Building Flying-Boats

image: The interior of an assembly shed at an aircraft factory. On the left is an aircraft under construction. In the right of the composition workers stand at benches planing and fixing pieces for the aircraft. Their jackets are hung on pegs on the right that run the length of the factory wall.

Flying boats (designed with a boat-like fuselage for landing and take off from water) were used extensively by the British during World War One, notably for spotting German U-boats by following mathematically constructed search patterns. Although the technology of flight demanded precision design and the use of the aircraft was sophisticated, they are being manufactured using traditional carpentry skills. Workmen at benches, using planes and scrapers, are hand manufacturing the individual components for this most modern machine. The setting is probably the Belle Vue Barracks, Manningham, Bradford where many planes were assembled. Specialist engineers and craftsmen joiners from a range of companys worked together in small teams to provide the technical expertise required and to meet the demand. Late in the war, Germany developed the first metal-based fuselage and these skills would shortly be made redundant and replaced by the production line. The need to have the latest technologies supporting the development and production of armaments was a crucial lesson from World War One.

Flying boats were used extensively by the British during World War One, notably for spotting German U-boats by following mathematically constructed search patterns. They were designed with a boat-like fuselage for landing and take off from water. Although the technology of flight demanded precision design and the use of the aircraft was sophisticated, they are being manufactured using traditional skills. Specialist engineers and craftsmen joiners from a range of companies worked together in small teams to provide the technical expertise required to meet the urgent demand.

Artist Flora Lion focused on showing these male factory workers as quiet, skilled cabinet makers. Their faces are out of focus and the figures do not seem confident. It is quite different from Lion's painting of women canteen workers. Image This scene shows the interior of an assembly shed at an aircraft factory. The setting is probably the Belle Vue Barracks, Manningham, Bradford. On the left you can see a flying boat under construction and on the right workers stand at benches planing and fixing pieces for the aircraft. History Flying boats were used extensively by the British for spotting German U-Boats. Though the technology of flight demanded cutting-edge precision, the boats were manufactured using traditional carpentry skills. Expert engineers and craftsmen joiners from a range of companies were brought together into small teams to meet the demand for flying boats.

Ministry of Information commission. 1918

Flora Lion. 1918