Nagle’s expression changed but little during Montgomery’s story. As the engineer finished, he said, “Did you do anything during the building of the plane to try to eliminate some of these troublesome complexities?”
“Well, yes — during the time the wings were in design I felt there ought to be another answer to the tremendous demand for lift at the ship’s service altitude. It was just a fuzzy sense that there ought to be some other way of building it. I worked out a few sketches on my own, but nothing came of it.”
Nagle remained silent, watching him as if speculating over the truth of his statements. “Gunderson calls his plane a monster — a failure,” he said finally. “And he’s right. From an engineering standpoint the thing is quite ridiculous. It’s the end product of our ‘bigger and better’ creed, which has been our standard for some time. Bigger planes, bigger automobiles, bigger plants — laboratories — schools — houses. You know how it works in your organization. A supervisor rates a grade higher when his personnel reaches thirty in number, so he phonies up enough projects and recruits the additional men. For every honest administrator there are a dozen empire builders working their pet researches into the status of major projects — with them at the head.”
Montgomery started to protest involuntarily. “R&D isn’t —”
Nagle cut him short. “The problem has been with us for a long time, but only in the last decade has it been felt as severely as it is right now. Our need for creative engineering and design has been more intense than ever before, and we have increased our efforts to obtain it proportionately. The result has been to greatly magnify all the obstacles which have always stood in our way.
“We have become aware that we are in the midst of a famine of genuine, new basic ideas. The XB-91 is a monument to this famine. It was built from the mountains of data we have collected, but it is not the product of invention and research.”
“The nation has done everything possible to foster technological growth,” said Montgomery. “Our engineering schools have never operated at the peak they now are.”
Nagle smiled slowly as if enjoying a joke briefly at the major’s expense. “You are quite right. More schools and more engineers than ever before. Yet the problems represented by the XB-91 are not being solved by the kind of thinking coming out of our engineering schools today.”
“Why not? Do you consider the schools themselves responsible?”
“Actually — no, the schools are not responsible. There are scores of factors, but standing well out in front is our misevaluation of what public education is supposed to accomplish.”