Goodbye Beautiful Wing

By Terrence O'Neill

In 1939 three men took the whole world to war: Japan, Italy, and Germany. Hirohito, Mussolini, and Hitler who boasted creating a 1000 year Reich, a German Earth.
Their attacking killing machines were led by new bombers - as long range artillery, some designed to fly half way around the planet, carrying very powerful bombs. Bombers started, and bombers ended, World War II, which killed 50 million people in five years.
The newest bombers, in focus here, designed by an American genius and ordered by patriots, were then trashed by ignorant, unethical military and political employees of the People and a greedy financier. The result threatened us with WW III, which could kill billions of us in days.
This story was covered by secrecy for decades until the Freedom Of Information Act, Internet information retrieval, and biographies.
These amazing, almost unbelievable events really happened, with tragic results, because our Constitution did not require our employees to be competent, ethical or logical.
It still doesn't.
This story exposes how our excellent system of government is abused by lying persons who we naively admire.
Read this, People, think for yourself, and do something.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Terrence O'Neill
• Release date: Nov 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9780979012136

Terrence O'Neill

Terrence O'Neill soloed in a Porterfield, at age 16, four months after two atomic bombs ended WW II. At age 23, he transferred from Engineering to get a BA in Journalism, Notre Dame, January 1953, Korean War time, then enlisted in the Navy Air Corps. He flew P2Vs in Patrol Squadron FOUR in the Pacific until 1957, rated Instrument and Patrol Plane Commander. After service he worked many day-job years as a reporter, tech writer, free-lance writer, and PR manager for Falstaff Brewing Corp. In 1960, after work hours, he bought and restored the last Waco aircraft, the tail-prop AristoCraft. In 1967 he incorporated O’Neill Airplane Company to design, build, and test fly, to manufacture his Model W, a six-place lightplane, earning FAA Provisional Type Certificate A19CE in 1969, just as the General Aviation market crashed, and capital ran out. Next, while Admin Director for a civil engineering company, he designed, built and flight tested 'Jake', a dedicated bush plane, later modified with swing-tail into ‘Magnum Pickup’ to carry one-ton loads and snowmobiles. He also improved and flew a Mitchell flying wing. In between times he and his wife Cynthia, a retired teacher with two Masters degrees, used their tandem-wing Dragonfly to visit their six scattered college grad children.O'Neill's primary interest is sport aircraft design. He has more than 20 years as a Tech Counselor and Flight Advisor for Experimental Aircraft Association.He started developing a blended-wing-body design in 1985, which led him to study the Northrop B-35 and B-49 Flying Wings and be puzzled by the Wing’s publicized 'problems' which did not make aerodynamic sense. His research spun-off inventing, with math assist of son Timothy, a device for providing roll-yaw stability for swept wing aircraft, awarded US Patent 5,078,338. The research also motivated him to investigate why the Air Force bought inferior B-36 Peacemaker ‘Stick’ instead of stealthy (1948!) B-35 Flying Wings, which is the story of Goodbye Beautiful Wing.O'Neill has about 2000 hours as a Commercial Pilot license with single- and multi-engine, instrument, instructor ratings.Yesterday 121611, I published my eBook Goodbye Beautiful Wing (Amazon) and ordered print books.Questions or comments are welcome.

Book preview

GOODBYE BEAUTIFUL WING

An Industrial-Political-Military Blunder

A 95% Non-Fiction Novel

Considering … Whether, How and Why the First Secretary of the United States Air Force Saved the Multi-Millionaire CEO’s Convair Corporation by Selecting for Our First Dedicated Nuclear Bomber the Incapable Convair B-36, and Destroying the Superior Breakthrough Stealthy Northrop B-35 Wing

By Terrence O’Neill

Copyright 2011 by Terrence O'Neill

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form, without written permission from the publisher, unless by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages. Exceptions are illustrations credited to Wikipedia which remain free use as described in Wikipedia website, and illustrations produced by, for or of government employees in their work, and are therefore public domain, and not eligible for copyright protection. Other photo and illustration credits as noted.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Disclaimer:

The story's form is 'faction', combining within the framework of incredible historical events, a minimum of fiction to carry the story by filling in for lost, scattered and 60-year-classified records. The actual events and story are supported by FOIA records, illustrations of the government microfilmed correspondence, common sense, logic, and simple laws of physics, adding color and action that -- if it didn't happen --should have.

Most of the characters in this book were historical persons, now expired. Still with us are Northrop test pilot Charles Tucker and possibly two or three others who would have to be up in years, but we were unable to contact.

The protagonist, his family and sweetheart, and minor characters are all fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons other than to members of the author's own family, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

The non-fiction dates are historically correct or very close to it.

The historical events, aircraft, atomic weapons details, and historical accounts are derived from related government and other publications and biographies.

All of the dialogue, except the interview and Introduction of Charles Tucker, is fiction. Most scenes portray actual events, dramatized. Some scenes and events are entirely fictional, as noted in Author’s Notes or the Appendices.

Dramatized scenes and the opinions expressed in them and in the Author's Notes are the products of the author's imagination and should not be construed as real, although they are plausible.

Nothing is intended or should be interpreted as expressing or representing the views of the U.S. Air Force, the Congress, or the Administration, or any other department or agency of any government body.

Dedication

To the very rare persons who understand that Ethics judges which man-made laws are morally binding, and that to maintain a free society, good individuals must privately act to counter evil individuals.

Acknowledgements:

Library of Congress personnel supplied relevant data.

Ted Coleman, former vice-president of Marketing and author of Jack Northrop and the Flying Wing, loaned his comments and background information about Jack Northrop, the merger demand, and management activities during this program inside Northrop in the 1940s.

Volunteers at the Northrop Museum, made copies of the actual Erection and Maintenance for the Army Model XB-35, and added colorful comments reported to be typical of cooperation in the old Northrop organization. Many dozens of articles and brave crew-accounts and some publications of the Convair B-36 were studied to gain an understanding of that aircraft and its history.

The University of Alabama was able to promptly supply dozens of invaluable Annual Reports of the corporations involved, for the period of the story.

The Truman on-line Library proved an excellent and personal-view source of information with their personal interviews of the persons who inhabited high places in government at the time.

Charles Tucker, an amazing example of the young Americans who became courageous fighter pilots in WW II, was a Flying Tiger. Tucker survived dogfights in China to become an Operations Officer of the cadre, the very first jet fighter squadron at Palmdale, California, in 1945. After the war he professionally flight tested new Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star fighters, and was a close personal friend of fellow test pilot Neil Armstrong. In his career he survived incredible disasters like the 500-mph disintegration of his XP-89 at low altitude. He demonstrated (by completing the AAF's stringent stall tests that AAF test pilots refused to fly) that the huge Flying Wing was stable and not dangerous, even recovering it from a stall-spin. Chuck furnished many stories and photographs.

Gerald Balzer, a Northrop engineer, also lent colorful stories, and freely shared his photographs of many of Northrop's wonderful aircraft.

Cynthia W. O'Neill, my steadfast spouse and invaluable editor, ably applied her 17 years of teaching language arts, together with decades of listening to her husband talk about aircraft, to refining the manuscript, all the while encouraging the author.

Timothy O'Neill, aircraft project partner and son, co-owner of our patent on solving the roll-yaw stability problem of all swept-wing aircraft, reviewed the aerodynamic realities related to stability and performance of the Northrop Wing, drawing on his MA in Aerospace Engineering and years doing aeronautical engineering at Boeing, then at Starsys Research Corporation in Colorado, designing components for NASA and the Mars Lander, and now at Lockheed

Government Printing Office, Many Museums, Institutions and Individuals contributed the use of historical data and photographs.

Free sharing of information, especially via the Internet, was essential in putting together the 'very likely' truth of the story of this very controversial billion dollar purchase of military hardware, paid for by We, the People.

Cover photos do not note credit if in the public domain, usually because of government source. Other cover photo credits are as follows:

Jack Northrop (Balzer), Ted Coleman (Coleman), Mick O’Connell (Author), Schaefer O’Connell (Author), Louis Johnson (Wikipedia), Stuart Symington (Wikipedia), Charles Lindbergh (Wikipedia), Chuck Tucker (Tucker).

CONTENTS

Preface

Background

Introduction

1--1938, June - Spy; Rainbow; Jack

2--1939, September– New Northrop

3--1940, July – Hap and FDR

4--1941, April – Colonels' Coffee Klatch

5--1941, December – Consolidated, AKA Convair

6--1942, February – Design Priorities

7--1942, July – The Gearbox

8--1942, July – Kaiser-Northrop

9--1943, May – N9M Crash

10-1943, August – Convair All-Wing

11-1943, November – Poop Hits the Prop

12-1944, May – The Truth Will Out

13-1945, May – U-234

14-1945, July – Engineless Superbombers

15-1945, March – Air War Japan, and a Poker Game

16-1945, August – PostWar Status

17-1945, September – Convair Visits Pratt & Whitney

18-1945, November – Engines Arrive

19-1946, January – Bim Briefs Bosses

20-1946, April – Bad Vibes

21-1946, May – Northrop's Son

22-1946, May – Pre-Trip Briefing

23-1946, May – Sunday Dinner

24-1946, May – Mick Meets B-35

25-1946, June – Odlums Do Madrid

26-1946, June – Prosthetics

27-1946, June - No More Than 95!

28-1946, June – First Flights

29-1946, June – Mick Meets Mary

30-1946, June – M&M2

31-1946, July – Pre-Race Banquet, Los Angeles

32-1946, July – Wright and Bell

33-1946, July – Mick Asks Bim

34-1946, July – Making Pentagon Waves

35-1946, July – Mick Asks Lindbergh

36-1946, July – The Manufacturers

37-1946, July – Convair's Nest

38-1946, July – Tapping Political Experience

39-1946, July – The Report

40-1946, August – Engage

41-1946, August – Scouting for Test Pilots

42-1946, August – If I Buy Convair

43-1946, October – Prop-Wing and Stick Status

44-1947, July – High Brass

45-1947, September – SAC's Consultant

46-1947, October – Convair Takeover

47-1948, March – Patriot or Profiteer

48-1948, June – Stall

49-1948, July – Merge, or Else!

50-1948, September - Driveline Fix

51-1948, October – Slip-Bombing

52-1948, November – The Oracle

53-1948, December – The Fly-Off

54-1948, December – Bomb Hawaii

55-1948, December – Mission Accomplished

56-1948, December - ...Sorry!

56.1-1949, May – Jackie Unavailable

57-1949, July – Last Prop-Wing Scrapped

58-1949, November – Vinson Reviews Revolt

59-1949, December – For The Record

60-1950, March – HST Questions

61-1950, March – More Questions

62-1950, March – Stuart's Stewardship

63-1953, September – Goodbye, Beautiful Wing

64- Bottom Line

Postscript

Appendix Interview with Chuck Tucker

About the Author

PREFACE

Goodbye Beautiful Wing -- aka GM,DS! -- 'Good Men, Do Something!' --

is a modification of Edmund Burke's saying:

All that is needed for evil to triumph is that Good Men Do Nothing.

Goodbye Beautiful Wing is a historical romance. This is what happens every time if good men do nothing. It is a true story, a tragedy.

Driven by the creation of the atomic bomb to fight off dictators, the subject is the subsequent purchase of America's most expensive and important weapon, again created to fight off subsequent new dictators at the start of the Cold War.

Our persons in control blundered: one unqualified for the job, one motivated by greed, another corrupted by his own ambition, and all protected by two flaws in our social contract: the Constitution does not require those with great authority, such as military, legislators, or administrators, or judges, to have any other qualifications than age and citizenship.

They do not have to be rational or qualified to do the job.

They do not have to be ethical.

This true story shows how these two flaws wasted billions of taxpayer-earned wealth on useless government hardware, resulting in the waste the lives of tens of thousands of trusting military persons, and very nearly cause World War Three and the end of all civilization...and has been covered up with lies for more than 60 years.

Technology, excessively concentrated wealth and weakening social ethics has put civilization at stake. If we were the oppressed French people in the 1800s, or Russian peasants in the early 1900s, we would there find such blundering persons protected by perverted laws and unresponsive representatives. In France the abused People finally revolted and cut off hundreds of heads. In Russia they hunted down and shot entire families of the abusive excessively rich. That seems extreme, but it's very difficult to take back your wealth from thieves and criminals hiding behind police and armies that ‘just follow orders’. The alternative is economic slavery, hopeless futures for our children, and nowadays the destruction of the ecosphere, the extinction of animals in the food chain, radical climate change, the threat of nuclear war., and the death of a world.

This story unmasks one such too-wealthy and powerful a person. One person did this colossal, almost gentle corrupting, but corrupting and colossal just the same. Just as he would be today, he was regarded in his own time by the naive public as a 'good man'. He wasn't. We unfairly forgave him because of his other good acts, and we dupe ourselves because we all want to be rich like him.

Scattered elements of this historic story began weaving their way together just prior to World War Two, were fused into epic importance with the explosions of the first atomic bombs, which then drove the story clanging and clashing through the post-WW II chaos at the start of the Cold War. Then -- like now -- unfairly privileged and ethically challenged persons in the United States' political-military-industrial system, like the crowd choosing Barabbas instead of Jesus, chose a flawed bomber, thereby compromising U.S. air power for more than seven years, invited a war that killed 33,000 and wounded 103,000 young American in Korea, wasted further billions in buying subsequent flawed aircraft, and terrified mankind for 40 years with the threat of extinction if the Cold War turned hot.

The machines, the dates, the persons and events herein are historical fact -– except for those persons and scenes identified as fictional.

However, the characters, scenes, and dialog which are fictional are restrained within the logical confines of the historical facts and what may fairly be deduced from them. They’re true to the flow of the story. These fictional threads are needed to carry the story in situations which could have or should have occurred, but for which evidence is lacking due to unnecessary 60 -year-old government secrecy and/or the passage of a half century.

The fictional protagonist is Michael O'Connell, who comes to understand that when Good Men Do nothing, evil wins. Also fictional are his parents and a few other characters.

The GMDS theme underlies the complex, intermingled activities involved in the many years committed to designing, building, testing and selling production of hundreds of multi-million-dollar aircraft, each one of which costing taxpayers more than its weight in silver, and one of which was by design tactically incapable of performing its primary mission. Because of the threat of a third and nuclear world war, and especially because of the money involved, the project was patriotically, avariciously and politically of intense interest to presidents and dictators, generals and admirals, top politicians and bureaucrats, aviation design geniuses and industrialists, financiers, dedicated thought-leaders of the People, technicians, test-pilots, their friends and family -- most of whose glittering names are still known today. From the records of their actions, deduced and obvious motives, we learn how they worked and why.

Post-WW II America enjoyed four years of joyous triumph for the victorious USA, but also saw political, military and industrial confusion. In WW II the United States (330,000 killed) got off easy, as did Britain (360,000) and France (415,000), compared to other combatant nations. Germany lost 6.5 million, Japan 2.5 million, China 20 million, and Russia 25 million. Poland 6 million.

By 1946 people were sick of war, but the juggernaut USSR brazenly threatened a new war in devastated Europe. President Truman promised help to any nation fight off Communism. The people of the USA had to continue to spend billions on new weapons to oppose USSR actions. Spending billions in a time of chaos and technological change tempted many to lie to acquire wealth, power, and status. A lot of sly lying is documented in the records.

The conclusion the reader may come to, as the protagonist finally does, too late, is that the lying must be stopped and punished, common sense demanded, secrecy relinquished and truth published to the People, so that We, the People, can immediately correct flaws in our system, or else our system will continue to fail us as it does here, perhaps in the face of the next great enemies == liars who may be in our own family. This story also reveals how very close the Axis powers in WW II came to enslaving the world for centuries.

Nowadays the nuclear threat is much worse than in 1949 when there were only 113 A-bombs in the world and we controlled them. Though scientists long ago agreed that only 100 nuclear explosions would cause a civilization-ending nuclear winter, thanks to our leaders all life on Earth can now be destroyed in hours, by using more than 20,000 (!) nuclear weapons still operational in 2006, and more nukes are being put into the hands of irrational and unethical leaders every year. The propagandized, misled People in every election re-elect nine out of ten incumbent legislators most of whom who do not even read the bills they vote on, who voted to destroy the wealth-producing Unions, who have ducked their responsibility for declaring war or not, who vote themselves raises while trashing programs for the public good, approve virtual monopolies in the media thereby destroying the free Press, and who created a secret National Security Agency which spends billions without giving account and which refuses to take orders from just about anyone. Are the People too dumb to vote all incumbents out? Are they trying to buy security by giving up their freedoms?

The good news is that evil is self-destructive, but the bad news is, the self-destruction takes too much time, during which, evil can destroy us and everything good along with it ... if individual good men don't act. We all know Jefferson foresaw the perversion of our government and commented that it would justify revolution by the People, perhaps against the corrupters and perverters rather than the government.

We should be concerned because now, if we don't correct these two flaws in our social system and change our direction, there is no other United States of America to save the free world, as we did sixty years ago.

Terrence O'Neill, 2011 A.D

BACKGROUND

We need to see this in the technology framework of 1945-1950. After Hiroshima in August 1945, history's new direction was dictated by the atomic bomb. Only the USA had the atomic bomb until 1949, and President Truman used it to threaten the Communists to behave. But his ability depended on the subject of this story.

One year later a new Superpower of Communists forced the USA to create a new kind of dedicated A-bomber, because the A-bomb had be carried 4000 miles to a target, twice as far as WW II bombers could range, and would have to fly without fighter protection for more than 3000 of those miles. The USSR's secret war-industry targets were in the Ural Mountains, eight times as far as Berlin from England, and twice as far as Japan was from the Marianas Islands.

We needed a bomber that could survive flying through enemy airspace that was guarded by 19,000 radar-directed USSR interceptors, to bomb targets and return. This was nearly a decade before there was anything like an intercontinental missile or in-flight refueling.

There were only bombers. Bombers toted the Bomb. This story is about them.

Thanks to an inspired President Roosevelt decision in 1941, our political, industrial and military leaders were by 1946 presented with prototypes of two new bomber designs for this mission. The industrialists and military buyers involved used then-accepted business practices to test and choose only one of these bomber designs for production for SAC, the Strategic Air Command. SAC was the force which the USA charged with disarming the USSR.

The human catastrophe of WW II -- the violent killing of more than 50 million people –- averaging a million every month for fifty eight months -- was followed by the tragedy of this story: a nearly unimaginable, arrogant waste of hard-earned citizens' wealth, and even worse, tens of thousands of deaths, and decades of terror.

The story carefully follows the exact dates of historical events, and attempts to honestly portray the character of the major personages, drawing sense from their own and military biographies, from the publicity of the times, museums, and government documents from the Freedom Of Information Act. Although much data remains unreachably dispersed and/or unnecessarily classified even after 50 years ... such as Charles A. Lindbergh's detailed evaluation of Strategic Air Command's aircraft and tactics ... more than enough information is now available to thread together the story reasonably deducible from the facts, and from the participants' actions. Mixed in a maelstrom of human acts of great leadership, courage, brilliant creativity, noble commitment and self-sacrifice are also great anti-societal criminal lies and irrational greed, some of which was condoned in our social system, but which here is exposed as evil by using detective-like deductions, the laws of aerodynamics, and overwhelming circumstantial evidence.

The story shows what the gilded liars were really doing and why. We can see the resemblance to even worse events today. Similarly today, liars are again forcing good men to question a plethora of confusing bad laws that protect special interests ... protect unethical rich friends.

In the story the fictional protagonist and his father, drawing on their Irish heritage, realize too late that they would be forced to return to basic Ethics -- the unchanging and self-evident natural laws of human behavior that are higher than man's law -- to stop the high level wealth-grabbing conspiracy endangering the nation ... and world.

The moral of the tale shows why individual good men must confront and correct the social crime of greed – not only because it robs wealth from those who produce it, but because it rots our representatives, corrodes our Constitution, and trashes our world.

But to be motivated to act we first we must see to understand how this happens.

PRE-WAR

Understanding the events to follow requires a broad perspective, because in the late 1930s our whole world was about to go to war. The leaders of Japan, Italy and Germany decided to take what was their neighbors', and were making killing machines and propagandizing and terrorizing their own people, to get them to kill, rob and enslave. Their own rich robber barons bankrolled them, for profit.

The United States of America before the Second World War had 132 million citizens. Parents were working hard, raising families, buying homes and cars, enjoying sports, the movies and big band music, and going to the New York World's Fair to see the Trylon and the Perisphere, to be amazed by our industries' forecasts of a wonderful future. We Americans had prospered because we had and abided by an efficient social contract: the Constitution and Bill or Rights ... the western worldview. But our citizens were reading in their newspapers that across the vast oceans isolating the USA, several of Earth's 'civilized and advanced' societies had already started warring again, not 20 years after WW I.

The 80 million of industrialized Japan obediently supported the invasion of Manchuria and in December 1937 took Shanghai, looting and savagely killing more than one hundred thousand Chinese ... their own genetic ancestors.

The 47 million of Italy empowered Mussolini to order the invasion of Ethiopia, entered a treaty with Germany in 1936, and then half-heartedly attacked Greece. Italy was repelled there until in 1939 the Germans came down and helped.

The 66-million intelligent, technically advanced, Christian, disciplined Germans in Europe in 1938, happily cheering a charismatic Hitler, enthusiastically announced they would establish a Third Reich that would last 1000 years. By force. Then they took Czechoslovakia and Austria by mere threat of force, and sized up the rest of Europe.

The 200 million of the Communist Soviet Union in 1939 accepted a treaty offered by Hitler agreeing to Germany's request not to fight if they both divided Poland. Then Germany 'blitzkrieged' western Poland into defeat, while from the east Russia attacked and took eastern Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

England's royalty had a treaty with their cousins in Poland, which they honored though unprepared, and declared war on Germany on behalf of the English Empire's 600 million mostly poor subjects -- 44 million in the home isles, 14 million in Canada, 8 million in Australia, 370 million in India, and others -- to Hitler's unpleasant surprise. He didn't want war with England, yet. The Nazi Wehrmacht then smashed all its European neighbor's small, unprepared armies and took the rest of Europe, while Germany's Navy – mainly its Kriegsmarine's sixty submarines -- blockaded England, sinking one out of every three Lend-Lease Aid ships coming from the United States with supplies.

(In the blockade's next few years U.S. merchant ships were sunk: in 1939 – 200; 1940 – 1000; 1941 – 1300; 1942 – 1700; the toll was reduced in 1943 – 600; 1944 – 200, after we sent the Brits 50 old WW I destroyers, and introduced small hunter-killer aircraft carriers.)

Most of her Navy soon sunk, Island England fought off German invasion in the Battle of Britain, by a war in the air in the summer and fall of 1940, and stayed alive thanks only to the Royal Air Force beating back the Luftwaffe, thus blocking the waiting invasion barges of the Wehrmacht already docked on the east side of the Channel.

Looking to the Far East the USA became alarmed at Japanese aggression. In 1939 Japan invaded French Indo-China. Trying to protect American property, the USA banned sale of scrap iron to Japan in 1940, and oil in 1941. Japan needed ore, rubber and oil, and so had to look farther south toward the resources of the Philippines and Australia.

Japan joined the German-Italian Axis on May 16, 1940, in order to continue its expansion by warfare. These three belligerent, aggressive governments world-wide were violently killing, imprisoning and enslaving men, women and children, forcing adults to work in war factories, sending children to learn from new school-teachers and propaganda books, and of course stealing the resources of Austria, Czechoslovakia, Libya, Greece, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, France, Norway, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Liechtenstein, Croatia, Manchuria, Korea, Taiwan, Ryukyus, North China, French Indo-China, Thailand, Malaya, Borneo, Malay, Dutch East Indies, New Ireland in the Solomon Islands, Guam, and Mandalay.

Clearly, they were thinking world conquest. With these added resources they got stronger. The purpose of unjust war, after all, is to rob and enslave neighbors, by murdering as much as required, to take what belongs to others, while rationalizing it with lies, to make life more luxurious at home.

Bombing, force by airpower, initiated most of these military actions by German, Italian and Japanese, blasting the enemy at long range as a kind of aerial artillery – aerial dump trucks of death -- after their fighters cleared enemy planes from the air to protect the bombers, so that ground and sea forces could attack and conquer unmolested.

Aircraft were the prime weapons of the mid-Twentieth Century. Would the United States be ready when war came?

No.

American Leaders' Perspective in 1940

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was brilliant. While millions of his constituents demanded that the US stay out of the war, he and his few wiser military planners thoughtfully stared, worried, across the Atlantic in 1940, and then across the Pacific to our U. S. Territories, Hawaiian Islands, the Philippines and Guam. With squinting mental eyes they could foresee what must come next. Very soon, if Germany took England and then Russia, there might be just us, the USA, against a German-Italian-Japanese world with all its resources and a billion workers.

Against that in 1940 the US had only 50 million workers, outnumbered 20 to one. Many of those with lesser lights felt secure behind the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, with our shores patrolled by our large navy and its supremely confident Admirals. But Roosevelt had once been Secretary of the Navy and had a more realistic view of the limitations of the Navy.

What of Axis air power? Newspapers told of German bombers leading attacks in Europe. What about American aviation?

Charles Lindbergh, Mister American Aviation, who just fourteen years earlier had been the first man to fly an airplane across the Atlantic from New York to Paris, was our own aviation-wise man, a young thought leader. Lindbergh had been an Army Air Corps Reserve officer and pilot for about 20 years, and had for the last ten years accumulated much experience by flying his own airplane all around the world, across Arctic Canada to Japan and China, to South America. He personally worked at developing international air routes for the new Pan American Airlines, of which he was a stockholder. Lindbergh was looking farther ahead, was worried more about huge Communist Russia than he was about Germany, and so he gave speeches explaining why we should stay out of the war -- so the Germans could destroy the USSR first. That is, wait a while, before the USA gets into the war. Most people, technologically challenged, and forgetting his military connection, criticized him as an isolationist. He was not, though many millions of good Americans themselves were isolationists. Lindbergh the hero, had carte blanche in Europe, was able to see and fly secret German aircraft, visit its factories, and learn that German aviation had hundreds of fighters and bombers and was stepping up production for war. He knew that we needed time to build up our own Army Air Force, and he also believed that Russia was an even greater threat than Germany.

Critics found out five years later when Russians refused to go home from a conquered Europe that Lindbergh was right, when Russia openly bragged that they intended to conquer the world.

But back then in 1940 President Roosevelt disagreed with Lindbergh. Roosevelt thought we needed to fight Germany soon, because FDR knew the secrets about German weapon research. We couldn't wait.

Kind-of Not at War

As our Navy's Admirals and our Army and its Air Force Generals strained themselves to look into the future, they saw this: If we did not fight in Europe and in the Far East soon, the Axis could win unlimited resources and manpower and would build even greater war machines. Eventually they certainly would assault the USA. Then we would have to fight them here, in Canada and Mexico. At home. How could we avoid probable invasion?

So Commander in Chief President Roosevelt urged immediate help for England. He started quietly, building the Navy and the Army Air Force in the late Thirties. He manipulated Congress to pass Lend Lease to send convoys of ships filled with war materiel to the besieged Brits. He found clever devices to avoid confronting the popular sentiment to stay out of the war, such as agreeing to accept some Caribbean Islands, in return for which he traded the Brits 50 WW I mothballed destroyers to help sink German wolf-pack subs and reduce the slaughter of our merchant-ship convoys ... the sinkings peaked at five ships every day of 1942 ... one thousand seven hundred ships sunk that year ... three fourths of them in the North Atlantic. Lost were the Liberty Ship's crew of 44 plus about 16 Navy gunners, and ships took time to build ... perhaps 60,000 sailors that year.

After the Battle of Britain when the Royal Air Force on September 17, 1940, barely beat back the Luftwaffe, Hitler cancelled his England invasion plans. Germany's bombing attacks on England had failed. Hitler turned his gaze eastward. The next summer Germany launched armies of three million men into the USSR, again first bombing, then shelling, then advancing.

When Russia's former 'ally' turned on them, Russia turned to the USA for help. We sent them thousands of warplanes, other arms and food, while we ramped up building our own weapons for the Army, Air, and Navy.

Roosevelt stalled getting our military into the war while we built up our 'arsenal of democracy'.

The Army Air Force needed much longer range bombers, and better fighters. We had already started building bombers that could reach 1000-mile targets. Though we only built 39 B-17s in 1938, and seven B-24s in 1939, that served to ready our factories for mass-production.

We had even ordered Boeing and Consolidated to create some 2000-mile-target bombers, B-29s (24 ordered in August 1940) and B-32s (3 ordered in 1942), which would take three more years to calculate, draw, make parts, assemble, test fly, get onto a production line and finally fly to war in 1944, and in 1945 be able to reach far enough to bomb Japan and Germany if we could get close enough.

In 1939 our best leaders knew that if our Navy failed, if England fell, we would need bombers able to fly even farther, much farther -- from here in the USA -- to 5000-mile-targets to bomb Germany and Japan, and return. So, late in 1941 they would commission two companies, Northrop and Convair, to develop such longer-legged trans-ocean bombers, though this pushed the limit of technology. It would take five years to get the first ones flying, but it looked like it was going to be a long war.

The 5000-mile-target bombers would be too late for WW II, but not too late for a new need, when the war ended with a -– BLAAAM ! -- in August 1945.

We had created one bomb that was as powerful as all the bombs and artillery used so far in WW II, wiping out a city with one blast.

The atomic bomb instantly changed the nature of war. War's main weapons were definitely now going to be in the sky. Instead of thousand plane air raids as in Europe, it was ‘one plane, one bomb, one city’ ... as in Japan.

Only two A-bombs – dropped from our new 2000-mile-target B-29 bombers -- abruptly ended World War Two. One 22-kiloton Nagasaki bomb yielded as much blast as could be delivered by 3,600 B-29 bombers each carrying six-ton loads.

POST-WAR

When the war in Europe was over most Allied troops went home. But the USSR did not go home. They stood ready to take all of devastated Europe, but couldn't, because we said No! We had the Bomb.

The USSR did not have the bomb yet.

Stalemate. We had the advantage.

So, ho-hum, we rested on our laurels. The war was over. We sent the boys home.

We had built 3,900 B-29s for 2000-mile-targets but, flush with victory, we mothballed most of them, and melted brand new planes back into aluminum ingots. The military also sent home as civilians seven out of every eight Air Force trained airmen. Out of 2,300,000 airmen, we discharged 2,000,000, cutting the Army Air Force down to only 300,000. Our new Strategic Air Force scrapped or mothballed all but 148 big bombers in 1947, but revived the total active to 319 in 1947, and 556 in 1948. Not many, compared to WW II, but we had the Bomb. A few.

The B-29 2000-mile-target bombers had enough range to protect Europe, but a 4000-mile-target bomber now was needed to reach the USSR's main industrial and military targets, secret war plant cities in the Ural Mountains, and in the summer of 1946, the USA finally flew the prototypes of two 5000-mile-target bombers -- and the USSR targets were a little closer – 'only' 4000 miles. As far as we knew, Russia didn't have any equivalent-range USSR bomber. They were only just starting to build 2000-mile-target bombers, the Tu-4s, reverse-engineered from captured Boeing B-29s.

At this point in time the USA had a magnificent opportunity because we now had a 4000-mile-target bomber which, if successful, would enable our leaders to demand peaceful USSR behavior for nearly a decade.

What did those with authority and power do – and why?

But why did we need a bomber that could go 4000-miles-to-target? Couldn't the US Air Force's shorter range bombers in England, Europe, Turkey and Japan, face down the USSR?

No. USA post-war planners worried that when Russia figured out how to make the Bomb, they would be able to first-strike bomb all our overseas airbases in Japan, Turkey and Europe – but couldn't reach the USA. After that our own 2000-mile-target bombers, those based in the USA, could not reach USSR war industry.

A stalemate would be temporary, because after a preemptive strike on our overseas air bases, the USSR could expand Communism into the rest of the world ... all the world except North America. That would give them control of 2,600 millions of people against our (1950) 151-million ... out-numbering us 16-to-1... and with unlimited resources.

So when the Soviet leaders confidently bragged they would conquer the world, the threat was real. After they took the rest of the world, they really could invade us by first setting up airfields close enough to bomb us. Mexico and Canada could not resist an invasion by the USSR without major help from us. That meant war at home, by bombing. A-bombs.

Ten years before intercontinental ballistic missiles powerful enough to hoist a five-ton atomic bomb, or in-flight refueling, there just were bombers, to launch or prevent war. These bombers.

In 1946 the USA DID have two 4000-mile-target bomber designs ready to test and produce. We wanted to only buy one because we'd run up such a huge debt fighting WW II, and now were trying to balance the budget. Which bomber would the Air Force buy, to hold off a new enemy?

Look at the Two Bombers:

One of those two atomic bombers was a Flying Wing aircraft design created by genius John Knudsen Northrop, himself heading his design staff, and his small, new company (10,000 employees) during WW II. It was a 'wing only' with four pusher engines with special propellers, but had no fuselage or tail, for less drag and more performance.

The other bomber, offered by Convair* (40,000 employees), the huge B-36 Peacemaker nicknamed Big Stick, was nearly twice as heavy, had a long tubular fuselage, and six pusher engines. Later it added four jets, for a total of ten engines. A 'new and improved' conventional design.

(See Fig. 002 at the end of this chapter.)

*(Convair started as Consolidated Aircraft Corporation, then in a 1943 merger became Consolidated-Vultee Aircraft Corporation, then in 1949 became Convair. The name 'Convair' is used throughout the story.)

Both bombers were designed to the exact same 1941 Army Air Force specifications, to carry a 10,000-lb. bomb load to a 5000-mile target and return, non-stop. After WW II both bombers were required to carry the same type atom bomb, and now both would have to reach 4000-mile-targets, and survive penetrating over 3000 of those miles of enemy territory alone, and return.

Now look at the standard 1946 Atomic Bomb:

The Air Force adopted as its standard A-bomb the Mk. 3, nicknamed 'Fat Man', the efficient implosion type used at Nagasaki. It was as big around as an automobile, weighed five tons -- as heavy as three big sedans compacted together -- and was a little shorter. The egg shape measured 61 inches in diameter and was ten-feet nine-inches long, including a boxed tail. The shape was bulbous because of its large globe-shaped shell of high explosive, which surrounded a small metal plutonium-core sphere the size of a softball that weighed only 13.5 pounds. Explosion force inward –- implosion -- of the outer shell compressed the soft radioactive metal ball to increase its density to critical mass, for a nuclear chain reaction. Implosion in this Nagasaki-type bomb made very efficient use of very expensive plutonium core material.

The Hiroshima bomb, called Little Boy, was a simpler but inefficient gun-type, which shot a U-235 plug into a U-235 cylinder to make a critical mass. It took 141 pounds of U-235, ten times as much fissionable core for the same blast, because it was not compressed to higher critical mass by implosion.

(See Fig. 001 at the end of this chapter.)

Total cost (all costs shown in 1996 US dollars, rounded from Brookings Institute data) for the first four A-bombs was nearly $20 billion, ninety percent of that being for the design and construction of manufacturing facilities to produce fissionable core materials. It was recently reported that the weapons-grade Uranium-235 recovered from a surrendered German submarine that was en route to Japan when Germany surrendered in May 1945 was probably used in the Hiroshima bomb.

Four bombs themselves cost $2 billion, or $500 million each.

This $20 billion total compares to $31 billion for all the USA's WW II bombs, mines and grenades combined!

The cost of WW II tanks and all cannon to deliver mines and shells was an additional $125 billion, not including aircraft or ships.

Total cost for U.S.A. weapons, facilities, salaries and wages, and so on, for WW II was about $3.6 trillion; i.e., $3,600 billion (estimated from 1997 World Almanac data). For the 34 million families and 6 million individual 1945 taxpayers in the USA, that was an average debt of about $90,000 (1945). What family could afford to pay that? Clearly it would have to be financed for many years, so that most of the cost of WW II clearly had to be paid by the families’ children and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Think of paying just the annual interest on $90,000! At 5%, that's $4,500, or $375. ./mo., for every USA family. In 1945 the median family income was only $2,369. a year. (Impossible without printing more money and increasing the population. We did.)

The atomic bomb was a brilliant and in some ways lugubrious combination of highest physics technology, faulty aerodynamics (it wobbled in flight), failed ineffective secrecy, with military bureaucratic managers ranging from incredibly stupid to creatively brilliant. Example: The 'Fat Man' type 1945 bomb was actually built too fat and too long to fit into any operational aircraft!

All new bombers therefore had to be 'silver plate' modified -– the Boeing B-29 and B-50 Superfortresses, and Northrop B-35 Wing and Convair B-36 Stick bombers -- after being manufactured.

The Army Air Force officer responsible, who failed to catch this embarrassing but perhaps unavoidable mismatch, remained camouflaged for decades, but research found the man very likely responsible … a very good man, but not adequately qualified, and definitely overworked or inadequately supported, as the reader will see.

Why did we create the bomb in the first place?

Simple. Jewish scientists who escaped Germany in the 1930s got physicist Albert Einstein to write a letter advising President Franklin Delano Roosevelt that a war-winning super-bomb was indeed possible, and that Germany was trying to build one. A persuasive reason.

Who would decide, and how and why would the AF select the aircraft that would be its first dedicated atomic bomber?

001-45-08.14.6 The actual bombs: Little Boy (Hiroshima) and Fat Man (Nagasaki).

002-38-06 - Comparing Northrop Northrop B-35 vs Convair B-36.

INTRODUCTION

Here’s where this story came from. After years of research, collecting records and FOIA information, and reading hundreds of microfilmed government records of the Consolidated (aka Convair) and the Northrop bomber projects, it became clear that the Air Force's justification for rejecting the Northrop rested on the Air Force test pilots' claims of its instability ... which claims were difficult to counter because of imposed wartime security, and dispersement of the records of testing after contract cancelation.

I found that these claims of instability didn’t make aerodynamic sense, and also were disputed by two of Northrop's own test pilots, and its management. Then I discovered Northrop had a third test pilot who actually flew the great Wing bomber successfully through the Air Force's excessive stall test procedures, even recovering it from a spin... and who personally witnessed the discovery in 1948 that the Northrop YB-49 was Stealthy!

On impulse in late 2002 I searched the Internet for the name Charles Tucker, found a telephone number in Hollister, California, and called. He answered the telephone.

He agreed to an interview, and I combined that with a visit to my cousin, who had retired from Lockheed, once having worked at the Skunk Works.

(See Fig. 003 at the end of this chapter.)

Chuck Tucker's experience as a former Flying Tiger, as one of the first Air Force jet pilots, and as a professional test pilot for Lockheed and Northrop, and his obvious straight-forwardness and integrity is revealed in this interview; and, this serves to give Chuck's observations of those days at Muroc unquestionable credibility. See if you agree – and enjoy.

Chuck Tucker's Introductory Commentary:

When I hired in at Northrop, I was to fly the X-4 airplane, but when I arrived in Sept. of 1947, the airplane wasn't finished, In fact it was still in the jigs under construction. This, in a sense was good , because it gave me an opportunity to learn more about the airplane's inner workings. Meanwhile, I was put to work flying the utility airplanes, a C-47, a twin Beech and a Bonanza in ferry flights back and forth to Muroc and Hawthorne. Eventually I flew co-pilot on the B-35 and the B-49 with Max Stanley or Fred Bretcher, the two other test pilots. I was also put to work flying the N-9M's (there were three of them) doing practice test flights in preparation for my upcoming flights in the X-4.

On June 5, 1948 everything changed. No.2 B-49 had crashed! The Air Force brass and Northrop people were going nuts, everybody wanting answers. The Air Force wanted Northrop to repeat the maneuvers (in the No. 1 YB-49) that the (No. 2) airplane was doing, to try to determine the cause of this horrendous accident. Max and Fred were asked how much money they wanted to do the stall tests and they both said they wanted $5000. Then to my surprise they asked me how much I wanted and echoed them and said $5000 also. Northrop said they would only pay $2500. Both Fred and Max said no. Northrop then reminded me that I was low man on the totem pole and that I should reconsider their offer. This was a complete surprise to me, but I figured what the hell, let’s do it.

In a couple of days I was checked out and started my stall tests on the B-49., which turned out to be the sweetest flying airplane I can remember.

C.T.

***Charles Tucker, 2003

Author’s Note; The complete, colorful actual interview of Charles Tucker by the Author in January 2003 can be found in the Appendix.

Now let's take a look at the story, from the beginning.

003- Charles Tucker in P-51.

1 - 1938, June - SPY; RAINBOW; JACK

SPY

Author’s Note: Factual event and time. World famous American aviator Charles A. Lindbergh actually did these things on the request of our Berlin Consulate AAF Liaison Major Smith. He and Smith sent detailed reports through the State Department back to the US, giving the government and our lagging aviation industry invaluable information on Germany’s warplanes and intense war preparations. US Congressmen were embarrassed at their lack of preparations being exposed, and petulantly cut AAF appropriations to ‘show who was boss’.

Fiction: The dialogue and scenes.

U.S. Consulate, Office of Major Truman Smith, AAF Liaison

Berlin, Germany

Come in, Charles.

Hi, Truman. Well, the Luftwaffe people are picking me up here in a few minutes, and we're flying down to Augsberg to see something Messerschmitt makes. Should be about a two or three hour flight. They didn't want to say what. So, is there anything in particular that you want me to try to find out? I feel like a spy, but the Germans know I’m AAF Reserve, and are showing me everything.

The Army Air Force major was wearing his brown uniform, with silver wings and campaign ribbons over the left chest pocket. He smiled as he nodded to the slim 36-year-old American aviation icon, who was wearing a gray suit.

Just find out everything you can. If they just show you one plane, you might ask about what else they're developing now. They're probably doing a lot of different research projects, judging from the few we're seen or heard about. Or it might be a new version of the Bf-109. That Me-109R is a completely new airplane they're trying to pass off as their standard fighter. We've heard that Messerschmitt is starting some engineering on a big bomber, though bomber work has been given to Dornier, Heinkel and Junkers so far.

Okay. I guess I'll try to get back here as soon as they're done with me. They said we'd be back tonight. Anne and the kids are settling in at the house we're renting, and tomorrow we're hoping to do some driving around and exploring, if they'll let us. I'd like to try out the Autobahn that comes into Berlin, and see how it compares to our Route 66.

"Have you asked how to do that? I mean, are you able to rent a car?'

My hosts today have offered me the use of one of their Mercedes sedans for a week. Pretty nice machine.

Major Smith hummed and replied Really? That's very nice. Could you ask them if they have another I might use this weekend? He paused, and then added Just kidding. I have an old Opel that gets me around okay. General Motors owns part of the company ... did you know that?

No, I didn't ... but I know a lot of American companies also own companies here. Like DuPont, which makes explosives and ammunition. I suspect Alcoa might own something here too, since I think Alcoa has the world patents on making aluminum. Do you know?

I'll check on that for you. Might be a talking point you can use when you visit their factories.

Good. Okay, I'm off. See you when I get back.

Augsburg, Germany

Airfield Hangar of Messerschmitt AG

Three shining black Mercedes Benz sedans crunched gravel as they approached and parked alongside the large hangar. The occupants were mostly Luftwaffe officers in blue-gray tuchrock or service tunics. The American aviator noticed the Luftwaffe's special silver eagle with wavy wings which artfully depicted flight to the right, clutching a swastika with one talon, and pinned over the right breast pocket and on the caps.

We pin ours on over the left pocket, he nodded at the wings and quietly commented to one officer.

They got out, smiling and talking to one another mostly in English with a German accent, for the benefit of their tall, thin and hatless guest who was wearing a gray business suit. He was joined by a second, older man also in business suit, with thinning hair and who walked toward the hangar with an air of familiarity and authority.

What am I going to see in here, Willy? asked Charles Lindbergh of Professor Messerschmitt.

Wait and see, Charles, he chuckled, with his hand on Lindbergh's arm.

The driver of the first car went ahead to the hangar door, spoke to the guard inside who opened the door, and then turned and gestured to invite the guest and company to enter.

The American stepped through the doorway into the dimly lighted interior and saw a fighter aircraft parked facing the hangar door to his left. He turned and walked toward it, saying over his shoulder to his host, It's small! This is very interesting, Willy. I've heard and read a lot about this fighter, but my own closest experience is with the Curtiss P-36, which we are building for France and China now. I don't think it has the performance of your one-oh-nine.

This is our 109D model, Charles, and the General here says you can take a look at it, so you can climb up and get in if you wish.

(See Fig. 005 at end of this chapter.)

I certainly would, thank you … but after I do a walk-around. The others watched quietly as he slowly circled the plane, pausing to look at the knock-kneed retractable main landing gear legs with close-together wheels, and at the wing leading edges, noting that they appeared to be moveable. He touched, and then pulled a little on them. They easily glided outward and down, stopping to form a streamlined slot all along the leading edge. He nodded yes, to himself. An automatic device for extra lift and stall prevention.

Finally stopping at the trailing edge of the wing Lindbergh looked for handholds and steps.

Don't step on this, Charles, said Willy, pointing at the radiator flap.

Lindbergh then climbed onto the wing. The canopy was interesting, being glazed with flat glass panels instead of the curved kind generally used on Army Air Corps pursuits. The front windshield pane looked to be about an inch thick, for bullet-proofing. He lifted the left side of the canopy which was hinged on the right side, and swung it up and over until it stopped, restrained by an eighth-inch diameter cable attached at the rear, clear of the cockpit area.

Glancing back at the upturned face of his host he said, Very compact and functional. Then he turned back and looked inside at the instruments and various controls, but turned again and asked, May I get in?

Of course. We'd like your opinion on whatever you wish to comment on.

The airman swung his right leg over the fuselage side and put his foot on the seat, and then pulled himself up onto it and placed his hands on the sides for support, lowering himself, then transferring his hands to the top of the windshield and lowering his legs and feet forward into rectangular slots on each side of the console at the bottom of the instrument panel. He sat there for a moment, resting against the semi-reclined seat back, which together with the nose-up angle at which the plane rested on the ground, made him feel as if he were almost lying down. He familiarized himself with the layout in front of him.

Messerschmitt had climbed up on the wing. Please not to move any of the switches or controls. We wouldn't want you to retract the gear or start the engine inside.

Lindbergh nodded in the affirmative. I won't. Then with his right hand going naturally to the control stick, his left moved to a pair of dish-sized wheels mounted edge-up, their disk plane fore and aft. Looking at his friend he asked, Pitch trim and ...?

Flap control. Both together, the designer replied.

And this? he asked, moving his hand forward.

Tailwheel lock.

And this ... is the power quadrant... the prop pitch?

Ja.

And this large knob -- the throttle?

Ja -- Yes.

Moving his hand forward and down he lightly touched a large T-handle, and looked at Messerschmitt.

The engine primer.

Raising his hand then to a yellow and black lever, he waited for an answer.

For the canopy ejection.

The aviator nodded. Looking forward he said Pretty standard flight instruments. Mags on the left. Starter and boost coil on the right?

Yes.

The landing gear?

Just to the left of the center console, near your left knee, is the selector. Then you use the hydraulic control button on the front of the control column to activate it.

That's good. Combining two required actions helps to not make one big mistake, Lindbergh smiled.

Yes. Just below the gear selector is the control for the radiator flaps. It needs to be in neutral before you can move the gear. The electrical things are grouped on the right.

Very good. Efficient, the American said.

Thank you.

How does it handle at low speed? May I talk to a pilot who has flown it using the wing's leading edge slats. I'm just curious, as I haven't flown with slats.

Surely, when we're done in the cockpit, Charles. And as we said before, we'd like you to fly it, but not at this time because we're not allowed to let the French pilot Detroyat fly it, and we don't want to ask you without also asking him. If you like, you can fly one from Rechlin, our Luftwaffe Test Center, day after tomorrow.

Yes, that would be fine. And Professor, may I ask about your company and any large aircraft? I'm an officer in PanAm Airlines. We're flying Sikorsky 42s and Martins now, and we've just ordered some Boeing 314 flying boats. I think Dornier's building some small flying boats, but I wondered if you are building any transports for long flights like we fly. We've been flying from New Zealand, China, Hawaii across the Pacific. Also South America and Europe to the United States. We're starting more transatlantic routes now.

Messerschmitt answered, Of course you know of the light and medium bombers Germany is building now, and also the transports. Focke Wulf has a four-engine Model 200 transport which could have military use. We ourselves had last year just started work on what we call Projekt 1061 which was a little larger. Its main backer was General Walther Wever, but he died, so for that reason and others our higher priorities are for the -109 and the -110, so progress on the -1061 has been slow.

I see. Was Projekt 1061 a large design? Four engines?

(See Fig. 004 at the end of this chapter.)

Yes, the same ones used in the Junkers Ju-88s, Jumo 211-Js... 1043 kilowatts. That's about 1400 horsepower each.

Well, that's about the same size engines our new Boeing 314s Clippers will have, 1600 horsepower each, and a gross weight of 82,500 pounds. That's for 74 passengers and enough fuel for 3500 miles. For a land plane your payload and speed would be greater than the Boeing's because you wouldn't need the slower, heavier hull for water landings.

I hope not, chuckled Messerschmitt. Our German Naval Warfare Department wants us to design for a no-reserve range of 20,000 kilometers, or about 12,000 miles. That borders on being unrealistic, but our preliminary estimates came up with an airframe using six of those 1400 horsepower engines. It would weigh about 50,000 pounds empty, and would have to carry almost 7000 gallons of fuel, crew and payload. A gross weight of 45,000 kilograms – about 99,000 pounds – to go almost half way around the world, non-stop. I don't know where the generals and admirals are thinking of going. Even Japan isn't that far. Anyway we've got our best designers working on it: Degel, Konrad and Voigt … pretty clever fellows. We'll see what they come up with. You can see this would be an airplane with more weight and less power than your Boeings. But we're taking pains to keep the design pretty clean, with flush riveting and so on, retracting the landing gear, no boat-hull high drag bottom. Less drag counts the same as more horsepower, for performance.

The American aviator was thinking some numbers as he stared ahead at the instrument panel, listening to Professor Messerschmitt, and wondered where German bombers would need to go, and return from, that was 5000 or 6000 miles away. All Lindbergh's route planning for PanAm left him with maps of the world in his mind, and he imagined them now. Six thousand miles one-way from Germany would take a bomber everywhere in the northern hemisphere. Heading eastward it could reach all of Russia and China, or heading west, all of the United States! A bomber, if that kind of range could be achieved, would indeed be a very useful weapon for German war planners. While Lindbergh enjoyed the technical conversation with a master designer, he also reminded himself that these were the bad guys. Germany was building a war machine, and it was not because anyone was threatening to kill Germans. It was because Germans were threatening to kill other people. Some good Germans should be doing something about that before it was too late. But right now Lindbergh's job was air intelligence, and he needed to find out as much as he could, courtesy of this strange opportunity that just seemed to come out of the sky, to learn the enemy.

That's very impressive, sir. Have your designers any drawings yet that I could look at? Perhaps my friend Juan Trippe who founded PanAm would be interested in a long range transport that didn't have to be able to land on water.

I don't think the generals are ready to publicize anything yet, Charles, since we're still working at a fairly low priority on the project. It's their airplane.

I understand.

But you might ask the General about Heinkel's -177 ... but it's only two-thirds as big as our Projekt 1061. Or the Junkers-390.

Well ... and smaller than the Boeings we've ordered? Probably not.

I'll keep in mind your interest in the -1061, Charles. Maybe something might develop sooner than we expect, and the airline business is certainly growing, especially transatlantic and transpacific travel.

The American took a final look around the cockpit, and then commented to his friend, This looks like an excellent, formidable fighting machine … a real accomplishment.

"Thank you again, Charles. Are you about ready for some lunch now? I think