Word: mustanger
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...Problems. In producing the F-86, North American Aviation ran into problems such as were never encountered in the days of propeller-driven aircraft. Says Dutch Kindelberger: "There's as much difference between the Mustang's electrical system and that of a Sabre as there is between a doorbell and a television set." For a full year, engineers worked on ejection seats to bail the pilot out in case of emergency. Because the friction heat at 600 m.p.h. raises a plane's cockpit temperature enough to roast the pilot, the F-86 had to have a cooling...
...British, the Harvard; to the U.S. Navy, the SNJ). Early in 1940, when the British asked North American to build Curtiss P-40s Kindelberger answered that he could design and produce a better airplane quicker. In 127 days, he turned out the P-51, the first of the famed Mustangs. The U.S. was cool towards it, would place no orders. Since the services were looking for dive bombers, Kindelberger pulled another quick switch: "We told them the P-51 was a dive bomber, not a fighter, and got an order for 500 of them in the same mail with...
Kindelberger knows-as no layman can -how much time, money and sweat the U.S. must put into getting "the right airplane to the right place at the right time." In World War II, with the PSI Mustang, and in Korea, with the F-86 Sabre, it almost looked as though somebody had pulled a rabbit out of a hat. Says Dutch Kindelberger: "Nobody ever pulled a rabbit out of a hat without carefully putting one there in the first place...
Topped or Tapped. When the first of the pooled Canberras arrived on schedule at Goose Bay on the afternoon of coronation day, both CBS and NBC were waiting with souped-up Mustang fighters to make the final dash to Boston. The CBS plane, off four minutes ahead of its NBC rival, landed at Boston's Logan Airport 24 minutes in the lead. But, while both Mustangs were still airborne, a Royal Canadian Air Force jet plane had hustled its films to Montreal and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. was ready to telecast...
Expense & Complexity. But getting JCS endorsement and getting the planes into the air were two different things. Today's planes are incredibly complex and expensive. For example, North American's World War II Mustang fighter cost $50,000 in production, and had 500 electrical connections. North American's F-86 Sabrejet costs $240,000 and has 6,000 electrical connections ("Each of these," moans North American's Board Chairman Dutch Kindelberger, "is a method of connecting one source of trouble with another"). The K-1 electronic bombing system used in the Boeing B-47 and Convair...