The great and beautiful fact is that the U.S. is producing more warplanes than any other nation in the world. And those planes are being delivered, are fighting on every front in the global war. Now the point is: How good are they?
The returns are trickling in—stories on U.S. aircraft in Russia, in the sandstorms of Libya, over the green hills of New Guinea, the crags of southern China. But the returns are incomplete and blindingly confused.
The public heard that the Japanese Zero was a superior plane, then read that the antiquated Curtiss P-40 (Tomahawk) knocked the whey out of it. Reports said the Bell P39 (Airacobra) had too fragile a landing gear for the rough fields of Russia; other reports from the Red Front had Airacobras fighting German planes to a standstill. The later P-40s (Kittyhawks) supposedly couldn't get high enough to fight Messerschmitts, but in Libya the Kittyhawk, with Spitfires, took control of the air and held it.
Wait & See? No one with the voice of authority straightened out the confusion. Aircraft manufacturers said only "Wait and see." But there was much to see without waiting. U.S. aircraft production was good, not only for its vast growth but because it had been kept fluid; new types could be produced without wrecking production of older types. And the performance of U.S. aircraft in battle was good, too, will be terrific when new types now in production reach the battlefields in quantity.
In production the U.S. is slowly becoming aware of the eternal air warfare between two kinds of engineers. Design engineers want to make planes that will outfly and outshoot anything in the air. Production engineers struggle to put out more planes than the enemy. The designer wants production stopped any time he has a better design. The production man wants to keep on turning them out, hates to change designs.
Anti-Freeze. For this kind of production war the U.S. had an answer that no other nation is rich enough to make. A new plane design no longer stops production lines. The U.S. builds a new line, drops the old model only when the new one rolls off the new lines. Then the old line is stopped, torn down, retooled for a third type. The U.S. now has fluidity in design without accompanying drops in production curves.
Up to a point, freezing of design worked on the side of the Germans, who started early with good airplanes, poured them out faster than anyone else. But freezing works against the Nazis now. If they make a wholesale switch to new models, their production lines must slow up. If the Nazis hang on to what they have, German war planes will be inferior. In sum: the Germans, unlike the U.S., can't have it both ways in full degree. The same is also true of the Japs, whose aircraft industry is pipsqueak small.
The British refused to freeze their production, have thus kept quality high, can continue improving design on the cushion of U.S. production.
Fighters. The United Nations are well ahead of the Nazis in the planes that count most:
> The British Spitfire is still the best battle-proved fighter in the air-fast, heavily armed and armored; engine's horsepower has been stepped up. The Hurricane is in the same league.