Word: bomber
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...Secretary W. Stuart Symington, under whose regime the B-36 had been developed (by better power plants, etc.) from a slow but long-range aircraft into the fastest, longest-ranged, high-altitude bomber the air arm has ever owned. Van Zandt implied that there was some kind of skulduggery behind the Air Force's decision to concentrate on the B-36. He also implied that there was a plot afoot by Consolidated to absorb its unsuccessful competitors (for airplane contracts) and that, after that, Symington would resign to become boss of the great combine. Symington ridiculed the charge. Said...
This was simply a compilation of a series of classified-secret tests run off early this year between the huge now B-36 and various service model jet-fighters. The B-36, a six-engined, 5000-mile range heavy bomber, was the Air Force's big bid for strategic bombing supremacy; as such, it had come in for lots of criticism. It was too slow, too big; it could not maneuver. At one time there was a serious move to halve the B-36 contracts. This was squelched when the Air Force appeared happily bearing the results of its tests...
Captain Smith graduated from Annapolis in 1921, entered aviation in 1926, and has been flying ever since. In his younger days, the captain once won an award as top dive-bomber pilot in the Navy. During the war he served overseas on aircraft carriers . . . with one tour of duty as director of Naval Air Transport Service. Since his arrival at Quonset Point in February 1948, his relations both with the local civilians and the civil service employees have been of the highest order. An example of his thoughtfulness and loyalty to his civil service employees occurred just before Christmas...
...says McNarney, the U.S. will presently develop a fighter that can lick the B-36. Soon thereafter it will have a bomber (probably the Boeing long-range, all-jet XB-52) that will be better than the B-36. Other nations, presumably, are working along the same lines. No one is sure where the advantage will rest when the new airplanes appear...
Riding the Beam. Rockets, also replacing antiaircraft guns, will rise from the ground to chase the bombers. They will probably ride a movable radar beam kept trained on the bomber. Whether the bomber can dodge in time out of the deadly beam, or jam the missile's radio receiver before it seeks out its target, Mc-Narney does not say. The outcome of this contest between missiles and "inhabited" airplanes is anybody's guess...