XB-35 bomb bay dimensions

[Benjdragon]

Does anyone know what the internal dimensions for the bomb bays of the B-35 Flying Wing bomber were?
I saw something on the web years ago, but haven't been able to find it again.

 

[YGBSM]

I couldn't find any exact dimensions, but here's a rough estimate based on scaled drawings - I checked the given scale against the known wingspan and length. Approximate margin of error of +/- 1".

Dimensions are for one wing only (i.e. four bomb bays); of course, there were another four mirrored on the other wing for a total of eight.

Looking at the bottom of the starboard (right) wing:

Numbering from left to right (#1, #2, #3, #4) - the gap between #1 and #2 is the landing gear bay, and I'm the least certain about the width of #2 since there appears to be a flaw in the scale drawing at that location (see the #25 label towards the bottom).


Front view:

Source for both base drawings: Pinterest

Maximum depth is about 6ft. 11" and minimum depth is 4ft. 9" in the area where the bomb bays are located. I'd approximate a bomb bay depth in the 4ft to 5ft range to allow room for the air ducting and other systems - perhaps deeper for the inner bays. 4ft depth and max/min shown for reference.

 

[MIflyer]

 

[Zipper730]

Looking at the following figures...

................Little Boy..........Fat Man
Weight: -|9700 lb............10300 lb
Length: ...120".................128"
Diameter: 28" .............---.60"

It would appear that they could carry the Little-Boy without incident, but wouldn't be able to carry the Fat Man without mods

 

[fubar57]

 

[YGBSM]

LOL, Fubar57 beat me to it.


No, although they are long enough, a Fat Man bomb is about 5ft across.

The XB-35 was designed before atomic weapons were a consideration. A proposal to modify the aircraft to fit early atomic weapons was proposed by Northrop, but was shot down by the USAAF.

 

[Zipper730]

View attachment 504003​

Yeah, I already corrected this...

The XB-35 was designed before atomic weapons were a consideration.

I'm not sure if even the B-36 was to be honest. I know the B-47's at some point were designed with this factored in, as was the B-45 (that didn't work because while the length and width was right, the depth in the middle was wrong).

A proposal to modify the aircraft to fit early atomic weapons was proposed by Northrop, but was shot down by the USAAF.

Which was largely political corruption. I'm curious what the mods entailed.

 

[YGBSM]

The B-36 could fit them:

Source: wikimedia

 

[Shortround6]

A big problem with a lot of these bombers in the late 40s was that there was still a requirement that a man had to be able to reach the nuclear bomb while in flight. I don't know what he was supposed to do or what the procedure was for arming the bomb but you needed more space than just the bomb and it's hanger.

 

[denoferth]

Yeah, I already corrected this...

I'm not sure if even the B-36 was to be honest. I know the B-47's at some point were designed with this factored in, as was the B-45 (that didn't work because while the length and width was right, the depth in the middle was wrong).
Which was largely political corruption. I'm curious what the mods entailed.

The B-47 was a "medeum bomber" with a 2000 mile range when 4000 miles was needed to reach the Soviet targets and return.

 

[denoferth]

The B-36 could fit them:

View attachment 504004
Source: wikimedia

I've read that the first 84 B-36A's delivered could not fit the bomb, were structly unsound, had to be extensively re-engineered because of too thin a guage of skin used, and even then only fit for the training role. The weight encrease of the fix so decreased their ceiling the four jets had to be added but that decreased their range even further because the jets were modafied to burn av gas.. Long story short the B-36 was a clossal bluff with the only versions ever reaching 50K aldatude being stripped out recon versions carrying no bombs. Too big to hid, too slow to make it into Russia and back out at night and not enough ceiling to outclimb even the WWII era Russian interceptors let alone the Mig-15's.

 

[denoferth]

Yeah, I already corrected this...

I'm not sure if even the B-36 was to be honest. I know the B-47's at some point were designed with this factored in, as was the B-45 (that didn't work because while the length and width was right, the depth in the middle was wrong).
Which was largely political corruption. I'm curious what the mods entailed.

If you hav'nt already read it Goodby Beautiful Wig by Terrence O'Neill is an eye opener. A rather unusual book written under the premis of "this is what happoned; this is what must have happoned; and this is very probably what happoned and why it did."

 

[Niceoldguy58]

Zipper,

Although the red flag of "political corruption" has been waived over the B-35 project the facts of the matter just don't support that at all.

By the time the B-35 was in a position to fly it was too slow, range and altitude were not what specs called for and it couldn't carry the largest bombs in the current or projected inventory. I have drawings of modifications to the B-35 to enable it to carry either a grand slam or tall boy-type bomb, The bottom of the aircraft would have needed to be extensively modified in order to attach these bombs in something approximating and aerodynamic fashion - and it would still stick out the bottom of the aircraft to a substantial degree - thus reducing speed, altitude, range, etc. even further.

Northrop NEVER had the production capacity to mass produce the B-35. It had troubles enough with the P-61, etc. Martin was contracted to build 200 of the B-35, somewhat modified by their engineers. That was cancelled as the war was about to end and the B-36 was much farther along.

In the long run, the B-35 would NEVER EVER have been able to carry forthcoming hydrogen bombs. The Mark 17 was nearly 25 feet long and 63 inches in diameter. At a weight of 21 tons it is doubtful the aircraft would have been able to get off the ground.

In the end, the B-35/49 (my favorite aircraft of all time) were just too little, too late. It was cancelled by planners within the Air Corps because it just would not do the job. On a similar note, the B-36 was almost cancelled as well when the initial production aircraft also did not meet the specs for speed, altitude, range, etc. But that is another story.

As a final note, the B-45 was eventually modified to carry atomic weapons once the size of the things started to be less than a car.

AlanG

 

[Benjdragon]

I couldn't find any exact dimensions, but here's a rough estimate based on scaled drawings - I checked the given scale against the known wingspan and length. Approximate margin of error of +/- 1".

Dimensions are for one wing only (i.e. four bomb bays); of course, there were another four mirrored on the other wing for a total of eight.

Looking at the bottom of the starboard (right) wing:
View attachment 503480
Numbering from left to right (#1, #2, #3, #4) - the gap between #1 and #2 is the landing gear bay, and I'm the least certain about the width of #2 since there appears to be a flaw in the scale drawing at that location (see the #25 label towards the bottom).


Front view:
View attachment 503481
Source for both base drawings: Pinterest

Maximum depth is about 6ft. 11" and minimum depth is 4ft. 9" in the area where the bomb bays are located. I'd approximate a bomb bay depth in the 4ft to 5ft range to allow room for the air ducting and other systems - perhaps deeper for the inner bays. 4ft depth and max/min shown for reference.

The one dimension I do seem to remember was that all of the bays had a width of 48 inches.

 

[chuter]

Zipper,

Although the red flag of "political corruption" has been waived over the B-35 project the facts of the matter just don't support that at all.

By the time the B-35 was in a position to fly it was too slow, range and altitude were not what specs called for and it couldn't carry the largest bombs in the current or projected inventory. I have drawings of modifications to the B-35 to enable it to carry either a grand slam or tall boy-type bomb, The bottom of the aircraft would have needed to be extensively modified in order to attach these bombs in something approximating and aerodynamic fashion - and it would still stick out the bottom of the aircraft to a substantial degree - thus reducing speed, altitude, range, etc. even further.

Northrop NEVER had the production capacity to mass produce the B-35. It had troubles enough with the P-61, etc. Martin was contracted to build 200 of the B-35, somewhat modified by their engineers. That was cancelled as the war was about to end and the B-36 was much farther along.

In the long run, the B-35 would NEVER EVER have been able to carry forthcoming hydrogen bombs. The Mark 17 was nearly 25 feet long and 63 inches in diameter. At a weight of 21 tons it is doubtful the aircraft would have been able to get off the ground.

In the end, the B-35/49 (my favorite aircraft of all time) were just too little, too late. It was cancelled by planners within the Air Corps because it just would not do the job. On a similar note, the B-36 was almost cancelled as well when the initial production aircraft also did not meet the specs for speed, altitude, range, etc. But that is another story.

As a final note, the B-45 was eventually modified to carry atomic weapons once the size of the things started to be less than a car.

AlanG

And ... I think (this is all just my recollection) the 35 also had a constantly wandering nose which prevented any kind of accuracy in bombing. When the recips were swapped out for jets the constant yawing got even worse with the loss of the props which lead to the installation of the trailing edge fins on either side of the engine exhaust clusters but, in the end, they couldn't completely eliminate the wobble.

 

[YGBSM]

The one dimension I do seem to remember was that all of the bays had a width of 48 inches.

That could be - I scaled the dimensions from the drawings, which is not always a precise process. There is also at least one apparent flaw in the drawings I used, as I mentioned in a previous post. In the absence of verified dimensions, they will at least give you a starting point.

 

[Niceoldguy58]

Chuter,

You are quite correct in the B-35's slight tendency to yaw from side to side in the early days. However, Northrop was able to come up with some sort of device - autopilot? - that dramatically reduced and maybe totally eliminated that problem. Once again, however, it was too little, too late. The airframe designed for early war needs was just inadequate for late and post-war requirements.