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> U.S. fighter design lagged behind British and German, especially in altitude performance and armament. The gap is closing. Lockheed's twin-engined P-38 (Lightning) has plenty of altitude performance, dazzling speed, crushing gun-power. It is in production, is on the way to battlefronts now. Also in production is the best U.S. single-engined fighter yet, Republic's P47 (Thunderbolt), a 2,000-h.p. monster which, like the Lightning, weighs as much as an old Ford tri-motor, but is nimble, climbs like a homesick angel. Quantities of P-38s and P-47s will change the entire course of the war.
> But the burden of U.S. fighter work has so far fallen on the Curtiss Hawk series of P-40s. Newsmen, talking to pilots in the South Pacific, report that the Jap's Zero can outclimb and outmaneuver the P-40. Many a U.S. citizen considers the Zero a better plane. But on this basis, so is a Piper Cub, for a Cub can out-maneuver a P-40 until its gas runs out. When Zeros and P-40s have met, Zeros have usually been beaten. Best example: the record of the A.V.G. in China, which has the oldest P-40s—the Tomahawks. Reason: the P-40 is faster, outdives the Zero, can take more punishment. (The lightly built Zero disintegrates pretty rapidly in a stream of machine-gun bullets.) A.V.G. has knocked down better than 300 Jap planes while los:ng 16.
> Russian airmen have told newsmen that the Airacobra is not the perfect airplane, say it had tough going against Germany's superb Heinkel 113. And from Australia came a story of Zeros leaving Airacobras at the post by climbing out of trouble. The Airacobras (like Tomahawks) are certainly slower in climb than Zeros at high altitudes. But U.S. flyers, using them on a low-altitude mission, knocked down eight Zeros in their first combat, came home with all their Airacobras.
Bombers. Fanciest U.S. things in battle are the bombers, which are old U.S. specialties. Mediums like the Douglas A20 (British Boston and Havoc), the North American B-25 (which raided Tokyo) and the Martin B-26 are faster, more maneuverable and carry more bombs over longer ranges than anything the Axis has.
The U.S.'s big fellows, four-motored jobs like Boeing's B-17 (Flying Fortress) and Consolidated's B-24 (Liberator), have gone through some growing pains. The old B-17-Cs could outfly Germany's famed Focke-Wulf Kurier, but had trouble with German fighters. The fault is remedied: the new B-17-E and B-24-E bristle with better armament (including a tail gun position) and shine with better performance. In operations against the Jap, four-engined bomber crews no longer worry about the Nip's pursuit, knock him down when they go out without fighter escort. In Britain, where the English already have some fancy four-motored jobs (Short Stirling, Handley-Page Halifax, etc.) the U.S.'s big fellows will be flown by U.S. crews when they go into the big aerial push against Germany.