Boeing P-26 Peashooter

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Ever since Charles Darwin published his Origin of the Species, archaeologists have been obsessed with discovering the ‘missing link’–that hypothetical species representing the transition between ape and human. Whether or not the remains of such a creature have been found, or ever will be found, is still a matter of debate.

Technological development is also an evolutionary process. The transition between one era and another can sometimes be symbolized by the introduction of a single product. In that sense, Boeing’s P-26 Peashooter embodied the transition from the highly maneuverable, stick-and-wire fighter biplanes of World War I to the fast, all-metal monoplane fighters of World War II.

Boeing’s P-26 was a milestone in three respects. It was the first U.S. Army Air Corps fighter to incorporate several important design features that would become standard on aircraft subsequently used in World War II. To placate conservative elements in the Air Corps, however, the P-26’s designers were constrained to include several anachronistic features in the airplane that hampered its development potential. The Peashooter was also to be the last fighter aircraft mass-produced by Boeing before the company went on to bigger things, in both the figurative and the literal sense.

The company that would later become Boeing Aviation was founded in 1916 by William Edward Boeing. He was a prominent Seattle businessman who found little difficulty in making a transition of his own, from the lumber business to speedboat building to seaplane construction. Considering the company’s long-standing reputation for building large aircraft, it is often forgotten that Boeing was ever in the fighter business. During the 1920s, however, the Seattle-based company was in close competition with its eastern rival, Curtiss, for a dominant place in the American fighter arsenal.

Boeing’s first large aviation contract, secured in 1919, was for the construction of 200 Thomas-Morse MB-3 fighters for the U.S. Army Air Service. Known as the MB-3A, Boeing’s version incorporated a number of improvements over the Thomas-Morse original, including redesigned tail surfaces, improved radiators and a welded steel-tube fuselage in place of the original’s wooden structure. As a result of the quality of the MB-3A, Boeing went on to become one of the giants of the aviation industry while Thomas-Morse faded into obscurity.

Boeing’s next fighter project, the Model 15, was an original design employing a steel-tube fuselage, wooden wings and a 435-hp Curtiss D-12 liquid-cooled engine. Submitted in direct competition with a design from the much larger Curtiss Company, Boeing took a big chance on the new fighter by building the prototype airframe at the company’s own expense. The gamble paid off when the Army awarded Boeing a contract for 30 production versions in 1923, which they called the PW-9 (pursuit, water-cooled). The Navy also bought 14 examples under the designation FB-1 (fighter, Boeing). The Model 15 was the first in an unbroken series of production Boeing fighters that would culminate in the P-26.

Boeing biplane fighter development reached its pinnacle with the introduction of the Model 83 in 1928. Constructed of bolted aluminum instead of welded steel, the Model 83 was more compact than its predecessors. Powered by a 450-hp Pratt and Whitney Wasp air-cooled radial engine, it was a great success. The Model 83 was ordered over the next five years in successively improved models, designated for the Army as the P-12 and for the Navy as the F4B.

Despite the success of the Model 83, Boeing’s management was convinced that the days of the biplane were numbered. Boeing began investigating the possibility of a monoplane fighter in 1928. This resulted in the appearance of three prototype monoplanes in 1930. The first two, built as a private venture, were little more than parasol-winged derivatives of the Model 83. One was demonstrated to the Army as the XP-15. The other, a similar airplane equipped with a tail hook, was delivered to the Navy as the XF5B-1. Both proved to be faster than the equivalent Boeing biplane, but both were rejected because their rate of climb and maneuverability were inferior to the Model 83.

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Tags: Aircraft, Aviation History, Flight Technology