The recent back-and-forth over making ventilators, and the expressed fear by some that we might overproduce them, caused me to research the production and supply of warplanes during WWII. Here’s what I found:
The US produced close to 300,000 warplanes during WWII and had approximately 150,000 surplus after the war. One out of two. There was no fear we might overstock.
“What happened was that the whole nation came together for a single purpose, and successfully committed itself to doing all that was necessary,” writes Bill Yenne, author of The American Aircraft Factory in World War II (Zenith Press, 2006).
Here’s an interesting site about what happened to all of those planes after the war: https://www.airplaneboneyards.com/post-wwii-long-term-aircr…