AVIATION: The Cats of MIG Alley

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Looking ahead, Kindelberger sees the time fast approaching when the piloted plane will be obsolete. "It will not be tomorrow, nor ten years from now," says he. "But our planes are rapidly approaching the point where they are penalized rather than aided by the presence of a human pilot. The time is coming when the defense of the U.S. will be pretty much automatic." North American, loaded up with guided-missile contracts, is planning for that day (its X-10 Navaho, forerunner to an intercontinental guided missile, will be test-fired soon). But those who think that guided missiles are a cheap way to security are wrong. In many respects, says Kindelberger, missiles are even more complex than today's aircraft; and with no pilots to bring them home, each one is a total loss after it is fired.

In the supersonic age, Kindelberger and other planemakers face a new challenge to tax their ingenuity: the thermal barrier. At speeds contemplated for the near future, tough aluminum will lose much of its strength because of friction-generated heat (titanium will replace it for many uses). Cockpit canopies of today's materials will soften like putty; present-day electronic equipment may fail. The U.S. will have its hands full keeping ahead on such problems. Despite the success of the Sabre in Korea, Kindelberger does not underestimate the mechanical ability of the Russians. Says he: "Our conception of the Russian is crazy. We've thought of him as a peasant with a cow, and his wife out pulling a plow—stopping only now and then to scratch. But Russia is building up and improving her industries all the time."

Kindelberger knows—as no layman can —how much time, money and sweat the U.S. must put into getting "the right airplane to the right place at the right time." In World War II, with the PSI Mustang, and in Korea, with the F-86 Sabre, it almost looked as though somebody had pulled a rabbit out of a hat. Says Dutch Kindelberger: "Nobody ever pulled a rabbit out of a hat without carefully putting one there in the first place."