Was the B29-Superfortress a Failure?
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- čas přidán 29. 09. 2023
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Although the B-29 Superfortress was the most advanced propeller-driven bomber of WW2, it also was a rush job to get into production as the war in the Pacific intensified. This opened it up to mistakes in lots of areas, but in particular, the Curtis-Wright R-3350 engines, which caused the death of one of the world's top test pilots and his crew during prototype testing and many other crews during operations, an issue that wasn't fully resolved until after the war.
Was the B-29 a failure? We look at the issues and what was done to fix them.
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Written, researched and presented by Paul Shillito
Images and footage : Boeing, Consolidated Aircraft ,NACA, USAAC, US DoD
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Just use the word "ERRORS", because if it to be Soviet or Russian made tech, I know very well how you would have been making ridicules of them.
As a contingency in case the B29 wasn't ready, they were going to use a Lancaster bomber to drop the atomic bombs, because the B17's bombay couldn't be made big enough.
Much better sponsor, at least they are just offering up digging through potentially personal data rather than directly selling it to who knows who. Screw the vpn companies!
Please stick to just tonnes
@@Powertampa "Who were our ancestors, where did they come from and what did they do?"
Don't care, don't care, and don't care. My coworkers have had more of an impact on my life and who I am than any of those people ever will.
The B29's remote control gun system is worthy of a video of it's own.
I think the WWII US Bombers channel has one.
Bendix electrical operated and remotely fired by the gunner 👍😃🤠
Yes sir indeed 👍...I had a "Sqardren Signal" illustrated book 📖 about the Boeing B-29 Super Fortress bomber and it's revolutionary "Bendix " remotely operated four gun turrets were the first used in a production bomber...😃
There was a problem with the side fusalodge
Rear clear gunners blisters that occasionally they had a nasty habit of being blown out of the aircraft due to the pressurization of the cabin at high altitudes..
@@user-ex4si2md6r
They were joint ventures, Bendix made the hardware but General Electric made the fire control system, I don't know made the gun cameras in them and whoever the guns came from was any one of a number of. 50 cal gun manufacturers that had contracts throughout the war, and that doesn't include the plexiglass and any one of a number of contractors involved in their complex design and manufacturing.
My dad was a WWII vet and he was a crew chief for a Consolidated PBY. He loved that plane and later in the war he had a chance to switch to a B-29 crew. He said he walked over to the plane, looked inside at the engine and checked around inside. He saw oil and fluids everywhere and he was so shocked that he didn’t switch and stayed with the PBY crew.
He stayed in the Air Force and worked on the KC-135 until he retired. Miss you pop.
That was probably the reason he survived
Meanwhile, if you’re in a chinook that isn’t leaking, you should run cause it’s empty
Wise man , your dad was. Cool story. I can picture this vignette in my head
You mean the helicopter? Does it have a bad reputation for leaking?@@benjaminw6985
So, your dad flew PBY's for the Air Force? The PBY was a Navy plane..the Army did have a version, designated the OA-10, but used them in far fewer numbers than the Navy did the PBY...so did your dad fly the OA-10 for the Army Air Force?..if it was an actual PBY, then he would have been in the Navy..and the B-29, during WW2 at least, was only operated by the Army Air Force. Not saying that what you related isn't true, just that something just doesn't add up....
I once read the memoirs of a pilot who flew the RB-29. He could compare the 29s from the Korean War with their Soviet copy called the Tu-4. Interestingly, he noted that Soviet designers got rid of many of the “permanent diseases” of the prototype (especially in the fuel system). Some decisions shocked the Americans. But there were also quite funny and curious moments. In particular, the passage to the rear gunner's cabin on Soviet copies was painted in two colors. And no one knew why. It turns out that the interned plane that landed on Soviet territory had this paint job. It was decided to copy 1-in-1. The composition of these two paints was even analyzed and complete chemical copies were made! :)
And, many years later, one of the Soviet designers visited the plant where the 29s were produced and asked why there were two colors and what was the point of that? No one could remember until they found an old worker who answered this question: “One of the paints ran out in the middle of the passage into the stern gunner’s cabin, and there was no paint of the same color in the warehouse, so I just took the first paint of a different color that came across. .." :)))
Thank you for sharing that , zero doubt of this story being true.
See, thats what i love having recorded, the true stories that the old timersxwho were there knew, because once theyre gone, all that information would be gone too.....
I know they had also found a hole that was patched by a metal plate in the B-29 and the Soviet’s copied it in the TU-4
i hope the name of the worker is found out lmao
@@lenny_1369 DO not lose it!
My Grandfather was a captain of A-26s and B-24s in 1943 and '44, and was transitioning to fly the B-29 in summer of '45. In fact he was stationed on Tinian at the time the atomic attacks were launched from there (of course he knew nothing about them - Tibbetts' group was secreted away at the remote edge of the base). Anyway, he HATED the B-29. He told me that whenever he looked at the B-29, the thought "I'm going to die in that thing." would cross his mind. Remember this is a guy with over 2 years of solid combat experience at this point. B-29s were routinely overloaded with bombs and gas well above their designed takeoff weight (actually a common practice in wartime), meaning all 4 engines had to be at max takeoff power for much longer than it is wise - especially as these engines were known to fail. If you lost any engine in the first 5-10 minutes, you would end up in the sea. And then there is the pressurization component. If the pressurized fuselage was compromised, they were known to "unzip", splitting open along a convenient seam or stress line, and basically dumping everything in it suddenly out into space. He hated it.
I already despise Boeing what is 737 max debacle in 2020. Now I hate them!
The engines had to be run at full power to produce sufficient airflow through the tight streamlined engine cowling to prevent fires and engine failures.
@@steveperreira5850 well the b29's problems were more down to the military making Boeing rush them out the door as fast as they could and post war it shows how rushed Boeing was during the war as all b29's post war had very few problems
The first pressurised military aircraft was a German bomber that did a handful of nuisance raids on England (it could only drop a few small bombs), when they finally built a spitfire that could fly high enough to fight it, they had to depressurise before combat, or one single bullet would blow it apart.
One correction: the jet stream was not “unknown” in the 1940s, it was just unknown to the Americans. Wasaburo Oishi measured the jet stream in the 1920s but his work was ignored in America and Europe.
Great and interesting video, as always!
When I was a kid in history class they told about the token bombing by the balloons, that did almost no damage. Of course I had no idea what a "token bombing" was, and though it had something to do with subway tokens.
It was known to the Americans as well. the ceiling and cruise altitudes of the b-17 and b-29 are the same. The USAAF had been routinely flying at jet stream height in the 1930's.
The publications by Wasaburo Oishi were written in Esperanto language because he though nobody would read it in japanese.
B.S, The british discovered it in the mid 1880s, the japos just copied the work, rhey they copy everything else they have from the West.
@@bertrandviolette9008 He wrote, of course, mainly in Japanese, but Esperanto was a hobby of his. Writing a scientific article in Esperanto would have been pointless - only a few thousand speakers in the world and few if any interested in meteorology. Esperanto was promoted by a minor English religious sect known as Bahai, an offshoot of Islam. I know of only one academic journal that tried publishing a section in Esperanto but gave up after a couple of years as no one wanted it.
Oishi was hardly ground breaking. Jet streams and their importance to weather and the dispertion of volcanic dust had been studied in the USA since the 1800's. Elias Loomis is usually credited as the discoverer.
My dad was a "waist" gunner (explained by Curious Droid) on a B-29 based on Tinian Island in 1944. He's alive today due to surviving a crash on takeoff on his 3rd mission over Japan. One of the right side engines froze and the prop could not be feathered causing the right wing tip to hit the ground and the plane cartwheeled killing the co-pilot at the end of the runway. My dad told me that he almost got stuck in the burning wreck because the door near him would not open due to the twisted fuselage. He pushed a crew member away that was struggling with the latch to open the door and used newly found superhuman strength to work the latch and they both got out.
God bless your dad 🫡
Your father's burst of amazing strength saved two lives ❤
The B29 completed two very important sorties. On that basis alone, it was a rousing success.
Though costing 50% more in development than the 2 bombs it carried...
@@ViquelOoste could have just borrowed to lancs from the Brits
Yes, but Lanc’s were being evaluated for the mission, and the B-32 probably could have flown the missions too, albeit likely at lower altitudes than B-29s.
It had to be extensively modified to carry the nuclear bombs
The Lancaster could have done this unmodified
Lancs would have never been used to carry the bomb for a variety of missions. Go see Greg's video to comprehend why.
Well done. My father was a government inspector at Boeing/Wichita during the war and oversaw some aspects of production. Even though I was very young, I remember him coming home carrying the worries of the R-3350s along with him. Completed airplanes were flown to Pratt, Ks to get upgrades before they could be delivered to the AAC for service. "The History Guy" did an episode covering this major undertaking as "The Battle of Kanas". One of the issues with overheating was that the original design of the engine had the front row of exhausts going forward to a collector just inside the front cowl ring - this allowed heated air from that area to pass rearward over the engine; In the redesign, they changed the heads to run the exhausts to the rear, much like the venerable R-2800 had done. Eventually, the 3350 became a good engine but went through a tortured development process.
Using magnesium for the cylinders was a major issue...magnesium metal burns and is almost impossible to extinguish...see the 1955 LeMans crash
My Father was a Seattle Firefighter when the Frye packing plant fire happened. He said that there would have many more deaths but that most of the employees were out of the building on their lunch break. My father also had the dubious job of escorting the coroner around so that he could identify which bodies were human and which were hogs. The bodies were burned so badly the coroner had to try to stick his finger into a body, if it went in it was a human if it didn't go in it was a hog. I'm so glad that this part of WW2 history is still alive. We all need to learn from history. Thank you Curious Droid for bring us this story
There are indeed far much more rewarding places where we can stick our finger. 🤔
@@duartesimoes508 Thank you for your comment, and yes there are far better places to stick your finger
Essentially, the B-29 suffered from many of the same overheating issues that plagued the Heinkel He 177 bomber. A group of engineers at Rechlin, the Luftwaffe's main testing center, actually implemented some 50-plus fixes fairly similar to what was done with Curtis-Wright R3350 engine to the troublesome Daimler-Benz DB610 engine and got it to work perfectly, but the fix came too late in the war for the Luftwaffe. Fortunately for the USAAF, the R3350 engine did get tested at NACA's excellent Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory (now NASA Glenn Research Center), and as the video showed, implemented a large number of fixes to drastically reduce the chance of engine overheating.
My dad was a USAAF B29 co-pilot flying out of Saipan during WWII (1944/45). After the war ended he briefly left the military, but within a year or two was invited back when the USAF and SAC were formed. During this second stint he spent a lot of time piloting KB29 (refueling) version of the airplane flying out of a USAF base in England, but later also acted as a multi-engine flight instructor in many of the mid and heavy aircraft throughout the 1950s.
He didn't talk much about WWII, but had quite a few tales about the aircraft in general. Much of what is related in the video about the problems with the early B29 is quite accurate.
While flying the refueling version KB29 dad had a favorable "reputation" among the crews, because he pushed to take off as quickly as possible. They were assigned to fly near the borders of the USSR and loiter for 8 hours, to be available to refuel any friendly jets patroling the area in need. The sooner they got on station, the sooner they could put in their 8 hours and return home. Dad would conduct some parts of the check list during the take off roll down the runway! I think he learned this technique flying the earlier versions of B29 with the engines that were prone to overheating until some airspeed and altitude could help cool them down.
But the worst close call he had was in one of the later airplanes and unrelated to those earlier problems. They were assigned a KB29 that had seen major repairs. Shortly after takeoff out of England, after climbing to 12K or 15Kk feet over the N. Sea in thick clouds, the airplane suddenly started banking and would not level out with the controls. It also was losing altitude, starting a gradual downward spiral, but they had no idea why. The clouds were so thick they could barely see the inboard engines on either wing.
They used engine throttles to regain some control and set a heading to return to base, but were still losing altitude. It wasn't until they dropped below the clouds at 1500/2000 feet that they saw one of the aelerons had torn off the wing! They had no choice but to dump their full load of jet fuel. Lightened up and using throttle controls, they managed to safely land the airplane. It was only after climbing out they discovered that pieces of the aerleron had also struck and damaged the vertical and horizontal stabilizers, as well as the rudder.
That airplane never flew again. Rather than risking another air crew in it after another round of repairs, it got parked and used for spare parts.
Dad's favorite was the B25... he said it was like driving a sports car, after driving a big truck or bus. Oh, and he also confirmed that the flight crew motto for the B36 "two turning, two burning, two joking, two smoking, two unaccounted for" was a whole lot more accurate than the official USAF motto "six turning, four burning" that referred to that airplane's six thrust propeller engines and four jet engines. There were also some nicknames for the B36.. the Flying Pencil was one. Another, more vulgar name refers to part of the male anatomy.
BTW today my great-nephew crews a USAF B2 as part of the 509th Wing... Dad's wing in England around 75 years ago was also the 509th.
Finally, there has always been some controversy about the use of the atomic bombs, dropped by B29s flying from Tinian, in the same Marianas island chain as Saipan where dad flew. On the one hand they were horrifically powerful weapons and killed many people (although not as many as some other, more conventional bombing raids both in Japan and in Germany). On the other hand, the A bombs likely helped bring the war to a swift end, as suggested in this video. If it had been necessary to invade Japan the war likely would have lasted years longer and far more people would have died on both sides. Another factor that likely caused Japan to capitulate but often isn't mentioned, was that the Soviet Union had just declared war on Japan too. There had been a Japanese/Russian non-aggression pact through the reat of WWII. But Russia declared war on August 7, the day after the A bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and 2 days before Nagasaki was struck. Russia brought a million man army to the fight.
The B-36 is just ridiculously big. You get such an impression of how huge the B29 is and then there's it's bigger brother almost literally overshadowing it.
The two programs were designed for the same basic purpose, however the army wanted a bomber that could take off from New England and bomb Europe without landing to refuel. It had to be big to accommodate 6 engines and a relief crew.
@@katey1dog Have we ever built a bigger plane since?
Seeing it at the Airforce Museum you can appreciate the size of it compared to all the other aircraft.
Larger than the B52.
@@Treblaine its only a few feet longer than the B-52 but had a 45' longer wingspan because it used the outdated straight wings where as the B-52 had the modern swept wing. as far as size not just bombers, the C-5 is way bigger.
After the war, the B-29 had a second production run on the other side of the iron curtain as the Tu-4.
True story indeed and in the war a damaged Boeing B-29 Super Fortress had to make an emergency landing in Russia and then they were internd and the B-29 Super Fortress bomber was copied and used as the carbon copy for the tupelove...Bull 🐂 bomber of the Soviet Union
Yeah the Soviets copied it.
@@fredorico41 The communists copy everything that they can get 👍
UK's RAF used some post-WW2 and called them "Washingtons".
@@EllieMaes-Grandad didn't know that, but 🤔 I'm sure they would use it until the Royal Air Force developed their own better replacement Long range bomber
A couple of years ago, I got to see one of the currently two airworthy B-29s. I was just taxiing by to depart and it was there for an airshow. It's quite something to see such a rare aircraft and one rt that changed the world.
A few years ago I dragged the wife and kids to the airport just to climb through Doc while they were on tour.
>
A friend at work had 25% interest in a Piper Cherokee Six-300. He invited me and four others to fly from Houston down to South Texas for a CAF airshow. After landing and on the way to the ramp, Ground called us and instructed us to hold for the B-29. When FIFI taxied past about a hundred feet away, it made my day.
I have a video here on CZcams of a cockpit tour I was able to make
My grandfather was a B-29 navigator. His plane went down returning to Tinian and he was officially declared MIA/KIA.
😢 I'm very sorry for your loss 😭🙏☮️🌎
Im sorry for your loss
Did he eventually make it home?
@@mikehunt1564No he did not. The entire crew of "The Life of Riley" was lost and are now considered KIA.
🫡
The B-29 wasn't as bad as the B-36. At least the B-29 didn't mount their engines backwards, like the B-36. The B-36 carburators would freeze up because they were in front of instead of being behind (and thus warmed by) the cylinders in the B-29.
The biggest operational problem with the B-29 was they overloaded them and the Marianas runways were too short.
Would you rather have a carb ice up, or a wing spar melt from a fire?
Wasn’t the b-36 fuel injected?..
@@ThatLad685 No, the B-36 had Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major engines, which used Bendix-Stromberg PR-100E2 pressure carburetors.
@@coreyandnathanielchartier3749 I'll take Parachutes for a $1000, Alex!
dude it was a time where the developers realized, that the "typical" plane configuration reached its limit. In order to somehow bring such a big plane in the air, they squeezed the last bit of power out of the available engine technology, due to the fact that the jet engines werent available jet. Its the same fate the b29 shared with its engine fires.
So they did anything to make the big b36 fly. it was already known fact that a pusher propeller wasnt ideal.
It was the only bomber on the planet, with the possible exception of the B32, which was a far less complex “backup plan”, (it never saw any significant use and they were all scrapped just after wars end) that could carry the nukes to Japan. Period. The two bombs it dropped on Japan ended WW-II and saved a probably something like one hundred thousand Americans. Since the first divisions that came ashore were considered wiped out by the planners. This from a Marine I met that was in one of the replacement divisions being added to the USMC to replace those destroyed. With the bomb drops he never left the US. Then surely multiple millions of Japanese. They were training civilians to attack Americans with sharpened bamboo sticks. And then the suicide rates of civilians on the Marianas and Okinawa (where according to my Father they would send little kids into behind the lines chow lines with grenades). And yes the 29 had a high non-combat loss rate. MANY aircraft in the War did since many like the B-29, B-26 and others were very high performance, many had high loss rates while still in the US because they were far more advanced and faster in all respects than anything they were trained on.. The R3350 was perhaps beyond state of the art in 1940-42 and it needed more time to refine it. The war did not allow this. So with its problems the R3350.was the only choice. And the B-32 used it as well. I did find the NACA improvements/refinements very interesting. Bottom line? The B-29 saved a LOT of lives with two missions, the Japanese dead could easily have run into the loss of a significant portion of the population of Japan from combat, suicide and starvation with the invasion. 10% loss would have been 7 +- million and consider ALL those in the military as dead since very few ever surrendered. A lot of Americans alive today probably would not be here, me for one. Since my Father could easily have died in Japan.
Any non-propaganda historian will tell you plain and simple: Japan knew they lost the war nd were repeatedly trying to surrender. The nuckear bombs were willful murder of civilians, just to show the rest of the world who is going to be the next global empire. Nothing more
My Grandfather was a mechanic on the B-29 T-N-Tiny on Tinian Island. For every flight the mechanics would line up & cheer each time their B-29s would make a successful takeoff. For something special they would load the aircraft with beer & enjoy a cold brew when they would return. The added weight was worth it.
There is actually a thermos filled with coffee in the engineer's space. ONLY the B29 was able to do that
Great program - thanks. Those engines were approaching the limits of what piston motors could achieve before the advent of the jets. The B-29 and the C/W engines were certainly rushed to get into production to participate as soon as possible in that war. In my experience as a design developer I have learned there are three considerations for every such major project - quality, cost and timeliness. You can get any combination of two - but not the third. For example - you can get a good airplane, on budget - but not quickly. Or you can get a good aircraft quickly - but it will be expensive. And so on.
Had an old neighbor who was a crew member on 29s in the Korean War. Super nice man, RIP Mr. Garretty.
I once heard someone say that in large aircraft, after takeoff your priorities are altitude, then airspeed. But because of the need to get airflow to cool the engines in a B-29, you had to prioritize speed first, then altitude.
Yes, I gathered that, but thanks for mentioning it
Ah the fabled B-29 I'm definitely looking forward to watching this. I was watching your last video about NASA hearing the sounds of stars and planets and I was enthralled by everything you said. After watching it I spent the next hour or so listening to the different sounds of our galaxy. Keep up the great work mate. 😃
No hard feelings 🤔👍😉
I'm going to the hospital today to get a few tests done to see if I have lung cancer but 🤔 I'm grateful for you and everyone else in my life 💘✌️🙏☮️
The B-29 was specifically ordered for the Pacific (not European) theater before the US entered the war because the US knew longer range than the B-17 and B-24 would be needed there. This was not the bomber project initiated to guard against Britain falling out of the war. That project was the ultra long range bomber that eventually became the B-36. But after the Battle of Britain was won and the Battle of the Atlantic stabilized it became less likely that Britain would fall out of the war, so at that point the B-36 was put on the back burner and the B-29 got top priority for development and production.
Was it? Source please
@@roo72 It's documented in many places. I didn't just learn this yesterday, so if you expect me to cite from memory where you can find it, I don't have the time to read through my library for you. I'm just here to point out the mistake so people can do their own reading if they are interested in the facts. The important distinction here is the B-29 and B-36 were responses to two separate and distinct USAAC requests for bombers of different capability, and this video confuses those two. You could start with the Wikipedia pages for the B-36 and B-29. Note that the specification to which the B-29 was developed was issue earlier and called for range exceeding that of the B-17, but was not sufficient to bomb Germany form the western side of the Atlantic. These program concepts had different names but I can't remember them exactly.
B-29. Before World War II, the United States Army Air Corps concluded that the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, which would be the Americans' primary strategic bomber during the war, would be inadequate for the Pacific Theater, which required a bomber that could carry a larger payload more than 3,000 miles.[7]
In December 1939 [note, before the Blitz and concern that Britain might concede defeat], the Air Corps issued a formal specification for a so-called "superbomber" that could deliver 20,000 lb (9,100 kg) of bombs to a target 2,667 mi away, and at a speed of 400 mph.
The genesis of the B-36 can be traced to early 1941, prior to the entry of the United States into World War II. At the time, the threat existed that Britain might fall to the German "Blitz", making a strategic bombing effort by the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) against Germany impossible with the aircraft of the time. The USAAC therefore sought a bomber of truly intercontinental range,
The USAAC sent out the initial request on 11 April 1941, asking for a 450 mph top speed, a 275 mph cruising speed, a service ceiling of 45,000 ft-beyond the range of ground-based anti-aircraft fire-and a maximum range of 12,000 miles at 25,000 ft. These requirements proved too demanding for any short-term design, far exceeding the technology of the day, so on 19 August 1941, they were reduced to a maximum range of 10,000 mi, an effective combat radius of 4,000 mi with a 10,000 lb bombload, a cruising speed between 240 and 300 mph, and a service ceiling of 40,000 ft-above the maximum effective altitude of Nazi Germany's anti-aircraft guns, save for the rarely-deployed 12.8 cm FlaK 40 heavy flak cannon
@@gort8203 Nonsense. You wrote " specifically ordered for the Pacific" - there is not a single document, original, first source, stating it.
@@roo72 "Nonsense"? LOL. I don't know why I wasted my time responding to what I assumed to be a serious question. If the words "specifically ordered" are misleading I can rephrase. The USAAC issued the specification that led to the B-29 because it realized it would need a bomber with longer range than the B-17 and B-24 for Pacific operations. It said this right in the article I pasted for your convenience. I'm sorry I wasted my time, and that the Wikipedia info is not a "first source" document; do you or Curios Droid have one in support of your confused opinion? (That's a rhetorically question because it's clear you're trying prove a negative with no documentation. Please do not respond because I have no desire to hear anything further from you.)
In American football we have a play called a "Hail Mary" in which the team on offense throws the ball downfield in desperation, hoping that one of their receivers will catch it, score and win the game. It's a low-percentage move, but our football history and real-life histories are filled with glorious tales of "Hail Mary" victories. The B-29 is one of those stories. It's a miracle that it worked well enough to deliver two a-bombs to the Land of the Rising Sun... but it did!
Exactly! Even the Little Boy (Uranium 9,700 lbs) and Fat Man (Plutonium 10,000 lbs) Atomic bombs were using 'basic' priming systems. Different mechanisms, yet they both worked.
And to get his plane and crew back, Colonel Paul Tibbets had 40 seconds to get his plane turned through 160 degrees, to survive the 2.5g blast shockwave. Quite a lot of stories behind the whole history for just this part of the war effort. Even the flight there and back was 12 hours (+2minutes) with only 2 hours of fuel spare. So navigation was critical. Hell of a story.
Cringe bringing up football tbh. Kinda gay.
@@generalmarkmilleyisbenedic8895 Go bother someone else, troll.
My father - who passed away in 2016 age 94 - was a B-29 USAAF navigator in the Pacific. I still have his original flight jacket with squadron insignia.
Our family is Friends of Doc and my son and I have toured FIFI.
Everybody know that the "Enola Gay" dropped the 1st atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Few know that "Bockscar" dropped the 2nd atomic bomb on Nakasaki.
Kudos for you for the photo of "Bockscar" at 05:15
I worked on Saipan and visited Tinian. The old airfields are still there, along with the loading stations on Tinian for the atomic bombs.
I just need to visit Alamagordo, New Mexico, site of Trinity test, the 1st atomic bomb test. And then Hiroshima to round out my "Trinity" of nuclear sites.
One even fewer know about is that a large chunk of the science for the project was done at the University of Chicago, Fermi’s place. I’ve been down in the old steam tunnels, tagging along with networking while running cables, they run all over the campus, but connect from the physics departments all the way over towards the Museum of Science and Industry. Supposedly, at least lore says, they continued on down Lake Shore to Soldier Field where much of that work was done.
Bock's Car is on display at Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio. You can walk through it too.
@@claytonbouldin9381 Thanks, thats good to know.
Even fewer know that the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima by the Enola Gay was an UNTESTED uranium bomb, and the the bomb dropped on Nagasaki was a plutonium bomb, which HAD BEEN tested at Los Alamos earlier in July
Fantastic presentation Paul I always look forward to your work.
Content like this is why I support you on Patreon. Well done!
19:54 HOLY CRAP!!! LOOK at that size difference between the B-29 and the B-36 shown on screen!! I never before understood HOW much bigger the B-36 Peacemaker was before now! It's a true monster!
You should see one in person...
USAF museum in Dayton OH or the Pima Air&Space museum in Arizona.
Yes. I live in Ohio and have been to the museum many times. Incredible place.
@@lot2196 You should see one indoors!
You are the only CZcams channel that is so interesting that I even watch your paid commercials. Great stuff as always, Paul!
Well done i knew of the overheating issues but u went into great detail. Thank u
I had no idea about the overheating problems. Thanks for sharing.
Awesome vid, Paul!! I always wanted to see an in-depth vid of the B-29.
Excellent job, superior quality. The way a documentary should be. Thank you.
There are some great trivia questions in this episode. I had no idea that anything even came close to the Manhattan Project price tag, much less beat it by fifty per cent.
Was surprised, too. There are different ways of accounting or valuation, so I would be interested in the analysis.
Great video! It reminded me to dig out my old copy of Martin Caidin’s A Torch To The Enemy, a great book for anyone interested in knowing more about the B-29 story and the incendiary raids that devastated many Japanese cities.
Another video full of interesting information that will teach me lots of things! It's a great weekend!
Great video as always. Wondering if it would be possible to do a follow-up video about the B-36 and it's technical issues?
Thank you, Paul! Another great video!
I had fortunate employment with a casting company with military contracts, while serving as a machinist for the Nevada National Guard. I find this video wonderful for its demonstration of the complexity of prototype. Mechanics, materials, thermodynamics and structural integrity according to stresses applied. Beautiful video👍🏻
While Consolidated was working on the Dominator they were also designing and building the B-36.
I've watched everything you've ever uploaded and this was one of the best videos you've ever produced
Excellent and fair coverage, as usual!
Thanks for the great video about the B29. Great photos and videos. Looking forward to future investigation of all aircraft.
Very well researched and narrated. The footage was also very appropriate.
Another great video. Thanks Mr Shilito
Curtis Lemay, wasn’t he the head of SAC and operation chrome dome in its inception? The name rings a bell. My grandfather Russell Robertson Sr. served in WWII and was one of the fortunate ones who survived the storming of Omaha Beach in Normandy. God bless you grandpa and I wish I could have spent more time talking about the things you endured and the sights you saw with the obvious grace and non disclosure of what was happening that may have been the subject matter of and for any service member who did what had to be done to survive.
RIP grandpa.
Learned a lot on this one. Thanks!
Another great video. Keep them coming.
Dear Curious Droid, your videos imo are so well done and so interesting, we'll researched, it's a privilege to be subscribed to your channel, thank you
The B-54 was to be the ultra superfortress bomber. Personally I think LeMay cancelled the B-54 so the Boeing company could get some sleep. They were working on the B-47, B-52, and the prototype of what was to become the 707/KC-135 family of bombers, jet transports, and tankers. Not to mention Boeing was still working on the KC-97 and who knows what else?
The B-50 was the ultimate version of the B-29. The B-54 didn’t offer enough to be funded. Not with the B-36 & B-47. Plus the B-52 coming along
your videos are so well done and so interesting
EXCELLENT video. Thanks very much. Greetings from Mexico City.
I always wondered if the B29 could have been powered by the R-2800. The later war P&W engine rated with much more power than the Wright engine but little problems.
The ones that had more power were for fighters which had comparatively shorter lives (~200 hours until shot down, written off, worn out, or obsolete) and needed water injection (not practical for bombers to climb to altitude).
Post war 2800s would get to those levels on transport aircraft due to improvements. During the war they were mostly 2000 hp as on the C-46, A-26, and B-26.
🤔 over heating problems?
Didn't know that... thank you very much ☺️
Always great videos
Thank you. I think this might be your best video yet.
Great detailed video
They had the B-50 (an improved B-29) which did see some limited action in the Korean War for recon but by that time it was obsolete with the coming of jet bombers.
Saved to my watch later playlist. My great uncle was a mechanic for bombers in WW2, quality control at home. He was really not impressed with a lot of what he saw, and told my mother at some point that he had great admiration for the pilots that went up in them, he'd never go up in one himself without thoroughly checking it over first. By his inflection my mother understood him to mean mechanical problems were frequent and very dangerous. After doing a bit of research on my own for when he was in service and the history of different bombers, I am pretty sure he meant this one as by even the early war, let alone the late war, B-17s had a lot of the mechanical issues ironed out (and were already relatively reliable even compared to other prototypes when it was one). I didn't see anything out of the ordinary for B-24s. I looked at a number of other heavy bombers and this was the only thing that really jumped out at me as being likely what he was referring to, unless we had a light bomber like the A-20 that I didn't look into enough.
He passed away when I was very young, well before my interest in history and particularly WW2 was developed.
Another great film, thank you!
As always a great video, I also hope droid is doing wonderful after his health scare. God bless you all
Great stuff as always Paul.
That is one heck of a story. Great video.
Most interesting, thank you. This is the kind of info of which you don't normally get to hear. 👍👍
5:42 B-26 Marauders! 14:33. I was at a CAF AirSho in 2007 and was in the hangar within earshot of two mechanics who were talking about FiFi, their B-29 which was grounded at the time. One of them said he was working on her and the socket wrench slipped...and punched a hole in the firewall which was weakened due to corrosion.
FiFi came to my city for a visit some years ago and by an amazing stroke of good luck I happened to be outside in my backyard when she flew over on her way to landing at the airport. Had zero idea she was gonna be in town, went over and got a tour of the plane. She's NOT running R-3350s 😉
@@chrisfreemesser5707 I got to climb up inside Fifi last Saturday at the Miramar Airshow in San Diego, CA.
Verry intresting, thanks!
Greetings from Norway!🇳🇴
C.D. is one of my Top Five CZcams channels , very well done.
Definitely. Those B29 engines had turbochargers the size of commercial truck tires. The turbos look alot like the early turbojet engines. In my mind, the early turbojets are those B29 engines, made reliable, by deleting a lot of moving parts.
That’s why GE was chosen to make the first US turbojet. It was actually a good disguise as well as it was labelled as a turbocharger.
But the technology and metallurgy are quite different. A turbocharger runs a lot cooler. When you make a homemade jet engine out of a turbo and propane it usually doesn’t last very long.
Excellent work on this one. I love WWII history.
Good show !
Thank you Sir.
This is a very detailed and informative video. I don't think the B-29 was a failure. It was impossible to bomb through the jet stream over Japan, so they adapted. Adaptability is never a failure.
Thanks, Paul!
Great job
Keep it up
From Argentina
Thank you for sharing this excellent video, great job!
Love from Trailer Park USA
That’s an amazing picture @19:54 between the B-29 and B-36 size
Awesome work as usual. 👏👏👏👏😊👍
Very informative, thank you
Great video, Paul...👍
Always excellent vids🙏🙏🙏🙏
I visited the Flying Boat Museum at Lake Boga, near Swan Hill in Victoria, Australia last December and they have an engine from the Catalina Flying Boat on display, across the room they have an R-3350 on display and it dwarfs the engine from the Catalina. The R-3350 is Huge!
Mark from Melbourne Australia
Pretty good account. It was developed during operation. Curtis Wright had a management problem. Some of the changes made to the R 3350 were already suggested beforehand and rejected. It started out as an oil leaky hot running firetrap and the magnesium crankcase made the fires spectacular.
I became fascinated with bombers when I saw the movie Memphis Belle in 1990. I know that was a B-17 but I love documentaries about any WWII tech, especially planes. This one is so well done. I learned a lot from it. Thank you.
Also, I'm glad to see you seem to be doing well! I hope everything is good health wise.
You have spelled their wrong in your thank you message to your patreons at the start of the video.
Contents is amazing as usual so thank you for top quality stuff.
Interesting stuff! Why not do a future video about the discovery and then mass production of Penicillin in WW2 for use in wounded troops, a really interesting wartime story with a huge present day impact.
Now THAT would be Interesting!
Part of the Tizard mission. The mold spores were dusted onto a vest to be brought overseas. The courier went straight to Indianapolis and the Eli Lilly company headquarters
Love your videos. They are very educational and good entertainment. We have a variant of the B-29 - the Tu-4 :-)
Thank you! Love anything about the B-29👍🏻
Don't watch this vid then, watch Gregs Airplanes and Autos or WWII US Bombers channels for people that actually know what they are talking about.
Nice job!
Outstanding
Great video
9:14 The first time I know they built central targeting system for turrets, insane level of engineering for the time.
That system floors me, since it would be likely 50 more years before you would think the tech to make that work would exist. How well it worked someone needs to explain
@marklittle8805 It was pretty effective by all accounts although never really put to the test at scale against a fully capable opponent. It's not that complex - but obv would have taken quite a bit of development effort. The 'calculation' is not digital of course but mechanical analogue - well within the capabilities of the tech of the period. Also v similar to the later war USN light medium AA directors.
It used multiple capsules, cams and gears a bit like large warship gun directors.
The problems with engines were very reminiscent of those with the Avro Manchester and Heinkel 177 Greif. I sometimes wonder if they might have done better to used a larger number of smaller engines as Avro did with the Manchester to produce the Lancaster. Maybe using 6 or 8 Pratt and Whitney R2800s would have been better. Some loss of aerodynamic efficiency would have been balanced by fewer crashes.
Its just a matter of trying to build a plane with too much range and payload requirements before engine technology need to make it was around.
Of the 3,970 B-29's built, there are only two that are airworthy and flying today, Fifi and Doc. What's great is that Doc is housed in a hangar at the same facility where those planes were built in Wichita, KS. Talk about a homecoming!
Your videos are always well presented and really interesting. There is also an approachability about you and that makes them more relaxing to watch. Though others can do enjoyable work too, they can sometimes feel like sitting in a lecture. Great channel.
Excellent video. Aviation nut and had no idea how bad the Super’s engine problems were. You don’t often hear about that part of development.
Thank you.
Fascination information.
In the view of the totality of the B-29's contribution to the Pacific War, it was a stunning success and helped prevent the necessity of a ground invasion of Japan using incendiaries even without the nukes, which were the final nail in the Japanese war effort. I feel the US leadership did a master class of learning and overcoming the initial B-29's huge problems to make them a war winning platform.
Just to keep the development in context:
Boeing had been working on privately funded long range bomber designs since 1938. Model 322 through to Model 341.
Boeing reworked the 341 design during early 1940 based on the information coming from the European war front. This design would become the Model 345.
Both Model 345 prototyes were ordered on 24 August 1940. A year later, in September 1941, 250 B-29 aircraft were ordered. On 21 September 1942, the first XB-29 flew.
The first YB-29 service test aircraft flew in October 1943.
By April of 1944, the first B-29 group had arrived in India.
The pace of the B-29 development was incredibly fast, even by wartime standards. At the same time as Boeing were developing and testing the aircraft, other manufacturers and subcontractors were gearing up for production. It is hardly surprising that so many issues were encountered. The B-29 was structurally, aerodynamically and technically more advanced than other heavy bomber of WW2.
Despite the technical and tactical deployment issues, the B-29 was an outstanding aircraft. It made all other heavy bombers obsolete overnight. It remained in frontline USAAF/USAF service after WW2, saw combat in Korea and was briefly operated by the RAF as a stopgap until the "V" bomber and Canberra fleet was ready.
In about 1965 I saw a B29 aerial refueling 2 F86 fighters. Part of an airshow in Baton Rouge
A friend of ours was on the "Last Mission" over Japan 5 days AFTER Nagasaki. The target was Japan's largest oil refinery, which was 90% destroyed. They lost no planes to enemy fire.
50+ years later, when info was declassified, he discovered that the main reason for destroying the oil production was to keep it out of the hands of the USSR, who were mobilizing toward Japan.
The amazing part is that the Emporer had already recorded his surrender speech, which was set to be broadcast the next morning. But hard-liners in the military had planned a couple so they could continue the war.
Tokyo lay in the path to the oil refinery. When the B-29s flew over, there was an emergency black out. The confusion this caused disrupted the coup, and the surrender came the next day.
Without this happy accident, the war might have continued.
That's "coup," not couple. Thanks, spell-correct!
It was a pinnacle of technological evolution at the time.🎉🎉🎉