Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corporation - Electronic Energy
February 1944 Popular Science

February 1944 Popular Science [Table of Contents] Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics. See articles from Popular Science, published 1872-2021. All copyrights hereby acknowledged.

At the same time that radio frequency waves were being applied to wireless communications, they were also being used for applications in medicine, food preparation and sterilization, manufacturing, and in other realms. The usefulness of x-rays was known to most people, even if they didn't understand them. At much lower frequencies, particularly microwaves, RF signal interaction with water and other types of liquid molecules provides an effective and efficient means of heating to accelerate cooking of meat and curing of adhesives. The latter is what this Fairchild infomercial appearing in a 1944 issue of Popular Science magazine touted as an example of how they are inventing and applying cutting edge technology to help win World War II. The use of microwave heating for curing plywood has been used since high power vacuum tubes capable of those frequencies were invented.

Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corporation - Electronic Energy

The Touch of Tomorrow in the Planes of Today

New Magic from the Mysterious Electron

Through X-ray, the unfathomable electron has saved millions of lives. Through radio, it has extended man's hearing to every corner of the world. Through television, it permits him to see beyond all previous limits of sight.

And now Fairchild's Duramold engineers have harnessed the electron to a new and urgent task - the manufacture of aircraft components.

The usual plywood techniques for joining thin layers of wood could not be applied in making highly stressed, thick sections. New methods were needed - in a hurry.

Duramold engineers found the solution in electronic energy, employing radio high frequency with apparatus similar to that used by radio stations in sending out short wave broadcasts.

Heat generation by radio frequency, coupled with special adhesives, now turns out better, stronger aircraft parts. And the production cycle has been clipped from hours to minutes. The use of electronics is becoming a new and important technique in Duramold's process for assembling molded wood structures.

Thanks to the ingenuity of Fairchild engineers, with their flair for getting the "touch of tomorrow in the planes of today," a new technique has been successfully applied toward the common goal of turning out stronger planes - and doing it faster.

Buy War Savings Bonds and Stamps regularly.

Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corporation

30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York

Ranger Aircraft Engines Division, Farmingdale, L.I. • Fairchild Aircraft Division, Hagerstown, Md ... Burlington, N. C. • Duramold Division, New York, N. Y.

Posted April 5, 2024