After a few years there came a lull in the growth, and finally the order actually declined.

The association reported that orders declined 32.8 percent from April 1986.

At $3.13 billion, orders declined 2.8 percent compared with March.

In the 1960s orders declined, with a total of 76 Comet 4s being delivered from 1958 to 1964.

New orders also declined, but at a lesser rate than in July.

Without that, orders would have declined two-tenths of 1 percent.

It has seen its orders decline about 40 percent from last year's level.

Historically, both production and new orders decline in December, the association said.

Without the military factor, orders actually declined 2.1 percent, the department said.

For the first four months of the year, orders declined 11.1 percent from the comparable period in 1990, to $845.1 million.