Wee Bee

What is/was it, or what was it called, and where can information be found
about it?
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Roger that.

I've only seen it mentioned a couple of times. Saw a picture of it
once.

The deal was, someone looked at how much it cost to deliver a
paratrooper and said they could come up with an AIRPLANE that could do
better than that... and they did. But it's roll-out came after D-Day
and there was a lot of pressure to kill the program, but three
examples with different aft sections survived the war... and were then
crushed & smelted.

It was just a simple little one-seater that could be shipped
disassembled. Bubble canopy. Fixed trike gear. I could ran on mogas
and could deliver 300 pounds anywhere within 200 miles (calm air
assumed). 'Rudder' pedals were tied to the nose-wheel !! It came in
three ddifferent models. One had a V-tail the others were
conventional but the differences had to do with something else --
range, load or armament. No gauges to speak of. The 'pathfinder' was
meant to be a series of Piper Cubs and the thing was meant to land
virtually anywhere with 'one flip or less' Meaning a nose-over was
acceptable (and the only thing the pilots were trained for).

The official story is that it was never flown except by pilots but the
'real' story is that at least three "Army sergeants" meaning they
weren't recruits, with no prior aviation experience managed to fly
them using only the instruction manual for their 'flight training.'
And every time I mention it I get a ration of **** so to hell with
them. I'll bet you dollars to donuts Leeon Davis knew what I was
talking about :-)

And if that sounds kooky, it doesn't even BEGIN to come close to some
of the wacky ideas that were proposed AND tested, such as using
pigeons as 'emergency navigators,' affixing a one-ounce THERMITE
charge to a BAT and a bunch of other equally strange stuff. My dad
happened to know quite a bit about this program because he helped
fabricate an A-40 engine mount for one of the three after it suffered
a prop-strike.

-Bob