Aircraft manufacturers are now studying how best to meet President Roosevelt's programme for the construction of a fleet of 12,000 first-line sombers and fighting planes within he next three to five years, The manufacturers are attempting to draft eans for ce-ordination of the activi-Ues of all plane manufacturing plants in a huge programme designed to give the United States undisputed air supremacy of the world within a period of five years.
Apart from Mr. Johnson's brief announcement confirming that these conferences are being held, both Government circles and executives of the. rious aircraft manufacturing conus here today declined to comment on the plan. Observers here, however, recalled the statement made by Mr. Johnson in Boston on November 118, in which he declared that the United States must double, treble and "perhaps even quadruple" its present air force in order to keep abreast of the other nations of the world in the present armament race.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.