On Thu, 04 Oct 2007 06:29:09 +0100, Eeyore
wrote:

I found this intruiging ...

" No funds were available for new fighter contracts in Fiscal Year 1942 but
General Oliver Echols wanted to ensure the P-51 remained in production.[4] Since
appropriations were available for an attack aircraft, Echols specified
modifications to the P-51 to turn it into a dive bomber. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_A-36

The joys of rigid budgets.

No aircraft procurement decision in war time was ever driven by
funding issues alone. The USAAF could, and frequently did, return to
Congress for supplementary appropriations or for the re-allocation of
existing appropriations which often didn't require Congressional
approval. The critical issue was production availability, not
finance.

I believe Echols accepted the A-36 because it kept existing North
American production going while the USAAF had no use for the P-51
except as a reconnaisance machine in small numbers. Therefore nobody
cared if P-51 production was diverted to fulfil an army-support
requirement which they obviously didn't want the P-38, P-39, P-40 or
P-47 being used for.

Gavin Bailey

--
Solution elegant. Yes. Minor problem, use 25000 CPU cycle for 1
instruction, this why all need overclock Pentium. Dumbass.
- Bart Kwan En