AIR: Superfacts

Well satisfied with reports from India and China, the Army this week announced contracts for 1,700 more B-29 Superfortresses. It also told some of the features that make the B-29 World War II’s biggest single advance in bomber design.

Half again as big as the B-17 and twice as heavy, the far-ranging B-29 can take off and land on B-17 runways. It cruises at more than 300 miles an hour, is pressurized to operate normally between 30,000 and 40,000 ft. Armed with a 20-mm. cannon and at least ten .50-caliber machine guns, it can carry a load almost equal to its own weight.

Aerial Warship. Best operational feature of the B-29 is its push-button system of remote controls. In addition to the plane commander and copilot, who have separate sets of controls in their 9-ft.-wide, soundproof compartment, a flight engineer is needed to handle the mass of engine instruments and controls.

Like warships, the B-29 has more than one operating center; e.g., it can be flown from two pilot panels in the after part if the front cockpit is knocked out in battle. It also has bomb-sighting stations fore & aft from either of which the bombs can be released.

Another warship feature on the bomber is central fire control. All of the guns have automatic correcting sights. The two top turrets are aimed and fired from blisters fore & aft, the two bottom turrets from waist blisters. Together with the tail turret, which holds the cannon, they have “dead man” switches so connected that as soon as a gunner is hit, control of his turret passes to the next gunner on the circuit.

Honest Aircraft. Except for the hydraulic brakes, B-29 equipment is operated entirely by electricity; it has 140 electric motors to make things move. But the plane handles so easily and “honestly” that no boosters are needed to operate the massive rudder, elevators, ailerons. Eleven airmen crew the 6-29—only one more than in a B-17 crew.

As might be expected of such a huge, new, and intricate design, the B-29 at first suffered from some minor design defects. But the worst “bugs” were chased months ago and the few little survivors are on the way out. Superfortresses are now being mass-produced at Boeing plants in Wichita, Kans., and Seattle and Renton, Wash., the Martin plant in Omaha, and the Bell plant in Marietta, Ga. Other plants are now retooling for 6-29 production. The Air Forces’ newest bomber has become its best.