Goodbye Beautiful Wing

Goodbye Beautiful Wing is the underlying true story of history's first intercontinental bomber... straining the technology of the times, costing billions and many lives. Taken from actual government microfilmed correspondence and records of Northrop B-35 "e;Wing"e;, Convair B-36 "e;Big Stick"e; and Army Air Corps research and development, the author translates how these two radically different designs, which were awarded contracts in December 1941, were to meet the same goal: to carry five tons of bombs from the USA, for 5000-miles across the Atlantic Ocean to bomb Germany and return, in case England fell. Though the new bombers were not ready when the first atomic bombs in 1945 abruptly ended World War Two, but because the USSR openly threatened world conquest, the B-35 vs.B-36 competition continued. They both were modified to carry the five-ton atomic bomb, to a 4000-mile-target in the Ural Mountains in the USSR, and return. The Air Force Secretary Symington's technical ignorance, politics, and corporate greed caused choosing the mission-incapable B-36, cancellation of many current aircraft contracts, including a Navy aircraft carrier then already under construction, and a Congressional Investigation of charges of bribery by the Convair head Floyd Odlum. Symington cancelled a Northrop contract and scrapped a dozen B-35 airframes in front of the Norcrafters who built them, and the last flyable "e;Wing"e;, refusing to save one for a museum.