Boeing B-29

The B-29 was the first effective long distance bomber in the world en was designed from 1940 as model 345 to fill the need of the US Army Air Core’s plan for a ‘hemisphere defense’ bomber.

The design was extremely advanced with a pressurized cabin, remote controlled defense weapons, an enormous offensive bomb load and very high performance under witch a very high service ceiling.

The first of three prototypes flew in September 1942 with four Wright R-3550 ‘radial-engines’ each equipped with a turbo charger. In the same time Boeing had contracts for more than 1500 production bombers.

The XB-29’s were followed by 14 YB-29 pre-production airframes, the first of these 14 flew in June 1943.

A huge effort was made to get the super fortresses in use, and a very extended network of subcontractors supplied parts to four assembly-plants. The type became operational in time to be used in the second world war, and play a very important roll in the campaigns against Japan witch ended in August 1945 with the drop of two atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Approx 2848 B-29’s were completed with 1122 B-29A’s that had a slightly lager wing-span and modernized defensive weaponry and 311 B-29B’s without defensive weapons, but with a radar guided tail barbette. Later this type was redesigned for recon an experimental tasks and was later refitted with a heavier construction and Pratt & Whitney R-4360 engines as the B-29D witch came in production as the B-50A.