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HARRY
SCHULTZ LETTER
no 428
AIRCRAFT EXPOSE
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Following the
truthful and highly complimentary General Hap Arnold letter,
Burnelli was invited to enter a design competition for a prototype
fighter bomber with a speed guarantee minimum of 420 mph at 25,000
feet. Here's a reproduction of the official results:
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War Dept - Air Forces - 1940 Bids Design
Competition - C104 |
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Manufacturer |
Preliminary
Data |
Engineering & Design
Work |
Static Tests &
powerplant |
Engine Installation Tests |
Delivery |
Total |
|
Curtiss Wright |
$2,000 |
$633,000 |
$267,000 |
$175,000 |
30 mos |
$1,077,000 |
|
Douglas 1
|
$2,000 |
$568,000 |
$85,400 |
$128,225 |
30
mos. |
$783,625 |
|
Douglas 2
|
$2,000 |
$669,750 |
$95,450 |
$142,900 |
12
mos. |
$910,100 |
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Douglas 3
|
$2,000 |
$649,750 |
$95,450 |
$142,000 |
24 mos |
$890,100 |
|
Lockheed |
$2,000 |
$1,507,000 |
$1,882 |
$12,627 |
25
mos. |
$1,523,509 |
| |
|
$1,500,000 |
|
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|
|
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Consolidated |
$2,000 |
$543,000 |
$125,000 |
$25,000 |
24
mos. |
$683,000 |
| |
|
$533,000 |
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|
|
|
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Burnelli |
$20,000 |
$100,000 |
$48,000 |
$50,000 |
12
mos. |
$298,000 |
| |
|
$180,000 |
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|
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North American
|
$2,000 |
$590,000 |
$15,000 |
$10,000 |
19
mos. |
$592,000 |
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|
$565,000 |
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Total w/o
Burnelli |
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$6,459,334 |
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Average w/o
Burnelli |
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$922,762 |
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As
you can see, Burnelli's bid was devastating, nearly half of the second
lowest bidder and less than one-third of the competitor's average bid. Further,
Burnelli outperformed all the rest of all phases of the competition.
But instead of being awarded the contract, Burnelli became
a target of outrageous political maneuvering which culminated in the issue issuance of
deprecations of the Burnelli design from a Board of Review, headed by
the infamous General Bennett Myers (later jail for aircraft
procurement crimes).
When General Arnold was advised of
the Board of Review Report, he refused to repudiate his original
recommendation favoring Burnelli. Consequently the matter was moved
to his political superior, the Secretary of War, who wrote Burnelli
on November 13th, 1941 that his design "does not possess sufficient
merit for military purposes to warrant consideration by the War
department." This politically induced letter was the ensuing
"wartime secret" classification of the 1941 Proceedings of a Board
of Review set the stage for the immobilization of the
BURNELLI company and the nation's unfortunate commitment to
the costly and unsafe conventional airplanes we have today.
Hence the biggest ever ripped off of the U.S. taxpayer.
[
So as not to be accused of preventing the building of superior Burnelli Aircraft blocked for political reasons beyond his control, General Arnold asked Lt. Col. Hartney to write a report regarding the Burnelli
Lifting-Body principle of design in 1943 to show he had done
due dilligence
.]
Using the above bid results as
criteria, the cost of this rip-off (which is ongoing) is at least
half of all the money spent on conventional aircraft from 1940 to
date! And to this the R&D expenditures unnecessarily made on the
numerous variations of conventional designs, plus about 25 percent
of all aviation fuel costs or those 40 years. The total is many
hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars. Not to be minimized is the
extreme and unnecessary loss of life associated with conventional
aircraft crashes.
[For information about the Harry Schultz Letter
write to HSL, P.O.Box 622, 1001 Lausanne, Switzerland or write
to hsl.mentor@skynet.be]
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