B-26 Marauder - Problems
France had fallen to German aggression. With over 1100 aircraft on order, the B-26 appeared poised to play a major role if America became directly involved. What remained unknown was how well the aircraft would meet expectations upon delivery to combat units. Without significant testing on a prototype, the potential for problems certainly existed.
The first B-26 was completely devoid of weapons. It was mounted on three subsequent machines, which, together with the first, were sent to the official trials at the Wright Field base. The flight test program was rather superficial, it took only 113 hours. Serial B-26s were about a ton heavier than full design weight and accordingly lost in flight performance. The take-off became even more protracted, and the landing run was longer.
Less than six months after receiving its first Marauder, the AAF clearly indicated the B-26 was not part of its longterm bombardment strategy. With light bombers expected to provide direct support to ground forces, the question remained what requirements the medium bomber would meet.
The Marauder experienced more growing pains than many other aircraft of its era. Most notably, the B-25 encountered much less difficulty. Many of the Marauder’s early problems were at least partially attributable to the aircraft’s rapid development process. Without extensive prototype testing, operational pilots rather than test pilots experienced most of the “teething” of this new and technically radical design.
A number of shortcomings of the B-26 appeared. The R-2800-5 motors and "Curtis Electric" propellers first came into military operation and, naturally, were not immediately mastered by personnel. Some of their components and assemblies were of low reliability. For example, gaskets in the carburetors were not sufficiently resistant to high-octane gasoline and were given leaks. However, they quickly introduced new nylon-based gaskets. On the aircraft there were failures in electrical and hydraulic systems.
From April to June 1941, the Air Corps grounded the entire B-26 fleet due to repeated nose-wheel strut failures. Although the cause proved to be improper heat treatment of a component during production, this issue was only one of many early problems. A more serious problem arose as pilots began unexpectedly losing control of propeller pitch, causing multiple accidents. The failures resulted from the depletion of internal batteries during ground maintenance causing the batterypowered propeller control mechanism to fail during flight.
The fact that the B26 was difficult to fly magnified these problems. The B-26’s takeoff, landing, and single-engine flight characteristics proved challenging to its pilots and contributed to many early mishaps. To maximize the aircraft’s speed, engineers designed the Marauder with unusually small wings, resulting in high wing loading, long takeoff runs, and high landing speeds. The aircraft required exceptional piloting skill and was unforgiving in all flight regimes.
The Marauder proved challenging even to experienced pilots, many of whom transitioned from the Douglas B-18, which had a reputation of being easy to fly. The development of bombers with flying personnel was difficult. Although the crews of the 22nd Bombe Group were notable for good training, it was not so easy to move from the slow-moving and "lazy" B-18 to the "bloody" B-26. The landing speed of the latter was only slightly less than the cruising speed of the predecessor.
The aircraft was very sensitive to the change in alignment, so incomplete bombers barely lifted their nose and were especially dangerous at take-off. Factory testers used to restore the balancing of tools, spare parts, covers in the tail of the aircraft. The military did not inform about this reception, and after the arrival of the aircraft in part this improvised ballast was unloaded, involuntarily creating the danger of flying accidents. The shift of the center of gravity forward also led to an overload of the landing gear of the chassis, which began to break.
Engine failures, though not uncommon in any aircraft of the era, proved especially dangerous in the B-26. Engine loss during the long takeoff roll or shortly after breaking ground made continued flight difficult or impossible depending on conditions and aircraft configuration. With its high wing loading, the B-26 was notoriously easy to stall even during two-engine operation. Loss of an engine magnified the likelihood of dangerous stalls.
Bigger wings mitigated but did not eliminate the difficulties of flying the B-26. Te AAF received its first “long wing” B-26 in August 1942. The aircraft had earned a multitude of derogatory nicknames including the “widow maker” "Murderer", "Widow's Factory", "Baltimore slut" and the “flying prostitute,” a reference to its small wings providing no visible means of support.
In early 1942, General Hap Arnold sent then-Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle to assess what Arnold referred to as “the B-26 problem.” Often credited with saving the B-26, Doolittle recommended the troubled aircraft remain in production, but he insisted that transition training needed improvement and lengthening because many crews were arriving with little or no multiengine training. His report on the B-26 was delivered in September 1942 after he returned from his famous B-25 raid on Tokyo.
As accidents, some of them fatal, continued. General Arnold at the end of March 1942 appointed a special investigating board headed by Maj. Gen. Carl Spaatz to determine whether production should be continued. The board recommended several changes in the plane's design (the chief being a larger wing) and continued use of the plane. Manufacture of the B-26, which had been suspended until necessary changes had been made, was resumed in May, but in July and once again in October 1942 the AAF gave serious consideration to scrapping the B-26 in favor of some other type of plane. But Maj. Gen. George C. Kenney, on the basis of experience in SWPA, commended the plane to Arnold.
The Joint Congressional Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, commonly referred to as the “Truman Committee” ultimately became highly critical of both the Glenn L. Martin Company and its B-26. When the committee released its report on the aircraft industry in July 1943, it praised the B-25 but was highly critical of the B-26. While noting the Marauder’s “high performance” and reports of it being an “exceptionally fine plane in the air,” the committee stated, “the plane is unsafe when operated by any pilots except those specifically trained for its operation, because of unusual difficulties in landing and takeoff.” The report further cited the B-26’s high production and maintenance costs and its higher accident rate than the B-25.
In general, the bomber, saturated with complex electric drives, was difficult to master the ground crew, which was caused by the lack of technical documentation for the aircraft. In July 1941, of the 66 B-26s delivered, only 21 were in operation, the rest were mothballed until the time when it was possible to cope with the main shortcomings of the aicraft.
After tripping over one final hurdle, a tragic miscarriage of one of the earliest B-26 missions from England that led to further discussion of abandoning the plane, the B-26 won full approval. A "hot" plane with a fast landing speed, it more than proved its worth after experience and intensified training taught pilots how to handle it.
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