the RAAF A26 Flying Fortress.
During the mid-1930s, the British Government appraised Australia of the new rise of Germany. Expecting to again support Britain in any new war, the RAAF re-evaluated its fleet, in particular, its bomber fleet. As usual the Air Ministry looked toward British designs but found the new Avro Manchester with its two Vulture engines lacking for Australia's long-distance requirements. America seemed the next logical place to search and the newest design was the Boeing Model-299 with the ink still wet on the designer's initial paperwork. Opting to take a chance, one bomber from the prototype batch was ordered for evaluation straight off the drawing board - the designation "A26" was applied to this type in RAAF service. Fairly quickly an example was supplied by ship, assembled & test-flown. Australia considered itself privileged to be the first to obtain what will obviously be THE bomber of the future.
The aircraft in question turned out to be prototype #1 which had been test-flown by the USAAF & found "satisfactory" but proved to lack longitudinal stability. Attempts to improve this led Boeing to re-design the fin losing the twin tail design for a single fin -- the second aircraft supplied to Australia turned out to be this second prototype. Consecutively larger fin/rudders were implemented until the definitive version, now called the B-17 in the USAAF.
The RAAF would go on to obtain more A26's in various models.
