Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

The Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company (CAMCO), also known as the Loiwing Factory after it moved to Yunnan, was a Chinese aircraft maker started in the 1930s by American William D. Pawley. Beginning in 1933, CAMCO assembled about 100 Hawk II and Hawk III fighters and 25 Gamma 2E attack-bombers at Hangzhou Jianqiao Airport. These planes, originally designed as scout bombers for the U.S. Navy, formed the backbone of the Chinese Air Force in the early part of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Former Boeing engineer Wang Zhu served as CAMCO’s chief of engineering from 1934 to 1937.

As Nationalist forces fell back from the coast in 1937–38, CAMCO moved inland to Hankou under Bruce Gardner Leighton, who ran the operation from 1937–1939. The Hankou site repaired damaged aircraft and may have assembled some Curtiss H-75 fighters (the export version of the P-36). When Hankou fell in October 1938, CAMCO moved to Hengyang and added Vultee V-11 light bombers. A new factory was started far inland at Loiwing on the China-Burma frontier, opening in spring 1939 and connected to Rangoon by the Burma Road. The Nationalist government financed this plant. At Loiwing, CAMCO assembled some Hawk 75 (P-36 type) and Curtiss-Wright CW-21 fighters, though exact numbers aren’t known.

In winter 1940–41, Pawley helped recruit and supply the 1st American Volunteer Group (AVG), the Flying Tigers. CAMCO acted as the AVG’s employer of record and set up a facility at Mingaladon airport near Rangoon to assemble 100 Curtiss P-40 fighters for the AVG. CAMCO ran offices in Rangoon and New York to handle housekeeping and records for the AVG until it disbanded in July 1942. The Loiwing plant was also used to repair AVG P-40s, and its airfield was briefly used by the AVG for raids into Thailand and Burma.

After the Allied retreat from Burma in spring 1942, CAMCO’s plant was lost to the Japanese. Pawley moved the operation to Bangalore, India, where he joined with Hindustan Aircraft Ltd. to assemble Harlow trainers for the Indian Air Force, helping Bangalore become a major high-tech center in the region.