Boeing B-29 Superfortress “Enola Gay” landing after the atomic bombing mission on Hiroshima, Japan. ‘More Superfortresses were lost to mechanical failure than any other cause; in its first 6 months, regularly 10% of bombers that took off would be lost – per mission – to mechanical defects alone. The bomber was assembled at plants in Baltimore, Maryland, and Omaha, Nebraska. The B-26 saw extensive service during World War II. First used in the Pacific Theater in early 1942, it was also used in the Mediterranean Theater and in Western Europe. A total of 5,288 Marauders were built between 1941 and 1945. The B-1A was initially developed in the 1970s as a replacement for the B-52 Stratofortress, and built by Rockwell International (now Boeing). Four prototypes of this long-range, high speed (Mach 2.2) strategic bomber were developed and tested in the mid-1970s, but the program was canceled in 1977 before going into production. The B-36 was originally intended to be a mega-bomber, spanning 230 feet from wingtip to wingtip. It was designed to cross the Atlantic, enter German airspace, and drop 10,000 pounds of bombs from 40,000 feet, too high for ground-based artillery or enemy fighters of the time to reach it.
The world’s largest landplane, the Convair XC-99, the cargo version of the B-36 bomber, makes its first flight at Lindbergh Field in San Diego, with company test pilots Russell R. Rogers and Beryl A. Erickson at the controls. (This aircraft would lift a record 100,000-pound payload on April 15, 1949.) Big Fella. Dec. 17, 1947.
A Cold War-era bomber continues to hold the record as the largest American warplane ever created, despite the fact the platform has been out of service for more than seven decades. The B-36
Perhaps the Stratofortress should be developed purely as a reconnaissance airplane—an RB-52—leaving the offensive missions to Boeing’s never-built B-47Z Super Stratojet or a proposed sweptwing, eight-jet version of the Convair B-36. As it turned out, Boeing built 27 RB-52s, but they were basically just B-52Bs with bomb-bay fittings to nK3MC8.
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    • how many b 36 bombers were built