Strengthening the Air Corps

People, factories, bases, and organization

Expansion created bottlenecks in instructors, mechanics, parts, housing, airfields, and management. Readiness could not be purchased as a finished product; it had to be built by coordinating people, infrastructure, production, doctrine, and time.

History & service

Fortunately for the U.S., President Franklin D. Roosevelt realized the dominant role played by Hitler's Luftwaffe in European international relations, and on Jan. 12, 1939, he delivered a special message to Congress calling for strengthening of the Air Corps. Congress then authorized $300 million for 5,500 new airplanes. This was a "shot in the arm" for the U.S. aircraft industry which began to expand immediately.

With another war believed imminent, many nations began placing large orders for American airplanes, a further boost for U.S. manufacturers. With this increase in activity came a corresponding increase in research, which though it had not been ignored in the 1930s, had been greatly limited by lack of funds.

Details that tell the story

Expansion accelerated after war began in Europe in 1939 · Aircraft production and training grew together · New bases and schools were required · Technical personnel were as essential as aircrew

A new invention becomes a public world

Before airplanes became routine transport, public demonstrations helped establish what they could do. Exhibition flights, races, and crossings placed fragile machines before crowds, officials, and potential customers. The audience saw courage and spectacle. Behind the spectacle were less visible questions about reliable engines, controllable wings, suitable landing grounds, and how to recover when the weather changed.

Different configurations competed at the same time. Some designers placed the propeller behind the pilot; others put it at the front. Biplanes used bracing to make light structures sufficiently rigid. Monoplanes reduced some of that external framework but posed their own structural and handling problems. Balloons and dirigibles remained part of the same aviation world, offering capabilities that early airplanes could not simply replace.

The famous firsts matter, but so does the period immediately after them. Flight schools, licensed manufacture, military trials, mechanics, and spare parts carried an invention outward. An aircraft could influence aviation through the pilots trained on it or the designs adapted from it, even after its own performance became outdated. The machines in Washington and Dayton preserve different points along that process. Their differences show how quickly an experimental achievement became an international industry, and how many people had to turn a remarkable flight into a repeatable service.