"An Excellent Airplane"

News writers, aviation experts and other insiders had become well acquainted in recent months with the Army's big new B-29 bomber, but to the public at large the Superfortress was a nebulous thing of mystery and hope. What the people waited for was the B-29's baptism in combat. That came last week, with a dramatic raid on Japan's steel industry (see WORLD BATTLEFRONTS). Then the War Department allowed Boeing to tell nearly everything about its current prize package.

Some details of performance and fire power were still purposely blurred. The B-29 has a maximum speed at its favorite altitude (high) of "well over 300 m.p.h.," its ceiling is "well over 30,000 feet." Boeing did not give its maximum range or bomb load, said simply that it carries a heavier load farther and faster than any other heavy bomber. Total fire power is still under wraps, but it is known that the B-29 is armed with .50-caliber machine guns, aimed and fired by remote control, and that it packs a 20-mm. cannon.

The B-29 has four 2,200-h.p. Wright engines (nearly twice the power of the B-17 Fortress) and each engine is equipped with twin turbo-superchargers for undiminished power at high altitude. The four-bladed propellers are 16 ft. 6 in. across, the biggest on any combat plane in service.

Tail-Up and Level. The wingspread is 141 ft. 2 in., the fuselage length 98 ft., and the single tail fin (which has a strong family resemblance to the B-17's familiar tail fin) is 27 ft. high. The Superfortress departs' from previous Fortress custom in having tricycle landing gear --three sets of twin wheels--so that its fuselage, like that of the tricycle-geared Liberator, is tail-up and level on the ground.

A remarkably "clean" airplane (i.e., few bumps and warts), the B-29 is sleekly flush-riveted throughout, and its nacelles, turrets and domes are triumphs of streamlining.

The overall drag (air resistance) is so low that when the wheels are down the drag is doubled. The flying controls are so delicately balanced that no auxiliary power or "boost" is necessary for the pilot to operate them. This conserves the "feel" that flyers value so much. Test pilots call theB-29 a very "sweet" airplane.

In this huge and hugely complicated bomber, Boeing did away with a frequent source of pilot's gripe--an overladen instrument panel. The pilot and copilot have before them only the instruments necessary for taking off, flying and landing. The crew of eleven includes a flight engineer who has a big instrument panel of his own, and whose job is to keep track of engine performance. Since long-range flights mean long, fatiguing hours in the air, the ship carries chairs cushioned with sponge rubber and bunks in which unoccupied crew members may rest. The cabin is sound-insulated to reduce engine noise to a minimum.

Dream with Wings. General Henry H. ("Hap") Arnold, who is now in a place where he can make dreams come true, has had something like the B-29 in mind for many years. Early in 1940, his Air Forces asked for designs that would embody the Arnold idea; Boeing's was just the ticket. After first test flights in September 1942, scholarly Test Pilot Edmund T. ("Eddie") Allen reported: "We have an excellent airplane." Eddie Allen was later killed in one of the three crashes which marked the B-29's test-flying period.

Now Boeing is converting its three plants (two in Washington, one in Kansas) entirely to B-29 production, and the plane will also be made at the Martin plant in Nebraska, the Bell plant in Georgia. Douglas and Lockheed will keep on making B-17s. Hap Arnold has said that, with the advent of the B29, the Fortress and Liberator would revert to the status of medium bombers. But there is no intention of discarding them on that account. In the relatively short-ranged European theater, there is a vast amount of work to be done not only by the four-engined "mediums," but by the smaller two-engined mediums. Marauders, Mitchells and Bostons, which now become "light bombers." The B-29 is the weapon that will squeeze down the vast and once heartbreaking distances of the Pacific.

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