Yankee Air Museum Wants To Move To Willow Run

Morning Edition:

Rosie the Riveter, with one of the most famous clenched fists in American history, embodied the message of hardworking women during World War II: We Can Do It. Now a nonprofit is hoping to carry on that legacy. In a little more than a month, the historic Michigan factory where Rosie and thousands of other women built B-24 bombers could face the wrecking ball. That's unless the Yankee Air Museum can raise enough money to salvage part of that massive plant.
As Michigan Radio's Tracy Samilton reports in this encore story, the museum sees the factory as the perfect place to start anew, after a devastating fire destroyed its collections.
TRACY SAMILTON, BYLINE: It's downright majestic, the way this huge hangar door on the old Willow Run assembly plant opens. Thirty-two feet tall and 150 feet wide, the doors were built that big so that finished B-24 bombers could be rolled out of the factory, then tested on the airport runway here before going to war.
GRANT TRIGGER: And what's remarkable to me is this is more reliable than my garage door.
SAMILTON: Grant Trigger is cleanup manager for GM's former properties in the state of Michigan.
TRIGGER: Built by engineers with slide rules in 1942, and it still works today.
SAMILTON: For decades, Ford's former bomber plant turned out cars for GM. But with GM's bankruptcy came a trust fund to find new developers for sites like this. The iconic place where Rosie flexed her muscles during World War II seemed fated for demolition.
TRIGGER: The size of the space, which was phenomenal at the time, is simply too big for today's manufacturing facilities. There's 83 acres under one roof.
SAMILTON: Eighty-three acres under one roof, nearly five million square feet, or the size of a huge housing subdivision. Surely, someone would want at least a little piece of that history. Enter the Yankee Air Museum. This nonprofit with an annual budget of $2 million and a paid staff of six had a big collection of historic airplanes, some of which still flew, along with aviation history exhibits until 2004.

83 acres under one roof?  Holy shit.  Willow Run had to be amazing back during World War II:

 Architect Albert Kahn designed the main structure of the Willow Run bomber plant, which had 3,500,000 square feet (330,000 m²) of factory space, and an aircraft assembly line over a mile long. It was thought to be the largest factory under one roof anywhere in the world. The Willow Run plant featured a large turntable two-thirds of the way along the assembly line, allowing the B-24 production line to make a 90° turn before continuing to final assembly. According to legend, this arrangement allowed the company to pay taxes on the entire plant (and its equipment) to Washtenaw County, and avoid the higher taxes of Wayne County where the airfield is located; overhead views suggest that avoiding encroachment on the airfield's taxiways was also a motivation.
The Willow Run Plant had many initial startup problems, due primarily to the fact that Ford employees were used to automobile mass production and found it difficult to adapt these techniques to aircraft production. The plant at Willow Run was also beset with labor difficulties, high absentee rates, and rapid employee turnover. The factory was nearly an hour's drive from Detroit, and the imposition of wartime gasoline and tire rationing had made the daily commute difficult. In only one month, Ford had hired 2900 workers but had lost 3100.
Also, Henry Ford was cantankerous and rigid in his ways. He was violently anti-union and there were serious labor difficulties, including a massive strike. In addition, Henry Ford refused on principle to hire women. However, he finally relented and did employ "Rosie the Riveters" on his assembly lines, probably more because so many of his potential male workers had been drafted into the military than due to any sudden development of a social conscience on his part.
By autumn 1943, the top leadership role at Willow Run had passed from Charles Sorensen to Mead L. Bricker.
At the request of the government, Ford began to decentralize operations and many parts were assembled at other Ford plants as well as by the company's sub-contractors, with the Willow Run plant concentrating on final aircraft assembly. The bugs were eventually worked out of the manufacturing processes, and by 1944, Ford was rolling a Liberator off the Willow Run production line every 63 minutes, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
At its peak, Willow Run produced 650 B-24s per month. By 1945, Ford produced 70% of the B-24s in two nine hour shifts. Ford produced half of the 18,000 total B-24s at Willow Run, and the B-24 holds the distinction of being the most produced heavy bomber in history.
A total of 6,972 Liberators were built at Ford, and 1,893 knock-down parts were provided for other manufacturers.

The scale is amazing.