Product Description
There had certainly never before been an aircraft of the design concept of the Vulcan with its incredible delta wing, aptly named the 'tin triangle'. Meanwhile across the Atlantic, Boeing had forged ahead with the then black art of high speed swept wing high altitude bomber design that culminated in the B-47 Stratojet, an aircraft that hopefully would be able to outfly the Soviet fighters of the time.
Almost before the B-47 was fully operational though its successor, the incredibly long ranging eight engined B-52 was airborne and preparing to become one of the legendary aircraft of the modern era. In fact, on present plans, this multi war veteran should still be flying in 2030, three quarters of a century after the prototype appeared!
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In October 1948, a senior Boeing delegation arrived at Wright Field to present the definitive proposals for the XB-52 to the USAF's Col Henry 'Pete' Warden of Air Materiel Command's Wright Air Development Centre. Accompanying the Boeing men were truckloads of paperwork on the aircraft.
At the meeting which had been arranged, the Boeing people were surprised and alarmed to see that Col Warden paid their carefully prepared documentation little attention and instead asked them to come up with yet another concept based around the use of the Pratt & Whitney JT3 (J57 for military) two spool axial flow turbojet engine then under development, and as quickly as possible!
It's to the company's eternal credit that it didn't simply give the USAF the finger and storm out of the meeting. Instead, the Boeing team retired to the Van Cleve hotel in Dayton on the Thursday of the meeting, locked themselves in for the next four days and returned to Col Warden's office at Wright the following Monday morning to present him with a complete set of typed and bound documents, drawings and even - it is said - a desk top model of a completely new jet powered bomber.
The design presented to Warden was dubbed the Model 646-49 with wings swept at 35 degrees, engines beneath them in four twin pods, a maximum weight of around 330,00lb (149,700kg), a wing span of the same 185 feet (56.4m) but with greater chord and area, a maximum speed of around 565mph (910km/h) and the ability to carry a 10,000lb bomb load over a 3,100 miles (4,990km) radius.
