Modification churn became a production problem

The correction program added so much weight that the early production Helldiver appeared slow and underpowered even after its original design had met the paper requirement. The Navy attributed about a 30 percent increase to its changes, Curtiss put the figure nearer 50 percent, and historians commonly settle around 42 percent. Frequent stoppages and revisions also disrupted manufacturing consistency, so poor quality control cannot be separated from the decision to keep changing aircraft already on the line. The episode frames a procurement choice: cancel a design whose mission has moved on, accept a limited interim batch, or stabilize it while developing a true successor.