Alexander Kartveli: The Aircraft Designer Who “Suffered” Greatness by James K. Libbey
“It’s a very nervous type of work: you get stomach ulcers, you don’t sleep nights, you don’t eat, you don’t drink. But the final satisfaction which you get out of seeing your thing fly is a tremendous reward, which makes up for all the suffering which you are undergoing because of your work.”1
These words were spoken by Alexander Kartveli at the very end of an extended interview held in New York City in April 1960. Kenneth Leish of the Oral History Research Office conducted the session on behalf of Columbia University and the New York Times Oral History Program. Kartveli’s comments contributed to a much larger body of work on the history of aviation published by American Heritage.2
And, frankly, any such survey must include a reference to Kartveli. He served as Vice President and Chief of Engineering for Seversky Aircraft and its successor, Republic Aviation. In this position, he played a key role in producing America’s first modern fighter aircraft, the P 35. Moreover, he was ultimately responsible for the development of the P 47 Thunderbolt, F 84 Thunderjet, and F 105 Thunderchief. 3
Considering the fact the latter three military airplanes played standout roles respectively in the Second World War, Korean War, and Vietnam War, Kartveli must be counted among individuals in the upper tier of aircraft designers. While he may not have
equaled the reputation of Blackbird’s Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, he certainly matched DC 3’s Arthur Raymond.4
Naturally, when Kartveli was born in 1896, powered, heavier than air craft represented but a faint glimmer in the human experience. His nativity occurred almost exactly three months after Samuel Pierpont Langley and his friend Alexander Graham Bell launched Aerodrome No. 5 on 6 May. A powered model, the tandem winged monoplane flew slightly more than one kilometer. Only in 1904 would the Wright Brothers’ full sized Flyer II outdistance Langley’s aerodrome.5
Meanwhile, Kartveli’s early life took place half a world away in the conquered Georgian province of Imperial Russia. Thus he grew up bilingual and later served as an artillery officer in the Russian Army during the Great War. Russia’s 1917 Revolution ended the tsarist empire’s existence as well as its participation in the conflict. By the time the new Soviet government ratified 15 March 1918 its peace treaty with the Central Powers, Kartveli had returned to Georgia to help transform the province into an independent country.6
Regrettably, Kartveli and other patriots had to confront countrymen who supported the Bolshevik (soon renamed Communist) Party. The latter group included future Procrustean dictator of the Soviet Union, Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili better known by his revolutionary pseudonym as the man of steel or Stalin. Before the Eleventh Red Army invaded Georgia on 14 February 1921 and used force to reestablish a Communist led Russian Empire, Kartveli fled the land of his birth.7
He soon joined in Paris, France, a large gathering of Russian émigrés who were also disenfranchised by the Revolution. Kartveli later admitted that up to this point he
Kartveli had to work his way through school just like many of today’s undergraduates. Unlike most contemporary students, he supported himself as a part time acrobat and trapeze artist. When he completed his course of study, he provided design services to several airframe manufacturers including the well known Société Blériot Aéronautique. In the mid 1920s, he applied his engineering skills to the new construction methods of replacing wood and fabric with metal in airplanes.9
By 1927, he had formed a partnership with Armand Thiebolt and Edmund Chagniard. Together they designed an all metal, seven engined airliner for trans Atlantic passenger service. They presented their ideas to Charles A. Levine, founder of Columbia Aircraft Company. Levine, a noted innovator, had recently flown from New York to Berlin just two weeks after the somewhat shorter but more famous New York to Paris flight of Charles A. Lindbergh.10
The proposed ocean hopping airliner was too grandiose even for the enterprising and inventive Levine. Despite his misgivings about the airliner, he hired the men to come to the United States and apply their skills to the development of the Uncle Sam. It was a much smaller but advanced, all-metal monoplane. Unfortunately, the underpowered, heavy craft neither flew nor sold as well as Levine expected. Disastrously for Kartveli, the project’s completion left him unemployed just as the U.S. economy collapsed in the Great Depression.11
12
Now the engineer exchanged the mental stress of design work for the physical suffering of near starvation. He ended up on the streets of New York doing odd jobs such as washing automobiles to earn a small amount of money for food. Fortunately, he soon gained a position with Atlantic Aircraft Corporation. The U.S. company was part of a conglomerate headed by Dutch aviation pioneer Anthony H. G. Fokker. As a member of an engineering team, Kartveli assisted with the creation of an all metal, twin engined airplane for the military.
While the U.S. Army Air Corps bought and tested the plane, it failed to order serial production. As a result, Russian speaking Kartveli decided over the winter of 1931 1932 to join a company led by Russian émigrés, the Seversky Aircraft Corporation of Long Island. The firm had been recently incorporated by Alexander P. de Seversky, Imperial Russia’s most decorated naval aviator of World War I. Extraordinarily, he shot down 13 (six confirmed) German planes in 57 sorties after he lost much of his right leg during his first combat mission.13
The naval pilot eventually enjoyed a comfortable life in America after fleeing Soviet Russia in 1918. Holder of numerous aeronautical patents ranging from in flight refueling systems to double hulled pontoons, Seversky earned the rank of Major and tens of thousands of dollars from the Air Service/Air Corps for his invention in the 1920s of the world’s most accurate, gyroscopically synchronized bombsight. Grudgingly, the U.S. Navy “allowed” the Air Corps to replace the Seversky device with the navy’s Carl L. Norden bombsight in the late 1930s.14
Because Seversky piloted flying boats in the war and invented a dozen technologies related to seaplanes in the 1920s, an old family friend asked him for
assistance. In 1930, Igor I. Sikorsky decided to modify his eight passenger, twin engined S 38 amphibian. He invited Seversky to tryout a single engined smaller version, the S 39. These craft have been described as “a collection of airplane parts flying in formation.” They were borderline ugly though the larger S 38 sold well to such airlines as the recently established Pan American Airways.15
After testing and demonstrating the S 39 to such notables as world renowned aviator Lindbergh and aviation philanthropist Harry F. Guggenheim, Seversky decided Sikorsky had made a mistake. Indeed, the S 39 gathered few takers. Seversky argued such a craft should exhibit the benefits of the revolution in flight technology and design that reached fruition in the late 1920s.16
Hence, on his own, he began drawing plans for a streamlined, all metal amphibian with an enclosed cockpit, cantilevered monowing, monocoque fuselage, and a powerful radial engine encased in an aerodynamic NACA cowl. By the time Kartveli moved to Seversky Aircraft, two other Russian engineers had been hired: Alexander Pishvanov, another World War I ace combat pilot and former Sikorsky designer; Mikhail Gregor, architect of the beautiful Bird biplane built by the Brunner Winkle Aircraft Corporation.17
Together, the four engineers began transforming Seversky’s rough outline into measured drawings of the SEV 3 amphibian, so named because it carried three people. The final and crucial piece of the corporate puzzle was inserted by Seversky when he convinced financier Paul Moore to serve as the company’s “angel.” By 1938 he had invested over $3.5 million. Seversky may have had his name on the front door but the rest
Meanwhile, the four men divided up and engineered the major segments of the SEV 3. While Pishvanov and Gregor worked on the fuselage and tail structures, Seversky designed the cockpit, decelerator (today, flap), and landing gear. The latter consisted of rotating pontoons that exposed the amphibian’s extended wheels. Kartveli mapped out the elliptical wing which, with varied measurements, reappeared on the BT 8, P 35, P 41, P 43, and P 47 plus other experimental, racing, and export models.19
For the SEV 3, Kartveli developed an extraordinarily unique cantilevered aerofoil. He designed it without the normal braces of two or more spars. Instead, the upper skin of smooth duralumin was reinforced inside by a second sheet of corrugated metal and shaped over a series of perforated ribs. A channel running the full length of the 36-foot span stiffened the bottom skin. Eliminating entirely the weight of separate fuel tanks, Kartveli and other team members chose to use the space between wing covers to carry gasoline.20
Seversky arranged with Edo Corporation for room and workers to help build the SEV 3 at College Point, Queens. Edo specialized in manufacturing seaplane floats including those designed by Seversky. He later flight tested the finished craft over Flushing Bay in June 1933. The plane then garnered great publicity when Seversky broke the world speed record for amphibians during the National Charity Air Pageant held at Roosevelt Field. On 9 October he flew 180.3 mph then later topped that by 50 mph with a more powerful 750 hp Wright Cyclone engine.21
Such record breaking performances attracted the interest of the military. In the spring of 1934 the Naval Air Service of the Republic of Colombia awarded Seversky Aircraft a contract for several amphibians. At the same time, the U.S. Army Air Corps Materiel Division at Wright Field asked to evaluate the plane. Test pilot Lieutenant John F. Whiteley gave it a high rating. While the army had only a limited interest in seaplanes, it urged Seversky to redesign the SEV 3 as a landplane and submit it to the competition for a new basic trainer slated for August 1934.22
Between the test flight of June 1933 until Colombia’s $46,000 down payment in May 1934, Seversky Aircraft tottered on the edge of oblivion. Paul Moore could not be expected to invest additional funds until the SEV 3 attracted paying customers. In this period of financial limbo, Mikhail Gregor jumped ship to form his own airplane firm at Roosevelt Field. Kartveli stayed but later remarked: “That was a very very tough time. I remember I didn’t pay for my room for several months; I didn’t have enough to eat.”23
Kartveli, however, would enjoy a happy ending. With the Colombian payment, Seversky rewarded the Georgian’s loyalty with a handsome salary and his design skills with the new title of Chief Engineer. As Kirkham Engineering and Manufacturing Corporation of Farmingdale produced jigs for the SEV 3M(ilitary), Kartveli transformed under Seversky’s direction the amphibian into a landplane with spatted wheels. Besides adjustments to the cockpit and internal support structures for the wing, removal of the rotating floats forced him to redesign and lengthen the fuselage. The process improved the plane’s center of gravity and created a more stable aircraft fit for the novice pilot.24
A revised SEV 3XAR(my) won the August competition. On 2 January 1935, the U.S. War Department awarded a contract worth $754,738 to Seversky Aircraft to build
30 BT 8 planes plus parts equal to five more. It raised the firm to the status of a significant aircraft producer. At the time, the company leased a warehouse and borrowed workers from Kirkham Engineering to finish the amphibians for Colombia. Later that year, Seversky Aircraft moved to a vacant facility at Farmingdale’s American Airport.25
A subsidiary of Fairchild Aviation, American Aviation Corporation controlled the property. Fairchild had developed the airport and several factories in the second half of the 1920s before moving its basic operations to Maryland in 1932. The BT 8 manufacturer initially shared the airport and plants with Ranger Aircraft Engine and Grumman Aeronautical Corporation. After the sale in 1936 of 840,000 shares of stock, Seversky Aircraft bought the entire property. It gave the company 200,000 square feet of factory space, 16,000 square feet of hangar capacity, and 127 acres of air field.26
Once the Kartveli led small design bureau drafted the final parameters of America’s first all-metal, low-wing trainer for the Air Corps, Seversky asked Kartveli to revamp the BT 8 so it could be entered in the competition to replace the obsolete P 26.
Based on his wartime combat experience, Seversky chose to ignore Air Corps specifications for a single seat fighter aircraft. Instead, he instructed Kartveli to set up a second cockpit in the SEV 2XP (2 seat eXperimental Pursuit). It would hold a ring mounted machine gun and crewmember to protect the pursuit against enemy attack from the rear.27
When transported for the pursuit competition at Wright Field on 18 June 1935, the SEV 2XP was damaged. It proved to be wonderfully fortunate. Two rival planes, Curtiss 75 and Northrop 3A, not only complied with Air Corps requirements for a single seat pursuit, they employed retractable landing gear. The latter promised improved
performance because of reduced drag during flight. Since the U.S. Congress complained about the lack of competitors for Air Corps contracts, the Materiel Division chose to delay the pursuit trials until August. It would give Seversky Aircraft time to repair its damaged prototype.28
Seversky wisely decided to do more than repairs. With Kartveli’s aid, the plane lost one of its cockpits and gained retractable landing gear. Moreover, the Georgian engineer reshaped the dorsal fuselage with a razorback spine running from cockpit to tail. Sundry descendants of the SEV 1XP prototype, including all but the last versions of the P 47, carried this design feature. When the “repaired” plane returned to Dayton, Ohio, and Wright Field on 15 August, the Curtiss Wright Aeronautical Corporation complained bitterly that Seversky Aircraft had not fixed a dinged airframe but entered an entirely new competitor.29
Because the Northrop 3A disappeared over the Pacific Ocean during a July test flight, the pursuit competition focused on the Curtiss and Seversky prototypes. Neither plane performed well so the Air Corps announced new trials for May 1936. On that occasion, the SEV 1XP outperformed the Curtiss 75, Consolidated PB 2a, and Vought 141. Seversky Aircraft received on 16 June a contract worth $1,636,250 to build 77 P 35s plus parts for eight more planes. The main design changes that absorbed Kartveli’s attention included moving the oil cooler from the side to the bottom of the cowl, mounting one 30-caliber and one 50-caliber machine gun in the cowl above the engine, and adding three percent dihedral to the wing to improve stability.30
Even though Kartveli agreed with Seversky’s idea that the airframe and engine mount must be designed to handle more powerful engines, the Air Corps stipulated that
the P 35 would carry only a Pratt & Whitney R 1830 Twin Wasp. Rated at 850 hp the air cooled, radial engine gave the pursuit a maximum speed of slightly more than 280 mph. This was unfortunate. P 35 look alike racers contained engines rated as high as 1200 hp and flew over 330 mph. It explains why Seversky, Frank Fuller, and Jackie Cochran captured dozens of speed records in the plane along with victories in the prestigious Bendix Trophy Race in 1937, 1938, and 1939.31
The racers along with long range pursuits kept Kartveli and his engineering team hopping. In 1937, the Soviet Union signed a contract to buy not only the distance flying fighter but also a complete set of plans and manufacturing rights. The following year Japan, which had attacked China in July 1937, bought 20 of Seversky’s convoy fighters. They accompanied Mitsubishi G3M bombers that dropped ordnance on targets of opportunity deep inside China’s interior. Regrettably, the Air Corps and its Air Forces successor discovered almost too late, that Seversky and Kartveli had begun to develop six years earlier exactly the type of aircraft needed in 1943 to protect B 17s and B 24s as they penetrated without fighter protection German air space during World War II.32
By August of 1938, Seversky Aircraft completed delivery of the P 35s to the Air Corps as well as the convoy fighters to Japan. Since the company president failed to convince the Materiel Division to order upgrades for the P 35 or support the evolution of a long range fighter, the company faced bankruptcy. Its only remaining hope was to sell planes to a Europe teetering on the brink of war or design an advanced pursuit to attract a big contract from the War Department. In terms of the latter, Kartveli and Seversky divided up the firm’s dwindling number of machinists, metalworkers, and engineers into two groups.33
Kartveli worked in the company’s Production Plant to design and construct the XP 41; Seversky took over the Experimental Shop to develop the company designated AP 4, a prototype for the P 43 Lancer As these two expensive projects were underway, Paul Moore arranged in October 1938 to refinance and reorganize the company. The transfusion of funds gave Seversky Aircraft a life expectancy of eight months. With a new Board of Directors led by Moore and a new Vice President, W. Wallace Kellett, Seversky’s leadership over the corporation he had founded was severely undermined.34
On 26 November 1938, Seversky boarded the S.S. Normandie for a voyage to Europe where he would spend six months demonstrating military aircraft. Ironically, in April 1939 his company fired its president just as his twin strategies to generate cash flow began bearing fruit. The AP 4 so impressed the Air Corps it awarded Seversky Aircraft the first of three contracts to produce the YP 43 and then the P 43 Lancer; additionally, he laid the groundwork for Sweden to purchase the first of 105 EP-1 (European Pursuit 1 crewmember) aircraft. The U.S. government took over the second contract and redesignated the planes as the P 35A.35
Naturally, the new Board of Directors and newly named president, Kellett, infuriated Seversky and added insult to injury by renaming the company Republic Aviation. On the other hand, he got even. Seversky’s out of court settlement of his law suit against Republic made him wealthy. Furthermore, his popular books and articles on air power, role in a Walt Disney movie, and frequent radio and later television appearances endowed him with the status of a national celebrity. Meanwhile, the more obscure but crucially important Kartveli kept his position as Vice President and Chief Engineer with the recently reorganized and renamed corporation.36
Over time, a total of five contracts from two countries to produce 377 pursuits should have given Kartveli a cushy job and Republic Aviation a prosperous future. But it didn’t. In fact, the Georgian’s stress level reached new heights. The EP 1/P 35A was obsolete before it left the factory floor and the Air Corps correctly judged the P 43 to be mediocre at best. The Lancer ended up in training or reconnaissance roles; a percentage of P 43s went to the China Air Force as part of America’s Lend Lease program.37
Kartveli did suggest adding a more powerful engine to the Lancer and thus create the P 44. Amazingly, the Air Corps actually awarded, sight unseen, a huge contract (later canceled) to Republic Aviation for an airplane that was never built. The cancellation came after the military observed the wartime performance of European aircraft such as the Messerschmitt Bf 109 and Supermarine Spitfire. The Air Corps soon appreciated that factors beyond bigger engines made effective fighter aircraft.38
Because the Bf 109 and Spitfire flew fast, in part, due to their liquid-cooled, inline engines that allowed a streamlined nose to reduce drag, Kartveli decided to imitate the European pattern. Hence the first version of the XP 47 was significantly lighter and smaller than the P 43. It was designed around an Allison V 1710 in line engine rated at 1,150 hp. A full sized mock up showed promise in wind tunnel tests but the model was rejected because its armament package was severely limited by the diminutive airframe.39
In September 1940, Kartveli traveled to Dayton and met with Air Corps officers at Wright Field. They put forward extremely demanding requirements for any future pursuit developed by Republic. The military wanted a fighter that exceeded 400 mph, carried armor plate to protect the pilot, possessed self sealing fuel tanks, held over 300 gallons of fuel, and mounted up to eight 50 caliber machine guns. Republic’s Chief
Engineer listened carefully to the air officers and sketched immediately the plane’s design in pencil on the back of a used envelope. It was the birth of the P 47.40
Interestingly, Seversky always claimed he designed the P 47. Even the enshrinement statement underneath his picture at the Aviation Hall of Fame in the U.S. Air Force Museum credits him, rather than Kartveli, for the Thunderbolt. His claim, however, was based solely on the surface level of similarities, not certainties. To be sure, Seversky and his friend Alexander Pishvanov, then head of the Experimental Shop, supervised much of the construction of the AP 4 prototype for the P 43. Anyone who has glanced at the Lancer and Thunderbolt will think that outwardly the P 43 is not just the “father” of the P 47 but rather the identical twin brother who had an unfortunate diet deficiency and experienced stunted growth.41
In engineering terms, though, the two airplanes are only distant cousins. And they had to be. The 1,200 hp Lancer engine was replaced by a huge Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp, 18 cylinder radial engine. Its mechanical energy produced 2,000 hp that jumped to 2,800 hp by the end of World War II. The monster reciprocating powerplant meant the P 47 airframe had to be reengineered literally from one end to the other. Nearly eight feet had to be added to the fuselage and almost five feet to the wing of the smaller P 43.42
Kartveli recognized the big engine needed significantly more fuel tankage than the Lancer. Additionally, the engine powered a four-bladed propeller with a diameter in excess of twelve feet. The large diameter forced the creation of an unusual landing gear system. It extended the main wheels nine inches after being released from the wing
cavities to provide clearance for the blades. The deep fuselage of the P 43 reappeared in the P 47 but for two reasons.43
First, the main and auxiliary fuel tanks were located below and behind the cockpit. Second, the fuselage held massive ductwork for the immense turbosupercharger. The latter made the Thunderbolt an extremely potent weapon at high altitudes. Furthermore, the wing carried eight large machine guns and big ammunition troughs to feed the hungry 50 caliber weapons. Altogether, the size, equipment, and ordnance doubled the weight of the Thunderbolt which flew, nonetheless, 75 mph faster than the Lancer 44
Later, Kartveli boasted how he along with his teams of engineers and machinists designed and constructed the P 47 in record time. The first Thunderbolt was accepted by the recently renamed U.S. Army Air Forces shortly after Pearl Harbor. Thus, Kartveli handed the Air Forces a pre-production prototype to test in half the time most airframe manufacturers needed to develop a new model. On the other hand, such a quickly built aircraft was bound to have a number of “teething” problems.45
Regrettably, the teething problems included the total failure of the tail assembly in flights that featured unusually high speed dives. Such a flight killed Republic test pilot George Burrell. The tragedy galvanized to action Kartveli and a string of engineers to correct the fatal flaw by drafting a stronger and bigger tail structure that also replaced fabric-covered control surfaces with metal. While the P-47B went into production in March 1942, it would be the revised and reinforced P 47C that first arrived in England and the European war zone in December.46
At 15,683 units, more Thunderbolts were turned out than any other American fighter of World War II. Once full production began at Republic’s Farmingdale and Evansville, Indiana, plants (later, Curtiss Wright built a smaller batch at Buffalo), Kartveli could not sit back and enjoy a life of leisure. If anything, he worked more feverishly as he improved the P 47. In this effort, the Chief Engineer created an alphabet soup of planes that embodied hundreds of changes.47
Visible differences between the P 47B and P 47N, the last wartime Thunderbolt, included shifts from rounded to squared wing tips and from framed to bubbletop canopies. Moreover, removal of the razorback gave the craft a smoother, if not graceful, profile. At 467 mph, the N flew over 50 mph faster than the B model. It also upped its service ceiling by a mile to 43,000 ft; its loaded weight leaped almost three tons to 10.35 tons. Supplied with external tanks, the P 47N could fly 1,775 miles further than the P 47B and carry a greater variety of weapons ranging from a ton of bombs to ten rockets.48
Although not as maneuverable as North American’s sleek P 51, the P 47 made an outstanding contribution to the victorious air war. The European Theater’s leading ace pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Francis S. “Gabby” Gabreski, sported on his Thunderbolt, 28 miniature Nazi flags to represent his kills. Gabby and other P 47 pilots appreciated the fact the plane continued to fly after absorbing multiple hits from enemy fire. It enjoyed the exceptionally low combat loss rate of 0.7 percent. Precisely because of its robust construction, big size, and multiple weapons, the P-47 proved to be a lethal ground attack plane. In the final year of the European campaign, German troops came to hate and fear the mighty Thunderbolt 49
For his part, Kartveli also endured significant stress during the last year of conflict, but it had little to do with the P 47. All aircraft manufacturers had signed contracts with automatic cancellation clauses that kicked in at war’s end. In fact by the fall of 1945 the U.S. aircraft industry as a whole lost $21 billion in wartime orders. For Republic, the shoe dropped in September, which forced the company to dismiss thousands of employees and give up its plant in Evansville. The Chief Engineer had to worry about peacetime production if some fragment of Republic Aviation were to survive. Meanwhile in 1944, his plans suggested the company had to build for the civilian market while designing a very competitive advanced aircraft that could attract one of the presumably rare contracts issued by a severely diminished U.S. military.50
Between 1944 and 1945, Kartveli adopted three major tactics in his strategy to keep Republic Aviation alive after the war. First, like his counterparts at several major aircraft companies, Kartveli assumed the 193,440 men who completed military flight training and survived the conflict would return home just itching to fly and buy airplanes. Frankly, thanks to Kartveli, Republic was fully prepared to meet the expected huge demand for small planes in the field of “general aviation” a postwar term that came into vogue to distinguish private from commercial and military aviation.51
Kartveli had hired Percival Spencer, founder of Spencer Larsen Aircraft Corporation, which dissolved in 1940. The firm had built small amphibians. When he joined the company, Spencer sold one of his designs to Republic. Kartveli had his team of engineers rework the design into an attractive, roomy, and rugged Seabee in 1945. Over a thousand were produced by 1947, but the program had to be suspended. The postwar boom in general aviation quickly fizzled. Newly designed airplanes were
expensive and could not compete with the homes and cars returning veterans sought in their civilian lives.52
The second tactic involved Kartveli in an immediate and personal way. In 1944 he set the parameters and led his team in designing a high altitude, long range photoreconnaissance plane, the XR 12. It was streamlined to the nth degree, contained a pressurized cabin, and featured four Pratt & Whitney R 2800 engines that gave it a cruising speed of 450 mph. With the in house name of Rainbow, two copies of the craft were completed by war’s end. Logically, though incorrectly, the Air Forces concluded additional units would not be needed in peacetime.53
Not discouraged, Kartveli thought his dream of 1927 to build a large, all metal, long distance airliner could now be fulfilled. The Rainbow would have been the fastest passenger plane in the world. Pan American and American Airlines expressed an interest in the aircraft. “But,” as Kartveli noted sorrowfully:
...the company was financially unable to carry out the job, and we had to give it up. That was the biggest tragedy of my life, because that was so much ahead of anything in existence that if we would have continued in that line, we would be the builders of big bombers and big transatlantic airplanes.54
Kartveli’s third tactic, create a successful, jet propelled fighter, saved Republic Aviation. In fact it was such a game winner for the company he was elected to the board of directors in December 1946. Earlier, during the war, the engineer received confidential information about the progress in jet airplane development by the Bell and Lockheed aircraft companies. In September and November 1944, Kartveli submitted to the Air
Forces preliminary designs. They applied to service requirements for a 600 mph jet aircraft which could function as either a fighter escort or fighter bomber.55
These early drafts copied the P 47 profile. It explains why the XP 84 resembled certain obvious features of the Thunderbolt such as its straight wing and barrel chested fuselage. Once a General Electric J35 axial flow engine had been assigned to the project, production specific drawings could be made and metal could be cut. Later models carried an Allison turbojet. Republic received an initial contract for 101 test and operational models in January 1945. The first two XP 84s were accepted officially by the Air Forces at the Farmingdale plant in October of the same year.56
Similar to the P 47, the quick draft and fast construction of the P 84 resulted in numerous shortcomings that had to be addressed. And, like the Thunderbolt, the Thunderjet possessed a serious, life threatening fault. Wings of production F 84s (the newly-created U.S. Air Force redesignated pursuits as fighters in June 1948) had the nasty habit of falling off in flight. Kartveli admitted the issue actually gave him a major stomach ulcer. Careful analysis revealed the wings were sturdy but fuel tanks at the tips twisted the wings and made the fighter unsafe. A simple $200 stabilizing fin on each tank corrected the flaw.57
Regardless, as the Cold War with the Soviet Union heated up, the Air Forces multiplied its contracts with Republic which built over time 4,452 F 84s. America’s allies received many of the planes that also served with distinction in the Korean War, 19501953. Neither as flashy nor as fast as North American’s F 86 Sabre, the Thunderjet nonetheless became the champion hauler of bombs against enemy targets. Additionally, its role as a potent destroyer of ground forces was confirmed during the successful
Chinese offensive in North Korea over the winter of 1950 1951. The F 84 is credited literally with saving the U.S. 8th Army from destruction by Chinese troops.58
The Korean War did not end but rather stopped with the signing of an armistice on 27 July 1953. During the era of that conflict, Kartveli led his team in creating as many variants of the F 84 as he had for the P 47. The most important was a swept wing version named the Thunderstreak. Though still subsonic at 658 mph, it was faster than the original F 84. Many of the 2,348 Thunderstreaks went to NATO and allied air forces. Other models included the rocket powered XF 91, turboprop XF 84H, and reconnaissance RF 84F Thunderflash 59
While his company built these F 84 spinoffs, Kartveli outlined what proved to be the highest performing aircraft designed under his direction. With an in house designation of AP 63, the F 105 Thunderchief had its birth in 1951 1952. The supersonic fighter-bomber evolved literally from the swept-wing F-84. Initially, it was drafted around the ability to carry internally an atomic bomb. The final production model used that space for fuel while hauling externally six tons of ordnance a bomb load comparable to what advanced marks of the four engined B 17 carried 60
The Thunderchief followed the developmental traditions of earlier fighter aircraft designed under Kartveli’s leadership. At 52,000 pounds of loaded weight, it proved to be the heaviest single seater to enter service with the U.S. Air Force. Moreover, true to form, Kartveli endured the stress of dealing with multiple modifications before production of the F 105B began in 1956. The first of 610 definitive F 105Ds were not delivered until 1959. The top two changes that led to significant revisions were related to powerplant and ordnance.61
First, the aircraft was engineered to accept the Pratt & Whitney J 57 engine. Except for two test models, however, production planes housed the more powerful J 75.
Moving from 10,000 to 23,000 pounds of thrust required thinner, more swept wings and altered the air duct system. In addition, clover leaf air brakes at the aft fuselage became necessary to help slow down the big, supersonic fighter bomber to landing speed.
Second, changing missions from carrying Mk 28 or Mk 43 nuclear weapons to bearing external bombs forced the creation of hard points on wings and at the centerline of the fuselage.62
Just as Thunderchief production equipped Air Force squadrons, the U.S. made a commitment to use military force to preserve South Vietnam against the Communist regime in the North. During the Rolling Thunder bombing campaign (1965 1968), the F 105 served as the principal strike aircraft. The plane participated in more than 20,000 missions at a combat cost of 330 aircraft. After Rolling Thunder, 86 F-105s continued operations in Vietnam as part of the Wild Weasel program to seek out and destroy enemy radar sites.63
Meanwhile, another corporation purchased over several years a large bloc of Republic Aviation stock. By July 1965, the company had become a division of Fairchild and Kartveli retired with the title Chief Engineer Emeritus. To be sure, he suffered less stress but he continued to provide consulting services. Hence he did have a minor role in the design of the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II, which first flew on 10 May 1972. In fact, he had spent a full day at the office on Friday before his fatal heart attack on Saturday, 20 July 1974. He was 77.64
1 Quote from “The Reminiscences of Alexander Kartveli,” Oral History Research Office, Columbia University, April 1960, Microfiche, 43 (hereafter cited as Kartveli Reminiscences).
2 Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., ed., The American Heritage History of Flight (New York, 1962).
3 Dennis R. Jenkins, “Kartveli, Alexander (1896 1974),” in Walter J. Boyne, ed., Air Warfare: An International Encyclopedia, Vol. 1 (Santa Barbara, CA, 2002), 346.
4 Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson with Maggie Smith, Kelly: More Than My Share of It All (Washington, 1985), Oliver E. Allen, The Airline Builders (Alexandria, VA, 1981), 124 126.
5 Richard Witkin, “Alexander Kartveli, P 47 Designer, Dead at 77,” New York Times (23 July 1974), 48; Valerie Moolman, The Road to Kitty Hawk (Alexandria, VA, 1980), 94 100; Tom Crouch, The Bishop’s Boys (New York, 1989), 273 286.
6 Kartveli Reminiscences, 1; George F. Kennan, Russia Leaves the War (New York, 1967), 364 377.
7 Ronald Grigor Suny, The Making of the Georgian Nation (Bloomington, IN, 1994), 194 207.
8 Kartveli Reminiscences, 2.
9 Kartveli Reminiscences, 2 4; Tom D. Crouch, Wings: A History of Aviation from Kites to the Space Age (New York, 2003), 316 355.
10 Kartveli Reminiscences, 3; Walter J. Boyne, “Aerial Oddities,” Aviation History, 16 (January 2006), 10 and 20 21; A. Scott Berg, Lindbergh (New York, 1998), 112 131.
11 Kartveli Reminiscences, 5 6; Joshua Stoff, Long Island Aircraft Manufacturers (Charleston, SC, 2010), 17.
12 Kartveli Reminiscences, 7 9; Crouch, Wings, 240 242; Marc Dierikx, Fokker: A Transatlantic Biography (Washington, 1997).
13 Kartveli Reminiscences, 9; “New Incorporations,” New York Times (18 February 1931), 36; James K. Libbey, “The Making of a War Hero,” Aviation History, 20 (March 2010), 54 59.
14 U.S. Patent Office, #1,728,449, “Aerial Filling Device,” Filed 13 June 1921; U.S. Patent Office, #1,963,630, “Amphibian Landing Gear for Aircraft,” Filed 28 March 1927 (and related others); U.S. Patent Office, #2,027,348, “Sighting Control for Aircraft,” Filed 10 April 1922 (and related others); Stephen L. McFarland, America’s Pursuit of Precision Bombing, 1910 1945 (Washington, 1995), 34.
15 “Seversky Tries Out Plane,” New York Times (11 May 1930), 5; James K. Libbey, “Sikorsky, Igor I. (1889 1972),” in Boyne, ed., Air Warfare, 567.
16 “Lindbergh Tries Plane,” New York Times (8 May 1930), 4; Richard Hallion, Legacy of Flight: The Guggenheim Contribution to American Aviation (Seattle, 1977).
17 Kartveli Reminiscences, 9 10; oral interviews by author with Nick Pishvanov (son of Alexander) on 8 October 2006 and 4 November 2007; Geoff Jones and Chuck Stewart, Vintage Aircraft Over America (Ramsburg, UK, 2006), 9 10.
18 “Paul Moore, Lawyer, Dies at 74: A Founder of Republic Aviation,” New York Times (20 December 1959), 60; “Seversky Aircraft Corporation,” 15 September 1938, Alexander P. de Seversky Papers, Cradle of Aviation Museum (hereafter Seversky Papers), Box 4.
19 “Amphibian of 220 Mile Speed and Novel Construction Now Being Built Here,” New York Times (27 March 1932), XX7; A. D. McFadyen, “Major Alexander P. de Seversky,” Journal of the Patent Office Society, 19 (April 1937), 273 276.
20 Kartveli Reminiscences, 9 10; “A Novel Amphibian,” Scientific American, 149 (November 1933), 227.
21 Robert Hucker, “Seversky: Innovator and Prophet,” National Air & Space Museum, Seversky Biography Files, CS 415000 01; “Mrs. Seversky’s Talk Over WMCA 6/21/33,” Radio Transcript, Seversky Papers, Box 218; “De Seversky Again Sets Record in Amphibian,” New York Times (10 October 1933), 19; FAI, Diplôme de Record, Seversky Papers, Box 216.
22 Hucker, “Seversky: Innovator and Prophet,” 56; John F. Whiteley, “Alexander de Seversky,” Aerospace Historian, 24 (Fall 1977), 156 157.
23 Check #1708 from Colombia’s Consulate General drawn on National City Bank and payable to Seversky Aircraft for $45,988.95, Long Island Studies Institute, de Seversky Family Papers, Folder 1; Joshua Stoff, Long Island Aircraft Manufacturers (Charleston, SC, 2010), 67; quote from Kartveli Reminiscences, 10.
24 Agreement Between Seversky Aircraft Corporation and Kirkham Engineering and Manufacturing Corporation, 16 May 1934, Seversky Papers, Box 3; Edward T. Maloney, Sever the Sky: Evolution of Seversky Aircraft (Corona De Mar, CA, 1979), 10.
25 Kartveli Reminiscences, 11; “35 Training Planes Ordered for Army,” New York Times (3 January 1935), 11; Maloney, Sever the Sky, 15
26 Joshua Stoff, Long Island Airports (Charleston, SC, 2004), 95 96; “Airplane Maker Files Stock Issue,” New York Times (23 June 1936), 37; “Aircraft Firm Buys Long Island Plants,” New York Times (17 October 1936), 32.
27 Hucker, “Seversky: Innovator and Prophet,” 56 and 58.
28 Ibid., 58; Larry Davis, P 35 (Carrollton, TX, 1994), 6.
29 Kartveli Reminiscences, 11 12; Davis, P 35, 6; Maloney, Sever the Sky, 17; Murray Rubenstein and Richard M. Goldman, To Join With the Eagles: Curtiss Wright Aircraft 1903 1965 (Garden City, 1974), 147.
30 Kartveli Reminiscences, 13 14; “77 Tiny Fast Planes Ordered For Army,” New York Times (17 June 1936), 25; “Aviation,” Newsweek (27 June 1936), 31.
31 William Green and Gordon Swanborough, The Complete Book of Fighters (New York, 1998), 522 523; “F. W. Fuller Breaks Bendix Race Mark,” New York Times (4 September 1937), 7; “Seversky Sets East West Flight Record Of 10 Hours 3 Minutes in Bendix Race Plane,” New York Times (30 August 1938), 1; “Miss Cochran Wins Bendix Race,” New York Times (4 September 1938), 1; Davis, P 35, 43.
32 Kartveli Reminiscences, 13 14; “Seversky Aircraft Awarded $780,000 Russian Contract,” Wall Street Journal (26 May 1937), 1; copy of letter from Alexander P. de Seversky to Major General Oscar Westover, Chief of the U.S. Army Air Corps, 30 June 1938, Seversky Papers, Box 7; “Our Latest Planes Aid Foreign Forces,” New York Times (31 July 1938), 24.
33 “Production Report #21,” and “Production Report #28,” 5 July and 24 August 1938, Seversky Aircraft Corporation, Seversky Papers, Box 6; copy of letters from Seversky to Brigadier General Augustine Warner Robins, Materiel Division Chief, 24 May 1938 and 4 June 1938, Seversky Papers, Boxes 7 and 10.
34 Excerpt from Minutes of the Seversky Aircraft Corporation Board of Directors, 28 February 1939, Seversky Papers, Box 5; statement on the AP 4 prepared for the lawsuit of de Seversky vs. Republic Aviation Corporation, 5 January 1942, Box 10; copy of letter agreement between Paul Moore and White, Weld & Co., “Re: Seversky Aircraft Corporation,” 27 October 1938, Seversky Papers, Box 4.
35 “Myron C. Taylor Sails For Refugee Parley” (loading Seversky planes delayed the liner’s departure) New York Times (27 November 1938), 47; “Heads Seversky Company,” New York Times (19 April 1939), 37; copy of letter from Seversky to Chief of the Swedish Royal Air Force, 17 April 1939, Seversky Papers, Box 7; “Order $974,324 Pursuit Planes” (negotiations with Air Corps began in April before Seversky was fired) New York Times (24 May 1939), 18.
36 “Reports Seversky Suit Settled,” New York Times (17 October 1942), 20; “Best Sellers of the Week,” New York Times (27 April 1942), 13; Bob Thomas, Walt Disney: An American Original (New York, 1994), 182 185; “On the Set of Victory Through Air Power, Walt Disney On the Front Lines,” Disc Two, © Disney. There are dozens of radio and television transcripts. See for example, “Transcript of de Seversky’s Appearance on the Mike Wallace Interview Show,” 3 August 1958, Seversky Papers, Box 213, pp. 1 17.
37 Kartveli Reminiscences, 14 15; Cory Graff, P 47 Thunderbolt at War (St. Paul, MN, 2007), 16; Green and Swanborough, Complete Book of Fighters, 493 and 525.
38 Graff, P 47 Thunderbolt at War, 18; Larry Davis, P 47 Thunderbolt (Carrollton, TX, 1984), 5.
39 Kartveli Reminiscences, 16 17; Graff, P 47 Thunderbolt at War, 18 19.
40 Kartveli Reminiscences, 17; Witkin, “Alexander Kartveli.” 48.
41 Letter from James W. Jacobs, Aviation Hall of Fame, to Seversky (15 May 1970); Aviation Hall of Fame Enshrinement Program (17 December 1970); news clipping, “Air Pioneer Major de Seversky Enters Hall of Fame,” (17 December 1970); all in Seversky Papers, Box 216.
42 Green and Swanborough, Complete Book of Fighters, 492 493.
43 Ibid.
44 Kartveli Reminiscences, 17; David Mondey, American Aircraft of World War II (Edison, NJ, 2003), 215 222.
45 Kartveli Reminiscences, 17 18; Brinton Holley, Buying Aircraft: Materiel Procurement for the Army Air Forces (Washington, 1964), 33 42 and 93 103.
46 Kartveli Reminiscences, 19 20; Davis, P 47 Thunderbolt, 6.
47 Mondey, American Aircraft of World War II, 216 222; Green and Swanborough, Complete Book of Fighters, 492 496.
48 Ibid.; Sherwood S. Cordier, “Republic P 47 Thunderbolt,” in Boyne, ed., Air Warfare, 524 525.
49 Edward Jablonksi, America in the Air War (Alexandria, VA, 1982), 88 90; Mondey, American Aircraft of World War II, 222; Graff, P 47 Thunderbolt at War, 82 93.
50 Crouch, Wings, 488 490.
51 Ron Dick, American Eagles: A History of the United States Air Force (Charlottesville, VA, 1997), 127 See also Stephen G. Craft, Embry Riddle at War: Aviation Training During World War II (Gainesville, FL, 2009).
52 Stoff, Long Island Aircraft Manufacturers, 114 and 124 125; Harry N. Scheiber, Harold G. Valter, and Harold U. Faulkner, American Economic History (New York, 1976), 415 418.
53 Kartveli Reminiscences, 24; Stoff, Long Island Aircraft Manufacturers, 115.
54 Quote from Kartveli Reminiscences, 25.
55 Kartveli Reminiscences, 28; “Republic Aviation Elects Kartveli, Plane Designer, Is Named as Director,” New York Times (29 December 1946), 7; David R. McLaren, Republic F 84: Thunderjet, Thunderstreak, & Thunderflash (Atglen, PA, 1998), 4 5.
56 McLaren, Republic F 84, 5 9; Green and Swanborough, Complete Book of Fighters, 496 497.
57 Kartveli Reminiscences, 28 29.
58 James K. Libbey, ed., Documents of Soviet American Relations: The Cold War Begins, 1945 1948 (Gulf Breeze, FL, 2006); John W. R. Taylor, Combat Aircraft of the World (New York, 1969), 551 552; Dick, American Eagles, 270 271.
59 Burton I. Kaufman, The Korean Conflict (Westport, CT, 1999), 67; Kartveli, Reminiscences, 29 31; McLaren, Republic F 84, 17 27.
60 Kartveli Reminiscences, 31 35; Dennis R. Jenkins, F 105 Thunderchief: Workhorse of the Vietnam War (New York, 2000), 2 4; David Lee, Boeing: From Peashooter to Jumbo (Edison, NJ, 1999), 52 58.
61 Jenkins, F 105 Thunderchief, 17 71; Green and Swanborough, Complete Book of Fighters, 500 501.
62 Kartveli Reminiscences, 33; Jenkins, F 105 Thunderchief, 3; Douglas G. Culy, “Engine Technology,” in Boyne, ed., Air Warfare, 195 205.
63 Jenkins, F 105 Thunderchief, 106 107; Green and Swanborough, Complete Book of Fighters, 501; John T. Smith, Rolling Thunder (Surrey, U.K., 1994), see especially 61 and 255.
64 Stoff, Long Island Aircraft Manufacturers, 118 119; Michael J. H. Taylor, The Aerospace Chronology (London, 1989), 239; Witkin, “Alexander Kartveli, P 47 Designer, Dead at 77,” 48.
About the Author
James K. Libbey is Professor Emeritus at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University where he taught Russian American Relations and American Aviation History. He is the author of numerous publications including five books. He recently completed a biography of Alexander P. de Seversky. He gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Josh Stoff, Curator, Cradle of Aviation Museum as well as librarians Sue Burkhart and Suzanne Eichler of the Jack Hunt Library, Embry Riddle Aeronautical University.