Mitchell’s Miss

The last year of World War I showed remarkable progress in military aviation, especially in the area of large, multi-engine bombers for what would become known as “strategic bombing.”

To airpower enthusiasts, these bombers not only offered the possibility of avoiding the costly trench warfare that had decimated the young men of European countries but also the potential for independent air forces separate from the Army and Navy.
In the United States, the leading advocate of this type of aircraft was the Assistant Chief of the Army Air Staff Brig. Gen. William “Billy” Mitchell.

In 1919, a year after the war ended, British aircraft designer Walter Barling designed a huge bomber for the Royal Air Force – the Tarrant Tabor – which came to an untimely end on the takeoff roll of its maiden flight when it nosed over and crashed. The crash was attributed to a design flaw in its engine placement, and Barling moved to the United States.

There, surprisingly, he was embraced by Mitchell, who had been impressed by the huge bomber. He saw such aircraft as the future of strategic bombardment and asked Barling to develop a similar bomber for the U.S. Air Service.

In 1920, Mitchell gave approval for Barling’s bomber to be co-designed by Barling and Air Service engineers in Dayton, Ohio, and then constructed and test flown at Wilbur Wright Field, which is now part of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

The aircraft was a huge triplane with a box tail and a cigar-shaped fuselage in many ways similar to the Tabor, though Barling thoughtfully added two wheels in the very front of the aircraft to prevent a nose-over on takeoff.

It was powered by six excellent American-made Liberty 12-A engines, four pullers and two pushers mounted mid-wing, directly behind the inboard puller engines.
It had a wingspan of 120 feet and a six man crew: two pilots in the nose, a flight engineer behind them and separate compartments for a navigator and radio operator. The bombardier sat below the pilot on a bicycle seat and sent requests for course or speed changes to the cockpit by a pulley and rope assembly.

For political reasons, the aircraft was not constructed in Ohio but built and partially assembled by the Witteman-Lewis Company of Teterboro, N.J. Each section had to be built not to exceed 13 feet, 6 inches in length (to fit in a box car) and traveled by rail to Ohio for final assembly.

One result of these machinations was that the aircraft was known as the Witteman-Lewis XNBL-1 (Experimental Night Bomber, Long Range) Barling bomber. Another was that, because the parts were assembled separately and then exposed to weather while moving from New Jersey, there were great difficulties fitting the pieces together in Ohio.

The fabric wings were a special problem, since they trapped rainwater, which changed their weight and balance. In the end, the Air Service had to build a $700,000 hangar to house and maintain the giant bomber.

The Barling finally flew on Aug. 22, 1923, but its performance was disappointing. The main problem was the drag created by the complex struts and bracing wires, the structure of the three wings and the huge, 10-wheeled landing gear.

Though the bomber could carry a 5,000 pound bomb load – very heavy for the time – its range fully loaded was only about 170 miles and its top speed was only 96 mph. Its performance was so poor fully loaded that on a flight from Dayton to Washington, D.C., for an air show, the Barling could not climb over the Appalachian Mountains and had to return to Dayton.

Meanwhile, the cost of the project had soared. Initially costing $375,000, the Barling’s final price tag was $525,000, which brought on a congressional investigation. This did not include its special $700,000 hangar.

While the Barling did have unique, advanced features – a wood and aluminum fuselage, a single control knob for all six engines and tachometers for each engine, an electric clock and internally adjustable landing gear – its poor performance doomed it.

The project was terminated in 1925, the same year Mitchell was court-martialed.
Later, the aircraft Air Service personnel disassembled the Barling and stored it at Wilbur Wright Field.

After lying in pieces, in 1928 Maj. Henry H. “Hap” Arnold discovered it during an inspection and requested permission to dispose of it. Because congressional interest regarding the investment in the huge airplane remained high, his request was not approved.

Nevertheless, Arnold persisted in his efforts to eliminate the Barling from the Air Service’s Table of Equipment, perhaps to end the cost controversy. He asked to liquidate a warehouse of excess material, conveniently omitting the fact that this material included the Barling bomber, and Congress approved his request. The bomber was burned, and all that remains of America’s first strategic bomber are two of the 10 large tires at the U.S. Air Force Museum.

For questions or comments, contact Dr. Michel at marshall.michel@ramstein.af.mil.