Stearman Aircraft Company Model X-100:
;e Experimental XA- 21 Attack Airplane
BY STEVE PACE
;e one-of-a-kind XA- 21 attacks the skies over
Kansas during one of its early test flights in the fall
of 1939. (Photo courtesy of the USAF)
On March 17, 1938, the Materiel Command of the U.S. Army Air Corps (USAAC) released Circular Proposal 38-385 (CP 38-385) to the industry in hope of finding a suitable attack aircraft for the air arm of the U.S.
Army. ;e proposals from aircraft contractors were due exactly
one year later on St. Patrick’s Day 1939. Five contractors submitted
proposals and these included Bell, Douglas, Martin, North American
and the Stearman Aircraft Company division of the Boeing Airplane
Company, with which it had just recently merged. All five contractors
were given the go-ahead to build one demonstrator, but Bell
withdrew its o;ering. ;us, Boeing-Stearman in Wichita, Kansas,
and three other contractors won the right to produce a single
experimental twin-engine light bombardment airplane during the
USAAC Materiel Command competition for a possible production
On August 17, 1939, the U.S. War Department approved USAAC
contract number AC13074 for the manufacture of a single Stearman
Model X-100 that the USAAC designated XA- 21 and issued USAAC
serial number 40-191. By then, the airplane had already been built
and it was first flown during the following month (the actual day in
September 1939 remains a mystery).
;e XA- 21 was of all-metal construction, a high-wing monoplane
(shoulder-mounted single wing), with two engines - all firsts for
Stearman-designed aircraft. It featured a three-man crew seated
in tandem under an all-glass enclosure flush with the top of the
fuselage. It was 53.0 feet long, 14.0 feet high with a wingspan of 65.0
feet; wing area was 607 square feet. Its empty weight was 12,760
pounds and its gross weight was 18,230 pounds. It was a tail dragger
