Ch. 25 preview:
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14:30 EST, February 8 2332
Montgomery, Alabama
Charles Bradshaw swore under his breath as he looked at the message. The US Aviation aircraft factory he managed (of three; located at Halifax, NVS; Stamford, CT; and Montgomery, AL) was now under instruction from company HQ to begin making A-76 Corsair II attack planes for the USN and USMC, instead of its previous intention of Dragon II stealth bombers. This would take weeks of reorganising the logistics, making alterations to the assembly lines … but still, it was possible. Montgomery was a short distance from Birmingham, the self-anointed “Pittsburgh of the South”, and the planes dropping in rare earths straight from Greenland (courtesy of Walker Mining Inc., which was pioneering a new means of mining through the glaciers to get at the vast mineral wealth concealed under the ice) couldn’t hurt. But still
He remembered the A-76 situation. Nine years ago, the company had received a contract from the USAF for a new designated naval attack craft. Being experts at flying-wing design, they’d rapidly created a design shaped like an equilateral triangle (cockpit near the top), capable of radar stealth and carrying various precision-guided missiles and bombs on its hardpoints and in its internal weapon bays. A prototype had even been made in early 2324 – onlookers had nicknamed it the “Flying Pizza Slice”. Everything had been going up in the world for this. And then in mid-2324 the Air Force had abruptly handed US Aviation a new contract for what would turn out to be the B-120 and in September cancelled its contract for the A-76, too focussed on the shiny new toy they were having their supplier make for them and seeing new strategic bombers to replace the ageing and flawed Dragon as a more urgent necessity. The Air Force also didn’t want to focus overmuch on one supplier for its planes; and having Daedalus make new vertibirds would be sufficient – US Aviation also produced cargo planes for the USAF and Army after all.
The company had weathered the loss, but the A-76 had remained a might-have-been for seven years. Until now, with control over naval aviation assets (and the units that made up those assets) now transferred to the Navy and USMC, who were both eager to find new specialised naval attack craft after the loss of so many pilots at the Cuban strait and, not willing to go through the whole development process again, had ordered hundreds of A-76 planes. Bradshaw felt, in an odd kind of way, that it represented a form of justice. The company was reaping the rewards of both projects - the order for Dragon IIs had just been increased to 180 - and the USAF's loss now represented their gain.