Airplane “skins” and engine cowlings formerly shaped by hand tools and power hammers are now being formed by a hydraulic metal-stretching press, first of its kind in this country, put into operation recently at the Glenn L. Martin aircraft plant. It consists of two hydraulic cylinders under a platen on which the form rests. A sheet of metal is placed over the form and its ends clamped tightly in two rows of jaws. When pressure is applied the platen is forced upward, stretching the sheet until it hugs the form tightly. The operatfon takes but a few minutes, during which the sheet, in taking its new form loses five to seven per cent in thickness.