Big Wings: The Largest Aircraft Ever Built

320 Pages·2016·38.74 MB·German

by  Philip Kaplan

B I G W I N G S

B I G W I N G S
P H I L I P K A P L A N
TO CLAIRE AND JOE
First published in Great Britain in 2005 by
Pen and Sword Aviation
An imprint of Pen and Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS
Copyright © Philip Kaplan 2005
ISBN 1 84415 178 6
The right of Philip Kaplan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by
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clearance process.
Typeset by Philip Kaplan
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Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for the use of their previously published material:
Cumming, Michael, for extracts from his book Pathfinder Cranswick, William Kimber, 1962.
Dabrowski, Hans-Peter, for extracts from his book Messerschmitt
Me 321/323, Schiffer Military History, 2002.
Falconer, Jonathan, for an extract from his book Stirling Wings,
Alan Sutton Publishing Limited, 1995.
Hersey, John, for extracts from his article Hiroshima, New Yorker
Magazine, August 1946.
Middlebrook, Martin and Everitt, Chris, for extracts from their book
The Bomber Command War Diaries, Penguin Books, 1985.
Peden, Murray, for an extract from his book A Thousand Shall
Fall, Canadas Wings, 1982.
Griswold, Wesley S., for an extract from his article When Boats
Had Wings, Popular Science Magazine, June 1963.
Sauer, Mark, and the San Diego Union-Tribune, for the use of the
article, ‘Bail Out!’, 25 August 2002 edition.
My thanks to the following people for their kind, generous help in the development of this book: Joseph Anastasia, Hisham Atallah, Dmitri Avdeev, Igor Babenko, David
Batten, John Battersby, Don Bennett, Bill Blanchard, Quentin Bland, Javier Bobadilla, Stephen Boreham, Bristol Aero Collection, Alan Brown, Robert Cardenas, Tony
Cassanova, Amitava Chatterjee, James Covington, Michael Cumming, Hans-Peter Dabrowski, Sven De Bevere, Ralf Drews, James Doolittle, Hans-Joachim Ebert, Beryl
Erickson, Chris Everitt, the Evergreen Aviation Museum, Forest Industries Flying Tankers Limited, Sergio Gava, Edwin Gehricke, Walter Gibb, Stephen Grey, Ed
Gronenthal, Larry Henderson, John Hersey, Eric Holloway, Katherine Huit, Tony Iacono, S.J.S. James, Lynn Johnson, Kristof Jonckheere, Fred Kaplan, Neal Kaplan,
Cleon T. Knapp, Steve Knox, Florian Kondziela, Curtis LeMay, T.G. ‘Hamish’ Mahaddie, Don Maxion, Martin Middlebrook, Warren Mistier, John Mize, Marcus Neubauer,
Michael Oakey, Michael O’Leary, Murray Peden, Arthur Pegg, Peter Petrick, Jason Pineau, John Powell, Dr. Raymond Puffer, Ted Quackenbush, Alan Renga, Denis
Richards, Mark Remmel, Philip Rowe, Hilary St George Saunders, Michael Schmidt, Wouter Sikkema, Raimund Stehmann, Glen Stewart, Paul Tibbetts, Konstantin von
Wedelstaedt, Luc Willems, Steve Williams, Richard Wood, the Western Aeronautical Museum, Nancy Wyld.
Photography credits: Photographs by the author are credited PK. Photographs from the author’s aviation collections are credited AC. Photographs from the San Diego
Aerospace Museum are credited SDAM. Title page: PK, p6: both AC, p7: SDAM, pp8: Boeing, p9: AC, p10-top: Boeing, p10-bottom-both: AC, p11- both: AC, p12-top:
AC, p12–13: Boeing, p14: AC, p15: AC, pp16–17: courtesy Jonathan Falconer, pp18–19-all: AC, p20: AC, p21: courtesy Jonathan Falconer, p22-top: AC, p22-bottom:
courtesy Jonathan Falconer, p23-both: AC, p24-both: AC, p25-all: AC, p26-top: PK, p26-bottom: AC, p27: AC, p28-top: AC, p28-bottom: courtesy Jonathan Falconer, p29:
AC, p30-both: PK, p31: AC, pp32–33-all: AC, p34: AC, p35-both: AC, p36-both: AC, p37: AC, p38: Harold Gronenthal courtesy Ed Gronenthal, p39- both: AC, p40: AC,
p41: AC, p42-both: AC, p43-top: Fred Kaplan, p43-AC, p44-both: AC, p45: AC, p46-centre: PK, p46-left: AC, p47-both: AC, p48-all: AC, p49: AC, p50-centre: courtesy
Quentin Bland, p50-both: AC, p51-both: AC, p53-both: AC, p54-both: AC, p55: Boeing, p56-both: AC, p57: AC, p58-top: AC, p58-bot-tom: PK, p59: AC, p60: AC, p61: The
Edwards AFB History Office, pp62–63-all: AC, p64: SDAM, p65: AC, p66-both: AC, p67: courtesy General Robert Cardenas, p68: AC, p69-all: Edwards AFB History
Office, p71: SDAM, pp72–73: SDAM, pp74–75-both: AC, p77: AC, p78: AC, p79: Steve Williams, p81: USAF, p82-both: AC, p85: AC, p86: Steve Williams, p87: NASA
Dryden, p88: AC, p89: AC, p90-top: PK, p90-bot-tom: NASA Dryden, p91: PK, p92: SDAM, p93-both: AC, p94-top: USAF, p94-bottom: AC, p95-top: Steve Williams, p95-
bottom: courtesy Tony Cassanova, p96: Boeing, p97: AC, p98: NASA Dryden, p99: Steve Williams, p100: AC, p101: AC, p102-all: PK, p103-centre: Steve Williams, p103-
right: AC, p105: NASA Dryden, p106: Edwards AFB History Office, p107: AC, p108-both: NASA Dryden, p110–111-all: NASA Dryden, p112–113-both: Edwards AFB
History Office, pp114–123-all: Bristol Aero Collection, p124: AC, p125: AC, p126: Boeing, p127-all: AC, p129: AC, p130: NASA Dryden, p131: Boeing, p132: SDAM, p133:
AC, pp134–135: Boeing, p137-both: Boeing, p138: Boeing, p14-both: AC, p142: Airbus, p143: AC, p144: AC, p146–147-all: Airbus, p149: AC, pp150–151-both: Airbus,
p153-both: AC, pp154–157: Miami-Dade Public Library, pp158–159-all: AC, p161 and 163: courtesy Wouter Sikkema, p162: AC, pp164 and 166: Miami-Dade Public
Library, p165: AC, p167-both: AC, p168: AC, p169: Tailhook, pp170–171-all: Stephen Boreham, p172-top left: AC, p172-top right: Edwin Gehricke, p172-bottom: Tailhook,
p173: Edwin Gehricke, p174: AC, p175-top left: Edwin Gehricke, p175-bottom: Stephen Boreham, p176: Edwin Gehricke, p178: Stephen Boreham, p179: AC, p180: Edwin
Gehricke, pp182, 186–187-all: Evergreen Aviation Stephen Boreham, p176: Edwing Gehricke, p178: Stephen Boreham, p179: AC, p180: Edwin Gehricke, pp182, 186–187-
all: Evergreen Aviation Museum, pp184–185: AC, p188–189-both: AC, p190: Ted Quackenbush, p191: AC, p193: AC, p194: courtesy Aeroplane Monthly, p195: AC, p196:
AC, p196–203-all: Saunders-Roe, p205: AC, pp206–221-all: courtesy Hans-Peter Dabrowski, p208-top: courtesy Hans-Joachim Ebert and DaimlerChrysler Aerospace,
p212-bottom: courtesy Peter Petrick, p218: courtesy Peter Petrick, p207: AC, p208-left: AC, p209-right: AC, p211: AC, p216-left: AC, p217-right: AC, p219-right top and
bottom: AC, p220: AC, p222: AC, p223, 224, 227, 228, 230: SDAM, p225: AC, p226-left-both: USAF, p229: AC, p231: Steve Williams, p233: courtesy Edwin Gehricke,
p234: AC, p235: Florian Kondziela, p238-top left: Glenn Stewart, p238-top centre: Edwards AFB History Office, p238-bottom: PK, p239-top: Sergio Gava, p239-bottom:
Michael Schmidt, p242: PK, p244-both: AC, p246: USAF, pp250–251: Marcus Neubauer, p254-both: Dmitri Avdeev, p255-top: Luc Willems, p255-bottom left: Sven De
Bevere, p255-bottom right: Dmitri Avdeev, p258-right: Mark Remmel, p259-top: Sven De Bevere, p259-bot-tom: John Powell, p260: AC, p262-top: John James, p262-
bottom: Alan Brown, p263: Hisham Atallah, p264: AC, p266-left: Ralf Drews, p266bot-tom right: Steve Knox, p267-top: Bill Blanchard, p267-bottom: Amitava Chatterjee,
p268: AC.
CONTENTS
BOMBERS
DOUGLAS B-19
SHORT STIRLING
BOEING B-29
NORTHROP XB-35 AND YB-49
CONVAIR B-36
BOEING B-52
NORTH AMERICAN XB-70
AIRLINERS
BRISTOL BRABAZON
BOEING 747
AIRBUS A380
FLYING BOATS
DORNIER DO-X
MARTIN JRM-1 MARS
HUGHES HK-1
SAUNDERS-ROE PRINCESS
HEAVY LIFTERS
MESSERSCHMITT ME321 AND ME323
CONVAIR XC-99
LOCKHEED C-5
BOEING KC-10
ANTONOV AN124 AND AN225
BOEING C-17
DOUGLAS
A publicity still, Betty Grable, from the movie A Yank in the RAF
Ad for the 1942 Oldsmobile … ‘Power-Styled like the B-19’
Donald W. Douglas Jr joined his father’s company, Douglas Aircraft, in 1939, four years after the company had received a
contract from the US Army Air Corps for preliminary and detailed design, mock-up construction and testing of components for
what would be the largest land-based aircraft built in the USA during the Second World War, the B-19 bomber.
Douglas Jr was born in 1917, and was educated in mechanical engineering at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California. He
continued his studies at the Curtiss-Wright Technical Institute in Glendale, California, where he read aeronautical engineering.
It seems clear that his father, Donald Wills Douglas, intended to groom his son to become president of Douglas Aircraft and
would brook no short-cut path to the top for the young man who began his association with the company as an engineer in the
strength group. His father, determined that Don Jr would be well grounded in all aspects of the firm, saw that the young man
was assigned a wide variety of positions in many different departments of the plant. Don Jr gradually rose through the ranks
and in 1943, at the height of the war, was appointed to his first important supervisory job at Douglas, that of manager of flight
test. In that role he oversaw the flight testing of nearly every aircraft type manufactured by the company. In the early post-war
years he became director of the testing division and was responsible for type certification of the famous DC-6 and DC-7
airliners. He was made a company vice-president and board member in the early 1950s and in 1957 was named president of
Douglas Aircraft, a role he served in until the company was merged with the St. Louis aircraft manufacturer, McDonnell
Aviation, in 1967. He then served as senior corporate vice-president of the McDonnell Douglas Corporation until 1989.
During his long career with the plane makers, Don Jr had an important role in the development of nearly all the significant
Douglas aircraft models–except one. He had come along a little too late for the B-19.
In the mid-1930s the world was moving relentlessly towards war in both Europe and the Pacific and some American military
planners believed it essential that the US Army Air Corps investigate the possibilities of building an experimental bomber with
enormous range and hitting power. They wanted to find the limits of technology and capability in that time and get them all into
one extraordinary aeroplane.
It was called Project D, classified top secret and visualized to be a “proof-of-concept” design and not necessarily a
production aircraft. When the Army solicited involvement by the major aircraft manufacturers of the day, only the Douglas and
Sikorsky companies expressed interest and preliminary discussions were held with both firms. Now known as the BLR, for
Bomber, Long Range, the Douglas design proposal was designated XBLR-2.
Both Sikorsky and Douglas had been asked to construct wooden mock-ups of their proposed designs and these were
evaluated by the Army Air Corps in March 1936. The Douglas design prevailed and the Sikorsky proposal was terminated.
Douglas was given until 31 March 1938 to produce the prototype aeroplane.
The XBLR-2 was meant to be a kind of flying battleship, an advanced all-metal stressed-skin bomber capable of hauling up to
18,700 lb of bombs with a maximum range of 7,700 miles. Her cruising speed was to be 135 mph, with a top speed of 224 mph
at an altitude of 15,500 feet. Her service ceiling was to be 23,000 feet and she would be powered by four Wright R-3350-5
18-cylinder air-cooled radial engines rated at 2,000 horsepower each, driving three-bladed constant-speed propellers. Her
total internal fuel capacity of 10,350 US gallons would enable her to remain aloft for up to fifty-five hours. A low-winged
monoplane, XBLR-2 was to be fitted with a retractable tricycle landing-gear arrangement, a system then considered relatively
uncoventional. Each giant main wheel was eight feet in diameter.
As the United States limped through the Depression years of the thirties, research and development funding for American
military projects was necessarily quite limited, forcing a slow pace of progress on the new plane. Later in 1936, the BLR
designation was superseded by the redesignation B-19 and the prototype under construction was designated XB-19 in
November 1937.