B-29 Superfortress: Inside America's Ultimate WW2 Bomber

Video from the channel Military Aviation History about Boeing B-29 Superfortress, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 32:50. Language: English. Video type: Onboard.

A guided tour of the restored B-29A Superfortress at the New England Air Museum. The presenter, Chris, from the Military Aviation History channel, first walks around the aircraft's exterior: nose gear, engines, wing, fuselage, tail and turrets. He then goes into the two bomb bays and finishes with a station-by-station look at the interior, from the tail gunner to the bombardier, passing through the pressurized tunnel that joins the two compartments.

Outside, he explains the four-bladed, constant-speed Hamilton Standard propellers, the turbosupercharger (visible because the museum has removed the panels), the cowl flaps and the main landing gear, which retracts into the nacelle. The nose gear has no steering: on the ground the aircraft was steered with differential braking, which was also the only hydraulic system. Everything else, including the gear, the flaps, the cowl flaps and the turrets, ran on electricity from six generators. He also covers the life raft above the fuselage, the twelve oxygen bottles, the lower camera for assessing damage and the tail gunner's armored glass.

The bays hold 500-pound bombs, a 100-pound incendiary and a 640-gallon auxiliary tank. The maximum load was 20,000 pounds, for example forty 500-pound bombs, and the doors could be opened without depressurizing the cabins. Inside, the tour covers the radar operator's station with the APQ-13 radar, the lavatory, the three gunnery stations and the central seat of the gunnery leader, who assigned control of the turrets. A museum restorer explains how the sight works with its mechanical computer. Then come the radio operator, the navigator with the LORAN, the flight engineer's panel, who sits facing backwards, the pilots' cockpit and the bombardier, with the Norden sight and the chin turret control.

The B-29's forward compartment had six crew stations. Behind it rode the gunners and the relief crew, and the tail gunner remained isolated from the rest during flight. The pressurized cabins kept a cabin altitude of around 8,000 to 12,000 feet while flying between 30,000 and 40,000, a novelty at the time. That is why the presenter considers it the most comfortable of the Second World War bombers he has visited.