Make Brewster Aircraft less terrible

So the WI is how can you make Brewster Aircraft less terrible? Bonus points to anyone who can come up with a plausible way for Brewster to be renowned for it's top quality designs and production during WW2. Extra Bonus points to anyone who can get Brewster to survive to at least the 60s/70's. Bonus bonus points with sprinkles on top to anyone who can come up with a way for Brewster to survive to today with at least a half decent public/industry perception of it's products.
 
Well, for starters have Jimmy Work hire a bright young engineer just out of the School Up North (University of Michigan) named Kelly Johnson for $100 a month (Lockheed initially paid him $83 a month). Also have him hire a bright designer named Ed Heinemann in the early 1930s as well. Heinemann had been laid off by Douglas in 1926 and was bouncing around and he spent time with Northrop.

At some point in the mid-1930s Work needs to die in a car accident and the company needs to be taken over by somebody more competent.
 
Well, for starters have Jimmy Work hire a bright young engineer just out of the School Up North (University of Michigan) named Kelly Johnson for $100 a month (Lockheed initially paid him $83 a month). Also have him hire a bright designer named Ed Heinemann in the early 1930s as well. Heinemann had been laid off by Douglas in 1926 and was bouncing around and he spent time with Northrop.

At some point in the mid-1930s Work needs to die in a car accident and the company needs to be taken over by somebody more competent.

Yeah I was thinking that having the entire leadership (both corporate and Union) of Brewster die in a series of car crashes might be incredibly valuable.
 
I'd go back a bit further and improve the production history of the Brewster & Co. Automotive Coachworks, perhaps by introducing a mass-market automobile design instead of restricting themselves to the luxury autobody market. That should get them through the lean years of the Great Depression and let them afford more aircraft designers for the Aeronautical Engineering branch which had started making parts for other manufacturers, maybe even forestall the breakup of the company which puts Work in charge of the Aircraft division without supervision.

Considering Brewster didn't have much design experience in whole airframes, it's a little remarkable that they did as well as they did. I think @Zheng He has it exactly right (maybe not the car crash) in that a few extra designers (especially that pair) to design more efficient airframes would do wonders for Brewster.

If I could posit entirely new aircraft I'd have Brewster make good use of its experience with seaplanes and speedboats and take a stab at one or more of the seaplane contracts, maybe scoop the contract that lead to the PBY Catalina.
 
Was the F2A Buffalo really that bad?
The Finns did use it to great effect against the might of the Soviet Air Force during the Winter War.

Maybe a bigger Finnish contract could save it's skin?
Brewster would have a pretty good rep as an exporter as a result.
Maybe sell to some South and Central American countries as well.
Sell to both Ecuador and Peru, resulting in Buffalo vs Buffalo dogfights during the 1941 Ecuadorian-Peruvian War.
 
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Was the F2A Buffalo really that bad?
The Finns did use it to great effect against the might of the Soviet Air Force during the Winter War.

Maybe a bigger Finnish contract could save it's skin?
Brewster would have a pretty good rep as an exporter as a result.
Maybe sell to some South and Central American countries as well.
Sell to both Ecuador and Peru, resulting in Buffalo vs Buffalo dogfights during the 1941 Ecuadorian-Peruvian War.
This thread has nothing to do with the Buffalo as an aircraft, but with Brewster Aeronautical Corporation as a company. The company was involved in financial fraud, over-promised and under-delivered. workers were unskilled and poorly motivated. Schedules were not kept, illicit strikes occurred, quality control was so bad that sabotage was suspected and I'm not sure if this was apocryphal or not but the Navy had them make a machine to turn planes over so the loose parts and leftover tools fell out. The Buccaneer, the aircraft they designed after the Buffalo, was considered so bad it was not even usable for training. What finally killed the company was delays and QC failures with license producing Corsairs so that the Navy finally cancelled all contracts with them

Brewster already overpromised, simply getting more Buffalo orders just means more aircraft diverted to rear area duties in 1942 as the company could not build them fast enough thanks to horrible efficiency problems. Marginal extra gains in 1941-2 would still not save the company from losing all business in 1944
 
Was the F2A Buffalo really that bad?
It's my understanding that that Buffalo was entirely adequate for when it was designed and built (it was considered better than the early Wildcats, for comparison). It just had the misfortune of seeing its first American combat actions against the simply superior aircraft of early-war Japan. In Finnish service it was facing roughly equivalent Russian opponents where the superior quality of Finnish pilots came to the fore.
As for how that doesn't help Brewster in this thread - I see @RamscoopRaider has beaten me to the punch.

The Buccaneer was a genuine flop and cemented Brewster's less-than-stellar reputation.
 
It's my understanding that that Buffalo was entirely adequate for when it was designed and built (it was considered better than the early Wildcats, for comparison). It just had the misfortune of seeing its first American combat actions against the simply superior aircraft of early-war Japan. In Finnish service it was facing roughly equivalent Russian opponents where the superior quality of Finnish pilots came to the fore.
As for how that doesn't help Brewster in this thread - I see @RamscoopRaider has beaten me to the punch.

The Buccaneer was a genuine flop and cemented Brewster's less-than-stellar reputation.

From what I can remember the early model Buffalo was regarded as pretty good for it's time. It's just that to navalize it they added a good deal of armor, strengthened certain parts (hence making them heavier), and added things like arrestor gear and a tail hook. When combined with an already underpowered engine adding several hundred pounds of gear severely reduced performance turning it into a flying death trap.

I believe the Finnish models had all of that deleted meaning performance was a lot better then the Pacific models. Obviously the Finns weren't going to be flying from aircraft carriers. The Finns were also running into Soviet pilots that were often not very good and flying crappy aircraft. And frankly the Buffallo was all the Finns could get. If you're desperate you can do amazing things with crap gear sometimes.

In comparison in the Pacific the Japanese planes were a lot more maneuvarable and the pilots top notch. The Japanese Naval aviators were some of the best combat pilots in the world at the time. And a lot of the allied pilots flying the Buffalo had minimal training time with it before they were thrown into combat. Perhaps it might have fared better in the pacific if they'd been non navalized versions.
 
This thread has nothing to do with the Buffalo as an aircraft, but with Brewster Aeronautical Corporation as a company. The company was involved in financial fraud, over-promised and under-delivered. workers were unskilled and poorly motivated. Schedules were not kept, illicit strikes occurred, quality control was so bad that sabotage was suspected and I'm not sure if this was apocryphal or not but the Navy had them make a machine to turn planes over so the loose parts and leftover tools fell out. The Buccaneer, the aircraft they designed after the Buffalo, was considered so bad it was not even usable for training. What finally killed the company was delays and QC failures with license producing Corsairs so that the Navy finally cancelled all contracts with them

Brewster already overpromised, simply getting more Buffalo orders just means more aircraft diverted to rear area duties in 1942 as the company could not build them fast enough thanks to horrible efficiency problems. Marginal extra gains in 1941-2 would still not save the company from losing all business in 1944

I believe the sabotage was confirmed by a military investigation. Originally it was suspected that it politically motivated by German agents or sympathizers. Instead it turned out to be guys sabotaging the line in order to get extra paid smoke breaks or workers from one shift deliberately sabotaging other shifts in order to make the sabotagers shift look better in comparison by default.

Which to me actually seems lower then if they had been goose stepping Nazi lovers. I mean seriously? Intentionally sabotaging equipment you know might go into combat (and hence potentially killing it's user) in order to get a bloody extra smoke break or make yourself look less incompetent.
 
From what I can remember the early model Buffalo was regarded as pretty good for it's time. It's just that to navalize it they added a good deal of armor, strengthened certain parts (hence making them heavier), and added things like arrestor gear and a tail hook. When combined with an already underpowered engine adding several hundred pounds of gear severely reduced performance turning it into a flying death trap.

I believe the Finnish models had all of that deleted meaning performance was a lot better then the Pacific models. Obviously the Finns weren't going to be flying from aircraft carriers. The Finns were also running into Soviet pilots that were often not very good and flying crappy aircraft. And frankly the Buffallo was all the Finns could get. If you're desperate you can do amazing things with crap gear sometimes.

One important point here is that the Finnish pilots who flew the Brewster Model 239 (it was never called a Buffalo in Finland during the war) were not only better than the Soviet pilots they faced, they were also very good pilots in a general sense. And the Finns also had very good, modern tactics. That the Finnish Air Force managed a very favorable victory ratio even with the Fiat G.50 in 1941-43, when flying against obviously better planes used by the enemy, should tell us something about their level of training and skill. Generally, though, the Brewster was considered to be the best plane in the Finnish inventory by the Finnish pilots of the era, prior to getting their hands on Bf 109 G-2s. I've yet to read a truly negative comment about it by a Finnish pilot who flew it. It was then by no means crap when looked at among those limited options the FAF was using. I personally consider the Finns very lucky to get the Brewster plane when they did, and even in those numbers they had it. If they were just slightly less lucky, they might have well gone to the Continuation War with the Fiat G.50 or, say, the Morane-Saulnier 406 being the best plane available, in any real numbers that is.
 
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I don't think there is anything that could be done to make Brewster a success after the labor problems began. It was a toxic environment and killing the company and leasing the facilities to another manufacturer maybe even outside the aviation industry.
 
Nationalise the company, appoint honest and competent managers, shut down all existing facilities, sack everyone, start again with entirely new staff on the other side of the country.
 
All good points. Let's keep in mind that from 1936 through 1944 this company built just over 2000 total airplanes. When Grumman got Hellcat production rolling they were spitting something like 400 a month and that's just the Hellcat.

Brewster was so bad, they couldn't successfully license produce one of the war's outstanding aircraft (the Corsair). They didn't have to do any R&D or development. All they had to do was take somebody else's plane and attach Part A to Part B and they couldn't even do that. The Corsairs they did produce were so lousy they were prohibited from making high g maneuvers and none reached front line units (of course about half o f the Brewster produced Corsairs were pawned off on the Royal Navy, per wiki).

The more I think about the OP, if we are going to save this company we need PODs in the 1920s that essentially turn it into an entirely different organization.
 
The more I think about the OP, if we are going to save this company we need PODs in the 1920s that essentially turn it into an entirely different organization.
That was my assumption, improving the fortunes of the parent company and avoiding the buyout by Work entirely. The original Brewster company was highly regarded for the quality of its work and finish.
 
All good points. Let's keep in mind that from 1936 through 1944 this company built just over 2000 total airplanes. When Grumman got Hellcat production rolling they were spitting something like 400 a month and that's just the Hellcat.

Brewster was so bad, they couldn't successfully license produce one of the war's outstanding aircraft (the Corsair). They didn't have to do any R&D or development. All they had to do was take somebody else's plane and attach Part A to Part B and they couldn't even do that. The Corsairs they did produce were so lousy they were prohibited from making high g maneuvers and none reached front line units (of course about half o f the Brewster produced Corsairs were pawned off on the Royal Navy, per wiki).

The more I think about the OP, if we are going to save this company we need PODs in the 1920s that essentially turn it into an entirely different organization.

Ya know when you really look into Brewster's problems it's kind of amazing the Buffalo was as good as it was. That's not saying the Buffalo was good by any means. Just that it's amazing it wasn't worse.

Really reading into Brewster's corporate and labor issues is like reading a tragicomic opera. I mean it's amazing that the company's corporate and labor leadership were so ridiculously cancerous, incompetent, and moronic. I mean having your Unions president openly say to a fucking reporter on the record that he'd be fine with his brother being killed in combat by Nazi's if it helped his union during the middle of WW2. It's amazing the guy didn't die via forgetting to breathe.
 
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