Page 34 - Volume 13 Number 5

Cuba bought seven Model A73B1 airplanes in 1939-1940, powered by Wright J6-7 radial engines. Export sales were an important part of the Stearman Division’s sales success.
(Courtesy Archives of the Wichita Area Chamber of Commerce)
D. Roosevelt called for increased defense funding to the staggering tune of $5 billion, with much of that figure dedicated to building weapons of war and military facilities. Management of the Stearman Division was implementing more plans for expansion that would greatly increase productivity. That expansion could come
none too soon as in June 1940, the U.S. Navy signed a contract worth $3.7 million for hundreds of N2S-2 and N2S-5 biplanes, all of this occurring amid frantic efforts to complete hundreds of PT-13-series ships already on order for the Army Air Corps.
When August rolled around, the factory had 1,100 “American citizens of undoubted loyalty” on the payroll working two, eight-hour shifts, six days a week. In September another 300 people were hired and a three-shift schedule put into effect that struggled to keep pace with delivery schedules. At that time the factory was completing a new PT-13 or N2S every three hours, but the goal was five ships per day.
Julius Schaefer’s headaches, however, only got worse Sept. 16, 1940, when the War Department announced that the Stearman Division would be given a contract worth more than $6.3 million for hundreds more primary trainers for the Army Air Corps. The order was one of five handed out that day to the Boeing Aircraft Company, the Glenn L. Martin Company, Douglas Aircraft Corporation and the Lockheed Aircraft Company, aimed at completing the War Department’s modernization program to acquire more than
MAY 2019
32 • KING AIR MAGAZINE