There was another by-product result arising from the fact that the company, even in the doldrum days, when there were few orders for ships, had kept its engineers at work on research and its ships flying on experimental missions. It all happened suddenly, a colorful circumstance not often found in the sober humdrum of the business world. A great plane manufacturer, having more defense work than its crowded shops could handle, looked around for some company with experience in the fabrication of light metal, to whom it could farm out some of the details. Goodyear Aircraft Corporation, the aeronautic subsidiary, was asked to build tail surfaces for Martin bombers. A curious thing happened. Men whose work had been primarily with airships, rather than airplanes (omitting the quite different field of airplane tires, wheels, and brakes) found themselves on familiar ground when they swung over to heavier-than-air construction. Here was the same problem of getting maximum strength with minimum weight, of selection and treatment of light alloys, of intricate stress calculations, and a hundred ingenious devices to measure those stresses, enabling designers to turn out a scientifically designed structure. The background was there—not to mention their experience and studies in streamlined design—to reduce resistance, get maximum performance from power plants. The difference was that in the case of the airship savings in weight mount fast, because of size. The importance of light weight and high strength had come home to airship designers years before. Their experience was directly applicable to the new field. Other orders came in, from Curtiss, Consolidated, Grumman, and soon the huge plant was humming with the production of parts for fighters and bombers. Then a four-company arrangement was set up by the government to expand airplane production still further, and after that an order for complete planes. The original plant was now jam-packed with lathes and drills, jigs and presses, and three huge new plants were built alongside and across the road, and Goodyear Aircraft Corporation found itself with thousands of men, building not only airships, but airplanes and airplane parts as well. Every large company took on new tasks in defense, but in this case Goodyear was able to move quickly, and give unexpected support to the airplane program by reason of its long research in a different field. This result, it is true, grew chiefly out of research in rigid airships, rather than non-rigids, but both played a part in another instance—barrage balloons.