[R-390] A-26/B-26

[Jack Antonio]

Can't resist a couple of nitpicking comments on this thread,

> >The Martin B-26 was a four engine bomber with the same type of twin 
> >tail as the B-25 Mitchell
> 
> Nope. B-26 was two engine. Both of them had a pair of P&W R2800's


Nope again, the B-25 Mitchell used the Wright R-2600 in all marks. The only
twin tail 4 engine bombers I'm aware of were the Consolidated B-24 and the
prototype Consolidated B-32s. Production B-32s had a single tail. 

>The Douglas B-26, (Yep!  Both had the same designation for some 
>reason.) , 

They had the same designation, but not at the same time. When the USAF
was founded(1948), they dropped the A for attack category, and the Douglas A-26s in service
were redesignated B-26, as all the Martin B-26s were phased out of the inventory
pretty rapidly at war's end. 

Didn't the only flyable Martin B-26 crash a few years ago?


>>A factoid for the P-51 states that the plane flew just 126 days after they
>>started drawing lines on paper... Sounds like North American knew what they
>>were doing.

Well, yes and no.  Not to take anything away from North American, because the
job they did on turning out the prototype Mustang was superb and rapid, but the
design engineers responsible for the Mustang had done quite a bit of preliminary
design on a fighter, as a "back of the envelope, lunch hour" unofficial type project.
When the British Purchasing Commission walked in, they just made all that official
and went from there.  Still an awesome job though. Look for the book "Mustang Designer"
which was the biography of the major player in the design of the plane.

Nitpick mode off.

Jack Antonio WA7DIA
scr-287@sbcglobal.net