Testing

With the Development stage complete, things were looking good. All of the wind-tunnel testing that was completed during the development phase led to a very finely tuned design. Most of the early test pilots, including Col. Stan Umstead, had nothing but positive things to say about the plane.

Test flights did not begin until 10 July 1942. Test pilot Ben Howard flew the plane in front of Douglas and Army officials. Upon concluding the flight, Howard’s assessment was that the plane was ready, but it would be plagued by a series of setbacks for the next 2 years.

As the XA-26 continued its testing phase, several considerable problems were uncovered. One of the first issues to crop up was due to the propeller spinners – the large cones over the propellers. These restricted air flow and caused the engines to overheat. The problem was solved in the production version by omitting the propeller spinners and modifying the engine cowling slightly.

Several nose gear collapses during the test phase also forced designers to make some modifications to the nose gear, although this problem would not be fully resolved for quite some time and would crop up again with the first batch of Production units.