Alexander P. de Seversky and the Quest for Air Power

9. Troubled Times

130 9 Troubled Times The rush of publicity enjoyed by the P-35 seemed to favorably influence everyone except the Procurement Board of the U.S. Army Air Corps. Meanwhile , a series of events marked the end to Alexander P. de Seversky’s halcyon days as an aircraft manufacturer. A minor irritant and a major loss started the walk down a less fortunate path. In the fall of 1936, the Major had to submit to a thorough investigation before he could secure a $100,000 policy from the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York (today, Mutual of New York). Besides requiring multiple application forms, Mutual sent an investigator to look at de Seversky’s “domestic environment” and interview neighbors and acquaintances. The good news was the Major possessed a gossip-free reputation, decent health, and had given up stereotypical Russian behaviors of drinking vodka like water and smoking cigarettes with each waking breath. The bad news was the one-legged pilot flew really fast planes for long distances. Mutual finally condescended to approve a life insurance policy, but with the stipulation that if Sasha died in an airplane crash, his bride, Evelyn, would receive only the balance of his account at the time of death.1 Foreboding Signs A more grievous moment arrived with the news that Evelyn’s mother, Evelyn Kennedy Olliphant, passed away on March 19, 1937. The former president of the Louisiana State Society in New York had returned to her native state and died in the care of her younger sister in Lafayette. Surely, Olliphant’s 131 Troubled Times daughter, Evelyn, and son, a New York lawyer, were saddened by the loss, but so was her son-in-law. The Major and Mrs. Olliphant had enjoyed good relations cemented by their partnership in trading on the stock market. Naturally, some of their investments included Seversky Aircraft Corporation . It may have been a small comfort to Sasha that Seversky stock began its negative drift only after Olliphant’s funeral. The air corps decision in July to award Curtiss-Wright and its P-36, rather than Seversky and its P-35, a contract to build an additional 210 pursuit planes lubricated the downward slide. From a 1937 high of 6½, Seversky Aircraft stock descended in value to hover around 1¾ by year’s end.2 Even before Curtiss-Wright received its large contract, the Major had decided to try to augment his army business by also selling the P-35 to the navy. To get his company’s foot in the door, he proposed to give the U.S. Navy Department a variant article for testing purposes without cost to the government. The navy accepted his free offer. It would fly the NF-1 (Navy Fighter No. 1) and use the data for comparison against the XF4F-2 of Grumman Aeronautical Engineering Company and the XF2A-1 of Brewster Aircraft Company. Because the NF-1 was borrowed from and later returned to Seversky Aircraft, it retained its civil registration and never received an official naval designation. Nevertheless, Sasha asked Alexander Kartveli and his engineering team to take a straight-wing SEV-1XP and modify it to meet naval specifications.3 The Brewster F2A Buffalo won the naval trials. However, similar to what happened to Curtiss-Wright and the P-36, the navy continued to provide development funds to Grumman that also eventually led to a large contract to build the F4F Wildcat. Regardless, de Seversky had suffered another setback. Shortsightedly, the P-35 manufacturer failed to consider that time spent on the NF-1 as well as the racing program discussed in the previous chapter took time away from setting up his factory complex for the serial production of the army pursuit. This, in turn, explains why assistant chief of the U.S. Army Air Corps, Gen. Hap Arnold, saw little progress on the part of Seversky Aircraft toward building the P-35 during his two visits to the Farmingdale, Long Island, facility in March and June 1937. In a 1970 interview with Dr. Murray Green, U.S. Air Force deputy chief for research and analysis, the Major painfully, but probably accurately, mimicked Arnold’s clipped response in 1937: “‘Seversky promised us the first article in six months, it’s now eight months, I don’t see a sign of an airplane. I told you he cannot 132 Troubled Times produce.’ A year has past...