In January 1942 the military authorities ordered 14 YB-29 pre-production aircraft, followed immediately after by orders for 500 production machines. On August 24, 1940, two prototypes were ordered, followed by a third and a static-test airframe in December.Īs the war grew in intensity, this program was given maximum priority. This new aircraft, the Model 345, was submitted alongside Consolidated, Douglas and Lockheed designs, and the Boeing bid was accepted. These were developed early in 1940, when the Army Air Corps again issued specifications for a long-range bomber. This aircraft never got beyond the prototype stage, but Boeing’s engineers derived several experimental projects from it. Four years earlier the USAAC had asked for a strategic bomber that could carry 2,000 pounds (907 kg) of bombs a distance of 5,000 miles (8,000 km). This history began in 1937, when the XB-15 (Boeing Model 294) appeared. The first Russian models, designated Tu-4, were identical to the B-29.ĭevelopment and mass production of the Boeing Model 345, later named B-29 Superfortress, was one of the biggest tasks in the history of aviation.
Three Superfortress bombers went down in Soviet territory in 1944, and after the war the Russians developed a whole series of long-range bombers from these three aircraft. And, oddly enough, it was the B-29 that re-established a balance of strategic air power between the USSR and America during the Cold War. B-29s were also operational in the Korean War and the type was not retired from service until the late 1950s. But the large, modern four-engined aircraft also left other marks on aviation history, going down as the best strategic bomber of the war.Ī total of 3,970 Boeing B-29s were built, of which 2,000 were delivered between 19.
The Superfortress’ name will always be associated with these two missions. Three days later another B-29, the ‘Boxcar’, dropped it second atomic hbmb on Nagasaki.
Some 70,000 people were killed, and as many injured. ‘Little Boy’, as the bomb was christened, exploded at an altitude of 800 ft (244 m) and devastated the city of Hiroshima. At that moment a Boeing B-29 Superfortress, the ‘Enola Gay’ piloted by Colonel Paul W Tibbets and flying at 330 mph (528 km/hr) at an altitude of more than 30,000ft (9,630 m), dropped a cylindrical bomb almost 11 ft (3.27 m) in length, two and a half feet in diameter and containing just over 130 pounds (62 kg) of Uranium 235. The atomic age began at 9:15 hours and 30 seconds local time on August 6, 1945, in the sky over Hiroshima, Japan. Unlike the inhabitants of other Japanese cities, the Americans have not warned there of an attack and so the atomic age begins with the death of 100,000 people.