Alexander P. de Seversky and the Quest for Air Power

10. The P-35 Manufacturer Loses His Company

144 10 The P-35 Manufacturer Loses His Company By June 1938 Alexander P. de Seversky had reached a point of near crisis. He saw that the light at the end of the tunnel belonged to a locomotive barreling down the track leading to the destruction of his company. That month production at Seversky Aircraft stood at one plane each workday. By July 1 the firm needed to assemble only twenty P-35s to finish the 1936 contract. At some point in August, with both air corps and Japanese orders completed, the only work left would be building experimental aircraft and manufacturing spare parts for the BT-8 and P-35. Each week the workforce, composed originally of more than a thousand employees, was diminished by layoffs; survivors knew their time would come soon enough. Production Manager George A. Meyerer, the Major’s classmate at the Imperial Russian Naval Academy, reported on July 5 that the unit cost of the last P-35s might increase as “men will naturally slow down on their work so as to have it last longer.”1 The Letter Campaign De Seversky began what can be described only as a frantic letter-writing campaign. He knew from the original contract that the air corps had the option of ordering up to twenty-five additional P-35s. On June 25 the Major sent the Materiel Division a lengthy four-page, single-spaced letter that served as his plan for the air corps to exercise its option for additional airplanes. He argued, 145 The P-35 Manufacturer Loses His Company It appears to us that the plan for the development of aircraft should be followed along three distinct lines. First, the development of very advanced and speculative types which may, if successful, revolutionize, or at least result in a remarkable step forward in tactical utility. Such projects, naturally, require considerable time and the resulting aircraft cannot be expected to reach the service for a number of years. The second type of development is the design and construction of conventional aircraft of marked refinement. The procurement of such aircraft must go through the process of competition and, therefore, would also be unavailable for a period of more than two years. Since hostilities usually break out unexpectedly, a third line of development should also be followed. We must constantly and unceasingly strive to improve our present equipment in service. In the event of an emergency, only airplanes of tried designs would be immediately put into mass production , but their performance would have to be boosted to the utmost. This cannot be accomplished unless modifications which improve the performance of service aircraft, without rendering them obsolete, have been continuously and zealously incorporated and service tested.2 Too bad for Seversky Aircraft and the company president, the air corps rejected de Seversky’s third argument and chose not to request twenty-five additional, though revised, versions of the P-35. De Seversky had spelled out the changes he proposed for the modified pursuit and upgrades for engine and armament, and modestly suggested a sales contract for only twentyone planes. The implication, however, was that all or most changes could be appliedtotheP-35salreadyproduced.ItwouldgiveSeverskyAircraftachance to build or alter nearly one hundred pursuits. On the other hand, the Materiel Division did encourage de Seversky to apply his proposed improvements to the seventy-seventh, or final, P-35 built under the 1936 contract. Moreover, the air corps promised a careful evaluation of the revised plane and with the possibility that favorable test results might lead to a purchase contract.3 In one sense, Alexander Kartveli’s Engineering Section had already drafted plans for what became the seventy-seventh P-35. The engineers reworked the canopy and made other changes to improve the aerodynamic profile of the P-35 in the spring of 1938 as they designed a racer for Jackie Cochran. The Seversky AP-7 served as the template for the last aircraft constructed under the 1936 contract. The XP-41 (Seversky AP-9) differed 146 The P-35 Manufacturer Loses His Company from Cochran’s racer not only by its more powerful Pratt & Whitney engine and newly designed center wing section containing an inward contracting landing gear but also by a General Electric supercharger installed near the left underside of the wing root. The latter supplied pressurized air to the engine to increase power output and maintain sea-level conditions at...