xb-19?

[fly boy]

i read in a magazine that their a bomber that the size of like the b-36 did the xb-19 ever fly

 

[evangilder]

Goleta Air and Space Museum: Douglas XB-19

 

[Lucky13]

Beautiful bird I have to say....

 

[Konigstiger205]

Beautiful bird I have to say....

Beautiful and big...

 

[Flyboy2]

OH MAN thats a big plane. What are the specs on that! Why didn't they ever put it into production, is it something about the engines, because you would need some beastly engines to power a monster like that.

 

[Njaco]

Never put into production probably because they had the B-17 and B-24 that did the job well and the B-29 was probably coming online. No need. And jet engines were right around the corner.

 

[fly boy]

that thing was so big

 

[Thorlifter]

Njaco is right about the B-17 and B-24 coming online and I think that's what killed the project. The first thing I noticed was the speed. Top speed was 200mph. Pretty slow, even for that year. Yes I saw where they got it up to 264mph, but it states the engines were not reliable.

 

[Flyboy2]

Oh right, that is reliable engines and low top speed. So its basically comparible to the B-29 and B-32 both of which where huge bomber planes.

 

[V-1710]

The XB-19's biggest problem was that it was underpowered. Sometime around 1943, it was re-engined with Allison 24 cylinder V-3420. That helped considerably, but by that time the B-29 was well along. The B-29 was a generation ahead of the XB-19, so natually no further development work was done on the XB-19. I think it was used for testing for some years. Boeing had built a similar, but somewhat smaller bomber in the XB-15.

 

[Graeme]

There is a nice summary on the XB-19 in Wagner's 'American Combat Planes'. From what I understand the XB-19 was never destined to be produced in numbers, it was more of a "flying laboratory" than a weapon. It was all part of the Air Corps 'Project D', a long-range bomber idea "investigating the maximum feasible distance into the future".
This design's main purpose was to investigate how far a bomber could fly, and of course this meant a 'large' aircraft.
Contracts were offered to Douglas and Sikorsky but in the end Sikorsky's contract was cancelled with a payout of $103,000.

Douglas knew and told the Air Corps that by the time the XB-19 flew it would be obsolete. The Air Corps understood but told them to press on. Douglas attempted to rid itself of the project in August 1938, arguing that it was becoming expensive ($4 million for Douglas), obviously obsolete, with increasing weight and wasting personnel better utilised on profitable contracts. The Air Corps 'insisted' that Douglas proceed with the $1,400,000 contract.

After seven years of engineering challenges, it finally flew on the afternoon of June 27 1941.

Sikorsky's unsuccessful design, the XBLR-3. Intended wingspan of 205ft with an all-up weight of 120,000lbs.


1/25th wind tunnel model at Langley Research Centre of NACA 1936...