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An unconscious bias that denigrates other aircraft to "improve" the plane they really like?
Ah but the P-38 built up a mountain of photos 10 times bigger than all other mountains combined.
The Allies lost a considerable number of pilots between 1943 - 1945 in both theaters.
The comments by Beech were not worthy of a high school assignment.
You're right - they gave an opinion about a competitor's product. How do expect them to act? Now if the AAC approached them with a contract ($) to produce the aircraft I think the tone might have been different.
There is a linguistic leap that frequently gets made, once you have lost some experienced pilots you only have trainees left. The allies also "lost" a lot of pilots by promoting them to training roles, with a view to making their inexperienced "trainees" much more effective with a better chance of survival from their first mission.
On a similar vein, some of the British were upset about the Mustang`s performance compared to the Spitfire with exactly the same engine, when the performance predictions of the Merlin Mustang came in, a lot of British just refused to believe it, and that was a plane the British ordered !
Translated "We don't know a.) how to build it, b.) how to hire and train the staff, or c.) How to price it. Go away."
Perhaps because they were looking for "A" reason not for a lot of reasons adding up to a total. You can see sleekness and good fit and finish, you cant see the more advanced aerodynamic things like laminar type wings and low cooling drag/ Meredith effect. However I am sure if they asked someone at de Havilland they could have given some pointers.
It defies logic unless they didnt actually know its flying characteristics. When introduced it was one of the fastest planes in the world in service. Every high speed aircraft makes compromises and sacrifices
I betcha Walter and Olive Ann had their eyes firmly on the postwar market and saw the future in monocoque stressed akin aluminum construction, and thought plywood artwork (which they didn't have the setup or workforce skills to do) would be a post-Mosquito dead end in the US market. They already had the C45/Beech18, from which they would evolve, building block fashion, an entire hierarchy of business aircraft. Even the 1900s I flew had beefed up Beech18 wing center sections.
I agree, but to quote "flying characteristics" in the argument doesnt add up. Before and after the Mosquito there were aeroplanes that were really fast that were absolutely lethal, someone did actually land a Mosquito on a carrier and it became a carrier borne aircraft so its characteristics couldnt have been that bad.
Well, the Beech family were never above exhibiting NIH syndrome.
All sides are capable of that, they could have chosen better wording to make it less obvious. I could offer the counter argument that the Mosquito was a completely uncompromising design saying "there you have it make of it what you want". The British were forced to make bombs smaller to fit, and make electronics more compact, and introduce navigational and other electronic aids to assist a two man crew which became standard post war.
The Beech 17 didn't have much in the way of compound curved sheet plywood structure, which is an art of its own, especially in a stressed skin design like the Mosquito. And it clearly wasn't the wave of the future in the US. I would have made the same decision.
