A B-29 over the Maxwell Field]]

Development
The development of the B-29 may be traced to Design A, an 1934 Army feasibility survey for the bomber that can carry of these ton of bombs 5,000 miles. This was an challenging goal for an air inflict whose big bombers at that period were both-engine system. Around June of that month, Boeing presented a Army sustaining the Boeing Model 294. A Army liked a project, & yet intended it a XB-15. A lone epitome dwarfed anything in active duty at a instance; its empty weight was merely 13 percent to a lesser degree that of the B-29.

Within August 1934, Boeing likewise began act in a slightly less challenging project, the Model 299. This project became a B-17 Flying Fortress. Inside 1938, Boeing agreed to run the project survey in the extra advanced development of the B-17, the Model 322, which would feature a pressurised cabin. Nevertheless, a design was deemed unfeasible & abandoned.

Around March 1936, a team lead by Lysle Wood began work in an updated XB-15, a Model 316. This plane featured a everthing-glass nose that would produce a B-29 distinctive. Intended a Y1B-20, it was 17 percent heavier than a eventual B-29. A Army was non interested. Boeing continued heavily bomber development within 1938 & 1939 by having System 330, 333, 333A, 333B, 334, & 334A. Within August 1939 it began act on a Model 341, featuring the tremendously improved wing: the Boeing Model 115 aerofoil.

Around 1938, General Henry H. ‘Hap’ Arnold, the head of the Army Air Corps, was growing alarmed at the possibility of war in Europe and in the Pacific. To develop the Air Corps, Arnold created a favorite committee chaired by Brigadier General W. G. Kilner; one of its members was Charles Lindbergh. When the tour of Luftwaffe bases, Lindbergh became convinced that Nazi Germany was far ahead of other European nations. Around the 1939 report, the committee processed the total of recommendations, including development of recently long-range heavily bombers.

Once war broke call at Europe, Arnold requested project studies from either many corporations in the Super Long-Range bomber capable of traveling 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometer). A portion of Arnold's motivation for these studies was a fear that Britain will fall to the Nazis. In this event, it would become imperative that a Army Air Click have a bomber capable of flying around-hike from either a U.S. East Coast to Europe to strike targets on the European mainland. Approval was granted in December 2. This asking, R-40B, fitted perfectly using a locate Boeing was doing at a period.

Within January 1940, the B-17 was entering service & a somewhat big Consolidated B-24 was still to a higher degree a year away. At this instance, a Air Corps issued a asking for proposals for a good deal big bomber, which was to keep close at hand the range for operation across the Pacific; this bomber would serve in the inevitable war by using Japan. 4 house submitted project studies: a Boeing XB-29, Lockheed XB-30, Douglas XB-31, and Consolidated XB-32. Douglas and Lockheed soon withdrew, in a share because Boeing was swell ahead of the two in the project run. Inside 1940, September, Boeing & Consolidated were awarded development contracts for a XB-29 and the XB-32, severally.

Inside early 1940, a Army Air Corps analyzed a performance of bombers utilized inside Europe against the Luftwaffe, and requested that a B-29 use self-sealing fuel tanks, more machine guns, & higher-caliber guns. Boeing incorporated these into a redesign of the Model 341, & resubmitted it to the Army Air Corps when Model 345, which would turn into the XB-29.

Impressed per mock-higher completed in the spring 1941, a Army Air Corps experienced located the massive sequentially for 1,500 B-29s, a year prior to the image would fly first in September 21, 1942. An extended-range bomber was desperately required, thus service touching proceeded largely tandem using production. A number 1 B-29 rolled off a assembly line deuce months when a foremost service line 3 text flight. Within under a year, a B-29 was fully-all-out production.

a B-29 wwhen a gargantuan plane, about twice when dense as the heaviest antecedently serving bomber. Mid-placed wings by using the high aspect ratio gave it exceptional range. To reduce a hazardously high landing speed of the B-29, it was fitted by having tremendous Fowler flaps. It got leash separate pressurised crew compartments: 1 in the nose, another abaft of the wing for the artilleryman, & an isolated compartment for the derriere cannoneer.

Like than a traditional bulky manned gun enclosure, Boeing utilized little, remote-control units 'networked' together sustaining an analogue computer that compensated for factors like air temperature & bullet drop. This formulas was super hard to prepare, however it proved effectual. There are many accounts of 'fit' B-29s peeling away from formation to cause off—with success—fighters preying in damaged brethren.

Manufacturing
Manufacturing a B-29 was an huge project. It taking part little joe independent manufacturing plant: deuce Boeing plants at Renton, Washington and Wichita, Kansas, a Bell plant at Marietta, Georgia, and a Martin plant at Omaha, Nebraska. Hundreds to thousands of subcontractors were involved in the plan. Because of its extremely advanced project, challenging requirements, & vast pressure for production, development was deeply troubled. A foremost image crashed when you took researching, killing a entire crew & many ground personnel. Changes to the production craft come therefore typically so convenient that within early 1944, B-29s would leave a line & fly directly to modification depots for extensive rebuilds to incorporate the latest changes. This 'battle of Kansas' about sank a program, which was simply saved up by General Hap Arnold’s direct intervention. It would however become about a year prior to a aircraft was operated by owning any kind of reliableness.

A usual stimulator of maintenance headaches & ruinous failures, potentially supplementary and so than a advanced gunnery body, was a engine. Though a Wright R-3350 would later get the trusty workhorse inside heavy piston-engined aircraft, early system were beset by owning unsafe dependableness problems. It experienced an telling power-to-weight ratio, however this come at the heavily numbers to strength. Worse, a hood Boeing designed for the engine was as well close (away from a want for improved aeromechanics), & the early cowl flaps stimulated problematic flutter & vibration whenever open inside virtually all of the flight envelope.

These weaknesses combined to produce an engine that would overheat regularly whilst carrying combat loads; it ofttimes swallowed its have valves. the consequent engine fires were exacerbated by a crankcase designed mostly of magnesium alloy. A heat was typically thus incredible a independent spar burned across withinside seconds, ensuant in ruinous failure of the wing. This condition would non exist as fully cured until a aircraft was re-engined by using a additional mighty Pratt & Whitney R-4360 'Wasp Major' in the B-29D/B-50 program, which arrived too late for World War II. Pilots, including a present-contemporary pilots of the Commemorative Air Force’s Fifi, describe flight fallowing takeoff when existence an pressing struggle for airspeed; usually, flight after takeoff should consist of pains for altitude. Radial engines want that flow of air to keep cool, & failure for when much when speed as soon as imaginable may effect inside an engine failure & chance of fire.

Operational history
A initial project was to utilize B-29s to attack Japan from either flying field inside southern China, with a independent base inside India, & to attack more targets in the region from either China and India as required. This wwhen an extremely costly scheme, as there was there are no overl& connection available between India & China, and all a the diapers got to exist as flown on top the Himalayas. A 1st B-29s began to arrive around India within early April, 1944. A number one B-29 flight to flying field within China (across a Himalayas, or even "The Hump") took place in 24 April, 1944. A number 1 B-29 combat missiin was flown on 5 June, 1944, with 77 away from either 98 planes launched from India bombing a railroad shops around Bangkok (5 B-29s were misused to non-battle stimulates).

In June 15, 1944, 47 B-29s launched from Chengtu around China bombed a Imperial Iron & Steel Works at Yawata, Japan. This was a number one attack in Japanese islands since a Doolittle raid in April, 1942. A number one B-29 combat loss occurred when you took this raid, by using One B-29 destroyed on the ground by Japanese fighters when an forced landing. Because of a extreme dollars and cents of operations, the raids against Japan from either Chinese flying field continued at comparatively moo intensity. Japan was bombed in: 7 July 1944 (Fourteen B-29s), Xxix July (70+), 10 August (Two dozen), 20 August (61), 8 September (Ninety), 26 September (83), 25 October (59), 12 November (29), 21 November (61), 19 December (36) & for the go instance in 6 January 1945 (49). B-29s were withdrawn from either flying field inside China per prevent of January, 1945. Throughout this time B-29 raids were too launched from either China & India against several more targets throughout South-East Asia. Even so, a entire B-29 effort was bit by bit shifted to a freshly bases in the Marianas, by using the previous B-29 combat missiin from either India flown on March 29, 1945.

A want to apply inconvenient bases around China for attacks against Japan ceased when a capture of the Marianas islands in 1944. On the islands of Tinian, Saipan and Guam a series of airfields were built, which became a independent bases for the big B-29 raids against Japan in the final month of the war. A islands can be easy supplied by ship. A 1st B-29 arrived in Saipan in 12 October, 1944, and a 1st combat missiin was launched from either there on 28 October, 1944, with Fourteen B-29s attacking a Truk atoll. A number one mission against Japan from either bases in the Marianas was flown on 24 November, 1944, with 111 B-29s sent to attack Tokyo. From either that point ever extra incredible raids were launched regularly until a prevent of the war. These attacks succeeded within devastating a lot big Japanese cities & gravely damaged Japan's war industries.

Mayhap a virtually all recognized B-29 is the Enola Gay, which dropped the atomic bomb 'Little Boy' on Hiroshima on 1945 August 6. A Bockscar, also the B-29, dropped 'Fat Man' on Nagasaki three days late.

A B-29 was utilized inside World War II only in the Pacific Theatre. It was down the road utilized in the Korean War, over a course of which it flew 20,000 sorties & dropped 200,000 all (180,000 metric ton) of bombs. 3970 of the aircraft were built prior to it were retired inside 1960.

A B-29 was presently processed obsolete per development of the jet engine. By owning a arrival of the gigantic B-36, a B-29 suffered its number 1 disgrace by existence classified the medium bomber by using the newly Air Inflict. Nevertheless, a late B-29D/B-50 variant was good plenty to cover auxiliary roles like air-sea delivery, electronic intelligence gathering, & possibly air-to-air refueling. It was replaced inside its primary role in a period of the early 1950s by the Boeing B-47 Stratojet, which in turn was replaced per Boeing B-52 Stratofortress. A final active duty variants were phased call at the mid 1960s.

Shortly fallowing Globe War II, a Tupolev design bureau in a Soviet Union manufactured the touching-copy of the B-29, the Tupolev Tu-4, based on reverse engineering of three interned early-model B-29s. A select few one remained around service into a 1960s in the Soviet Union. About one of a Tu-4s were scrapped in the Sixties. a only case of a Tu-Four known to survive now is placed at the Yuri Gagarin Air Inflict Academy touching Moscow, as a electrostatic display. This particular plane was tasked sustaining bombing a Budapest headquarters of a Hungarian rebel movement when you took a 1956 rebellion; however although the mission was rehearsed it was never put into play.

Currently airworthy aircraft
When of 2003 August, the exclusively B-29 in the globe which is however airworthy is the Commemorative Air Force’s Fifi. Still, operate is actively redeeming at a Boeing plant within Wichita, Kansas on restoring a B-29 known as Doc. When of December, 2004 a plane has been moved to a repair shed on a flight line, sustaining the fuselage (less derriere tail assembly) mated to the center wing segment which besides contains the independent landing devices. A head of the plan hopes Doc might fly inside 2005.

As well, a National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is considering restoring Bockscar to airworthy condition; these are presently exhibited as a electrostatic display. A Smithsonian has the complete Enola Gay at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center as a static display, but does not plan to bring the airplane back to flight status as that would likely compromise the preservation of the plane as an historic item.

Variants and design stages

Unlike several more aircraft designed to play a similar role, a variants of the B-29 were completely au fond the equivalent. A developments mass produced between a number one image XB-29 & any of the leash versions flown around combat were everthing minuscular. A virtually all specialisation was mass produced within modifying planes for non-bombing mission profiles.

A large differences were between variants modified for non-bomber missions. Additionally to acting when freight carriers, saving aircraft, atmospheric condition ships, & trainers, a bit of were utilized for odd purposes like flying relay television transmitters under a title of Stratovision. More aircraft acted when a mothership for experimental aircraft, including a Bell X-1 and XF-85 Goblin. 1 limited B-29 was wont to prepare a Airborne Early Warning program; it was the ascendant of various modern microwave radar picket aircraft.

Occasionally B-29s were modified to work when line 2 text beds for even various fresh systems or favorite conditions, including fire-control systems, cold weather operations, & various armament configurations. Many reborn B-29s were utilized to experiment by having aerial refueling. Mayhap a first tests were conducted per XB-29G; it carried paradigm jet engines in its bomb bay, & lowered a babies into the air stream to conduct measuring.

Units using the B-29
United States Army Air Force
Twentieth Air Force XX Bomber Command XXI Bomber Command

Royal Air Force
When a Boeing Inland northwest B1 87 B-29s in loan served by owning RAF Bomber Command in a post war period from either 1950 as a long-distance call bomber until the English Electric Canberra and the Vickers Valiant joined service. Virtually all got been returned by 1955. 2 late served sustaining a Australian RAAF. Both Washingtons participate inside the SAC bombing competition in 1951 alongside USAF B29's.

No. 35 Squadron RAF No. 90 Squadron RAF No. 115 Squadron RAF No. 207 Squadron RAF

Specifications (B-29)
General characteristics
Crew: X: pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer, bombardier, navigator, radio operator, side gunners (two), top artilleryman, & rear gunner Length: 99 foot Zero around (Xxx.Ii m) Wingspread: 141 foot Leash inside (43.One m) Height: Twenty-seven foot Nine around (Eighter.Phoebe m) Wing vicinity: 1736 foot² (161.Trey m²) Empty: 74,500 pound (33,800 kilogram) Loaded: 120,000 pound (54,000 kilo) Maximal takeoff: 133,500 pound (60,560 kilogram) Powerplant: Tetrad× Wright R-3350-23 supercharged radial engines, 2,200 hp (1600 kW) each

Performance
Maximal speed: 357 mph (574 kilometers per hour) Cruising speed: 220 mph (350 kilometres per hour) Combat range: 3,250 miles (5,230 kilometre) Ferry range: 5,600 miles (9,000 klick) Combat ceiling: 33,600 foot (10,200 m) Rate of climb: 900 ft/min (270 m/min) Wing loading: 69.Xii lb/ft² (337 kg/m²) Power/mass: Cipher.073 hp/lb (121 W/kg)

Armament
Twelve× .50 in (12.7 mm) M2 machine guns in remote controlled turrets One× 20 mm M2 cannon in tail 20,000 pound (9,072 kg) of bombs