As 1939 dawned, war was on the horizon in Europe. Farralon’s bomber element was ready for war, but their equipment was somewhat dated. The 4th Bombardment Squadron’s “Heavy” bomber flight was equipped with the Douglas Kittiwake I, with the much-improved Kittiwake II just coming into service. The “light” bomber flight was equipped with older and less-capable Lockheed Vega bomber conversions. The FAF staff was determined to replace the light bombardment flight with an “attack” flight, equipped with modern attack bombers.
Farralon’s traditional source of military aircraft was the United States. But in 1935, the US Congress began passing a series of laws making the export of military aircraft difficult (and in some cases unlawful). Despite these restrictions, Lance Margon continued his work evaluating American military aircraft and negotiating purchase and license-building contracts, albeit in a much more low-key fashion. In the Fall of 1938, the US Army Air Corps began a competition for an attack bomber. Douglas, Martin, Stearman and North American all entered prototypes. Margon was very impressed by the Douglas entry, the DB-7B (as were the French and British missions).
However, on January 23, 1939 the DB-7B crashed during a demonstration flight. A minor scandal ensued when it was found that a French military representative was on board, and killed during the flight. The surviving French representatives were still impressed enough with the DB-7 to place a substantial order. Ultimately, this aircraft gave rise to the A-20 Havoc series of aircraft.
What was never made public though, was that Lance Margon had also been aboard that DB-7 and perished in the crash. The Farralonian authorities refused to consider the DB-7 after this debacle, and instead sent a new representative to negotiate a contract with Stearman for their X-100. The X-100 had been designed by Stearman just at the time that Stearman was being absorbed by Boeing. Since the X-100 had not found favor with the USAAC, Boeing was more than happy to make a deal to sell the design rights as well as existing tooling to the Farralonian government who promptly sold the design to Capstan Aviation. Capstan set up a new factory to build the X-100 which was named Margon in honor of the late aviator.
Capstan built 40 examples of the Margon I, which was virtually identical to the X-100 prototype in its final form. Margon Is served as light attack bombers with the 4th Bombardment Squadron from 1940 until 1947. Capstan also built 24 Margon IIs for the Patrol flight of the 4th Bombardment Squadron. This differed from the Margon I by the installation of Hall Aluminum floats. The only other difference was the deletion of the semi-retractable ventral turret, the Margon II relying on low altitude operations to prevent fighter attack from that quarter. As seen in the illustration below, the Margon II was able to carry a torpedo onthe centerline, as well as mines or bombs in the bombay.
The Margon was a very serviceable aircraft, but underpowered with its Pratt & Whitney R-2180 engines. The R-2180 was also less reliable than the FAF would desire, especially in over-water operations. Capstan therefore developed a re-engined version using the Allison V-1710-F30 which, though not much more powerful than the R-2180, had considerably better power-to-weight ratio and reduced drag. These new engines, as well as some internal and structural improvements, considerably improved the design.
While the Margon III production got underway, Capstan worked simultaneously on two further developments. The first to be completed was a dedicated attack version with a new-design “solid” nose mounting four .50-caliber machine guns and two 37mm cannon. All defensive armament was deleted, except for the two side-mounted .30-caliber guns.
The final Margon development was the Margon F.V night fighter. Development of this design began at the same time as the Margon IV, but was delayed until a suitable air-to-air radar could be acquired. This meant that the night fighter did not enter service with the 3rd Fighter Squadron’s newly-formed night-fighter flight until 1945. Besides the radar, the night fighter had all defensive armament deleted, and mounted a tray under the bomb-bay carrying four 20mm cannons.
