many aircraft factories have hired "Riveter Rosie" (the classic female worker character in World War II propaganda posters). John's plan is to set up short-term vocational skills training schools at several major aircraft production bases, and provide workers with accelerated training according to the type of work. This trick has long been used by China as the "factory of the world" in later generations, and the effect is very good.

As for spare parts, don't forget what FedEx does. John proposed a giant spare parts warehouse in Kansas, the geographic center of the 48 contiguous states of the United States, through which the Trans-American Pacific Railroad passes. Spare parts produced by factories in the central and eastern states are concentrated here first. Aircraft manufacturers no longer have to deal with parts suppliers, and can simply place demand orders directly with the Kansas center.

At the same time, they can also set up depots in Seattle, Los Angeles and Fort Worth to store a large number of generic parts. The advantage of this is that through centralized procurement and transportation, the intermediate links can be compressed, and the cost can be greatly reduced, and the storage center and sub-area can also play a part of the adjustment role to shorten the time of waiting for parts in the production line.

All the generals present were very receptive to John's plan, and General Arnold and Brigadier General Somerville (commander of the army's logistics forces during the war) immediately decided to implement it immediately. John wasn't interested in the training course, but he was in charge of the warehousing and logistics program.

FedEx undoubtedly has a lot of experience in this area, so it was a natural choice to win the deal. The reason why John is so active is not only to make money, but because once he masters this spare parts supply channel, he will also indirectly pinch the life of other aviation manufacturing companies. In the future competition, if anyone wants to hack the Hughes plane, don't blame John for being unkind to them.