AIR: Superfortress

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Air Forces General "Hap" Arnold had said that the new superbomber, the Boeing B29, would make the Flying Fortress shrink to the size of a medium bomber. And that was about all the U.S. public knew about the B29, until last week.

Additional news did not come from the U.S. but from England. Flight, a trade magazine unbound by strict U.S. censorship, had given British readers some details of the secret weapon the U.S. is readying for battle.

The B29. recently named Superfortress, is a four-engined bomber and the biggest long-range bomb carrier the world has ever seen. By Flight's description it can lug a load of more than eight tons 1,000 mi. (i.e., a 500-mi. radius), can carry three tons 3,000 mi. Its wing span is 141 ft. (Fortress span. 100 ft.).

The Superfortress is powered by Wright 2,000-h.p. engines, has three-bladed propellers, cruises at about 250 m.p.h. at 25,000 ft. Flight says "it retains the general features of the Fortress, but it has a tricycle landing gear with double tires on each wheel. It needs them. Flight puts the fully loaded weight of the B-29 at between 50 and 60 tons—about twice the weight of a Fortress or British Lancaster.

Like all American bombers, the Superfortress is heavily armored and gunned (with .50-caliber machine guns). There is a chin turret in the nose, a ball turret in the belly, a turret atop the fuselage and one in the tail.

But the B-29 has a newfangled substitute for the drafty, buffeting waist positions from which Fortress and Liberator gunners fire at enemy planes. It has side turrets operated by remote control.