“Of course, of course.” Cardew gulped down his brandy. “Pleasure to meet you, Colonel.”
Garry nodded as Cardew rose to his feet and stomped off. He waved to a steward and had another whisky-soda delivered. That gave him a few minutes to think the disturbing meeting over. By the time his second glass was empty, he had decided it was time to seek a meeting with Sir Eric Haohoa.
“Are you planning to cancel all our contracts?” Reuben H. Fleet put on a good show of polite courtesy, while inside he was boiling with fury. “We have a lot of production capacity here, you know. It seems a pity to let it go unused.”
“I don’t think that will happen. I happen to know the Navy is ordering a lot more Catalina flying boats. The problem is range. With Britain out of the war, we can’t rely on having foreign bases any more. So, the PB2Y is a dead duck; it doesn’t have the range we need. Nor does the XB-24.” Phillip Stuyvesant sounded eminently reasonable as well.
“The XB-24 has more range than the B-17. A lot more and it carries a heavier bombload as well. We’ve got six of them sitting on the ramp right now. The French ordered them. Now they’re just sitting there. That’s my company’s money sitting in the sun, doing nothing.”
“Had things panned out differently, the XB-24 might have been really something, that I grant you. But it doesn’t have the range we need. Nor does the XB-32, so that will have to go as well. If it’s any consolation, Boeing’s XB29 is being cut back. But, it’s not the cancellations I’m here to talk about. It’s the long-range bomber. You and Boeing are competing for that one as well. Why don’t you show me what you’ve got?”
Fleet pulled a file out from a drawer and ran down the list of names cleared to see Consolidated Aircraft’s long range bomber proposal. “Right, Mr. Stuyvesant, you are cleared to see the work we’re doing. Come with me.”
He led the way to another section of the building, one which had armed guards in the corridors and combination locks on the access doors. Eventually, he opened a door to a room that contained models and drawings. “Let’s start with this.”
‘This’ was a model of a huge flying boat, powered by six engines. Stuyvesant looked at it curiously. “Why are the engines in the back of the wings?”
“Pusher configuration. It reduces drag. Everything about this flying boat is designed to reduce drag to a minimum. We used the Davis Wing design on the XB-24 due to its low-drag characteristics and that’s the primary reason why it outperforms the B-17. We’ve got a transport version of the XB-24 designed, by the way; one that might be very useful.”
“So, your proposed long-range bomber is a flying boat.” Stuyvesant was thoughtful. The idea made sense; all the long-range passenger aircraft in the world were flying boats.
“Good Lord, no. This is our proposal for the Pan American SuperClipper; the aircraft they want to replace the Boeing 314. If they listen to us, we can give them an airliner that can carry at least a hundred people for six thousand nautical miles with a fuel burn comparable to that of the 314. It will revolutionize air transport, but Juan Trippe won’t bite.”
“Why not?” Stuyvesant frowned. “It seems like a major leap forward.”
“Two reasons. One is that the original specification was overambitious and Trippe has doubts about whether it would be possible to fill an aircraft this big with passengers. The other is that he has this picture of air transport as being some sort of super-luxury way of travel. Now, there is a good reason for that. The Pan-Am Clippers are relatively slow, so people are stuck in cramped surroundings for many hours. It’s not like traveling by sea, where people can walk around the ship and forget they are at sea. So, Trippe believes his passengers need the luxury to compensate for the discomfort of a small aircraft. We think he’s wrong; people will accept cramped conditions and a level of discomfort for a cheap and fast means of traveling between countries. But, he’s the customer.
“Anyway, we designed a really efficient wing for the SuperClipper, one that makes even the XB-24 look primitive. We’ve designed a downsized version of the SuperClipper, the XP4Y, for the Navy as a Catalina replacement. We’re waiting to hear if the Navy will bite. We used the same aircraft as a test-bed for our bomber. We took the full-size SuperClipper wings and tail and mated them to a new fuselage, one that is optimized as a land-based bomber. ”
Fleet put down the model of the flying boat and picked up another one. “Here she is. And she’s a monster; more than twice the size of Boeing’s B29. I don’t want to bad-mouth another company, but I think Boeing is making a bad mistake with the B-29. They’re using a lot of advanced building techniques and unproven design art to get the performance they claim in the airframe size they want. There’s too much there that can go wrong. We’re sticking to design art we know: structural technology proven with our flying boats and the Davis Wing from the XB-24. The only really new thing we have, other than sheer size, is the pusher engine installation. We call this the Model 35.”
Stuyvesant took the model and inspected it carefully. He noted the smoothly contoured nose and the great twin fins and rudders at the back. Turning it upside down, his eyebrows rose at the sheer size of the bomb bay. “This aircraft will fulfill the long range bomber specifications we issued?”
“Fill and exceed.” Fleet’s pride was obvious. “The Model 35 will be able to hit targets five thousand nautical miles away with ten thousand pounds of bombs and return. It’s a truly intercontinental bomber.”
Stuyvesant looked carefully at the model again. “You know, Boeing is tied down with the B-29; they don’t have any design resources to spare. Jack Northrop is pushing a flying wing but that’s a step too far. Douglas, they have the same design staff problems that Boeing has. Frankly, this is the only convincing design that I’ve seen so far.”
Fleet grinned proudly. “And the Material Division agrees with you. They’ve endorsed our design. The Army Air Force has even given us a number for her. She’s going to be the B-36.”
“We have the foundations of a great navy here.” Captain Edgar Porteous Woollcombe looked around the crowded wardroom and noted the mix of dark blue, light blue and khaki uniforms. “And a great Army and Air Force to go with it.”
“Well said.” General Auchinleck responded enthusiastically. “The Indian Army has always been the mainstay of the Empire and now we have the sea power to go with it.”
Admiral James F. Summerville coughed slightly. “Gentlemen, before we get too carried away with what we have, and while I also second Captain Woollcombe’s statements, we must pay due diligence to what we lack.”
“And that is air power.” Despite Captain Woollcombe’s enthusiasm, Squadron Leader Baldwin was almost abashed at the slight force he brought to the meeting. The fact that he, a lowly squadron leader, was the senior RAF officer present said much.
“We have three squadrons of Indian Air Force aircraft here: two with Westland Wapitis and one with Audaxes. Mostly they have Royal Air Force personnel, but 16 officers and 144 other ranks are Indian. That’s about a third of the total. We’ve got a small training establishment with Tiger Moths, but we were left out of the Empire Air Training Scheme. The RAF in India adds six more squadrons to the total. One has Wapitis, two Audaxes, one Lysanders and one Blenheim bombers. We also have a squadron of Valentia transports. No fighters at all.”