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10-10-2005, 01:11 PM
| #1 |
| Senior Member  Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Texas
Posts: 1,013
 | XB-42? I just saw a picture of this x-plane, not in all my reading have I ever come across this. I looked it up and found this from http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/aero...uglas_xb42.htm "The ingenious Douglas XB-42A Mixmaster was America's first 644 kph (400 mph) bomber. One of the most advanced reciprocating-engine aircraft flown, Douglas never produced it because it appeared late in the war as jet-propelled designs rendered nearly every propeller-driven aircraft obsolete. The Mixmaster's engines generated about the same power as the superlative British De Havilland Mosquito but the American bomber carried twice the Mosquito's maximum bomb load at the same speed as the British airplane. The Douglas bomber was also equipped with a powerful defensive armament that the Mosquito lacked. Douglas designer, E.F. Burton, envisioned a bomber powered by two engines buried inside the fuselage. This design innovation could reduce the drag by one-third compared to more conventional bombers. When he compared his design to the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, Burton believed he could develop a faster airplane that would carry a similar bomb load and employ a crew of 3 instead of the 10 airmen needed to man the B-29. Burton believed his Mixmaster would require just half of the maintenance crew required to keep the Superfortress airborne and cost one-third the price of the large, four-engine bomber from Boeing." Too bad it didn't get put into service ahead of the jet age!
__________________ "I had ten rockets on board, and as I wasn't particularly fond of head-on attacks, I salvoed the whole lot at him. The rockets didn't hit him but but they must have scared the bejesus out of him, for he did a steep turn to starboard... I let him have the full blast, all eight fifty-calibers. I had never seen an aircraft completely disintegrate in the air the way this Me-110 did..." Bill Dunn, 406th Fighter Group  Matt |
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10-10-2005, 01:20 PM
| #2 |
| Senior Member  Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Orange County, CA
Posts: 10,283
| What a neat aircraft. Just think if it had been put into production in 1943 of 1944.
__________________ "Pilot to copilot..... what are those mountain goats doing up here in the clouds?" |
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10-10-2005, 01:20 PM
| #3 |
| IP/Mech THE GREAT GAZOO   Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Colorado, USA
Posts: 16,051
| And don't forget it's sister the B-43!
__________________ "IF ITS RED OR DUSTY, DON'T TOUCH IT"  |
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10-10-2005, 04:01 PM
| #4 |
| Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: WSM, England
Posts: 20,387
 | Interesting!  |
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10-10-2005, 09:29 PM
| #5 |
| Senior Member  Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Ploiesti
Posts: 193
 | Interresting... it may have been a good investment if it had appeared earlier... and it's a nice looking airplane too... who knows... 
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10-11-2005, 01:07 AM
| #6 |
| Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Texas
Posts: 1,013
| Seriously! Something that fast that could carry that much with that few crewmembers and so little maintenance... a winning combo!
__________________ "I had ten rockets on board, and as I wasn't particularly fond of head-on attacks, I salvoed the whole lot at him. The rockets didn't hit him but but they must have scared the bejesus out of him, for he did a steep turn to starboard... I let him have the full blast, all eight fifty-calibers. I had never seen an aircraft completely disintegrate in the air the way this Me-110 did..." Bill Dunn, 406th Fighter Group Matt |
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10-11-2005, 07:44 AM
| #7 |
| Der Crewchief  Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Ansbach, Germany
Posts: 33,152
| Would have been amazing if it had entered in WW2.
__________________  fly boy:"isnt that the first jet bomber becasue i have flown one in a flight sim before and i know how it handles"[/I] |
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10-11-2005, 10:22 AM
| #8 |
| IP/Mech THE GREAT GAZOO Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Colorado, USA
Posts: 16,051
| The XB-42 and XB-43 are one of those what if weapons, maybe we would of seen had the war progressed on - picture this aircraft over Japan in 1946????
__________________ "IF ITS RED OR DUSTY, DON'T TOUCH IT" |
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10-11-2005, 12:35 PM
| #9 |
| Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Orange County, CA
Posts: 10,283
| I bet bailing out of that plane would have been exciting!
__________________ "Pilot to copilot..... what are those mountain goats doing up here in the clouds?" |
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10-11-2005, 06:42 PM
| #10 |
| Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Texas
Posts: 1,013
| Supposing any fighter at that time could make the crew bail out...
__________________ "I had ten rockets on board, and as I wasn't particularly fond of head-on attacks, I salvoed the whole lot at him. The rockets didn't hit him but but they must have scared the bejesus out of him, for he did a steep turn to starboard... I let him have the full blast, all eight fifty-calibers. I had never seen an aircraft completely disintegrate in the air the way this Me-110 did..." Bill Dunn, 406th Fighter Group Matt |
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10-11-2005, 06:57 PM
| #11 |
| Senior Member  Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Phoenix, AZ
Posts: 876
| Ey, it could have been a contender 
__________________ http://www.fictionpress.com/u/478009/ Hillary 2012: The world has to end sometime!  |
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10-11-2005, 09:18 PM
| #12 |
| Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Orange County, CA
Posts: 10,283
| OK, the engine catches fire from flak. You bail out....... will you hit the fins or get chopped up by the props? )
__________________ "Pilot to copilot..... what are those mountain goats doing up here in the clouds?" |
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10-11-2005, 10:55 PM
| #13 |
| Senior Member  Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Campospinoso (PV), Italy
Posts: 682
| .. not if you have an ejection seat! Also, you can install a pyrothecnic charge to blew off rudder and prop in case of ejection, like in the Do335. Pusher prop 'canards' should have been the final evolution of 'Otto' aircrafts, and almost all Nations were working on such designs. Dornier had drafted an evolution of the 335 with pusher contra-rotating props with incredible calculating figures (W Schick - I. Meyer Geheimprojekte der Luftwaffe: Jagdflugzeuge 1935-1945) along with several other designs from Messerchmitt-Lippisch (a variant if the Me163), Arado, Blohm & Voss and others. Japan flew the Kyushu Shinden in 1945 and I bet that USA and UK had many other projects on going. The point is that all this designs were still not in production when it was clear that the jet propulsion would had outperformed any prop evolution. .. but as amateurs we had the Vary Eze from Burt Rutan that proved the potential of the formula!
__________________ "God is dead" - Friedrich Nietzsche, 1882 "Nietzsche too" - God, Aug 25, 1900 He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife. - Douglas Adams In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. - Douglas Adams |
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10-12-2005, 07:04 AM
| #14 |
| Der Crewchief Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Ansbach, Germany
Posts: 33,152
| Ejection Seats were already in use in WW2 so it would not have been a problem
__________________ fly boy:"isnt that the first jet bomber becasue i have flown one in a flight sim before and i know how it handles"[/I] |
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10-12-2005, 11:08 AM
| #15 |
| IP/Mech THE GREAT GAZOO Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Colorado, USA
Posts: 16,051
| If they would of egressed freefall from the nose, I don't think there would of been a problem hitting the tail....
__________________ "IF ITS RED OR DUSTY, DON'T TOUCH IT" |
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