>Entering WWII, we were still flying biplanes while the Germans had already developed monoplanes and laminar flow airfoils. Incidentally, they advanced their aeronautical knowledge by flying gliders during the interwar years, as the Treaty of Versailles severely limited their ability to produce and fly powered aircraft. No one seemed to notice that what was thought to be just recreational flying was actually the perfect test bed for refining wing designs to be used later in fighter aircraft.
You’re quite wrong. The US was the leader in military aviation before WW2 started and we extended our lead during the war. We were flying excellent single engine monoplanes with good top speeds and armament. We had the only working long range every bomber in the world (B17) and we moved quickly to modern designed like the B29 while everyone else was just trying to get their heavy bombers flying. Our CAS planes out classed the Germans stucka in their ability to fight back against fighters and even our carrier planes started ripping up the the excellent Japanese zero after we worked out the right tactics.
The only biplanes we were still flying were torpedo bombers.
The P51 was our crowning achievement. Designed in 1940 before we entered the war.
>The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang is an American long-range, single-seat fighter and fighter-bomber used during World War II, the Korean War and other conflicts. The Mustang was designed in 1940 by North American Aviation (NAA) in response to a requirement of the British Purchasing Commission for license-built Curtiss P-40 fighters. The prototype NA-73X airframe was rolled out on 9 September 1940, 102 days after the contract was signed and first flew on 26 October.[5][6]
That’s right, we built the P51 in 102 days. America was rocking aviation before we got into WW2.
For reference, the instructor of the course I mentioned was a P-51 instructor in WW2, was the 3rd pilot hired by United Airlines when they began operation in the '30s, flew everything along the way from the DC-3 to the DC-10 in which he retired as captain, and he personally knew a slew of aviation legends along the way, including Lindbergh, Sikorsky, etc. He had well over 30,000 flight hours when he retired. He was unequivocal in his opinion that we entered both world wars, as well as to a lesser extent Korea unprepared because we always draw back down too far in between.
Other instructors in the aviation program I was in included a former B-52 commander who flew numerous nuclear weapons test missions in the South Pacific, several Air Force and Marine Corps colonels, some of whom flew in combat in Vietnam and one who recited his experience sitting in an A-4 Skyhawk on a carrier deck, ready to launch loaded with nerve gas bombs and aimed at Cuba, during the Cuban missile crisis. All of them held similar opinions that we have a tendency to relax our defense posture far too much during "peacetime", only to be unprepared when the next war hits.
Possibly because NAA was allowed to get on with it without every officer on the procurement board inserting his own "requirements", and without the requirement that there be a supplier or subcontractor in every Congressional district.