more at
"
Orientation film about the
B-47 Stratojet (and jet aircraft in general).
Stars Reed Hadley." Produced by the
US Air Force Lookout Mountain Laboratory.
US Air Force
Pilot Training Film TF1-4727
USAF Training Film playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8F26D920AA815835
Pilot Training Film playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCA6387BA013F9A4D
Public domain film, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied.
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/
3.0/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-47_Stratojet
The
Boeing B-47 Stratojet (company
Model 450) was a long range, six-engine, jet-powered strategic bomber designed to fly at high subsonic speed and at high altitude to avoid enemy interception. The
B-47's primary mission was to drop nuclear bombs on the
Soviet Union. With its engines carried in nacelles under the swept wing, the B-47 was a major innovation in post-World War II combat jet design, and helped lead to modern jet airliners.
The B-47 entered service with the
United States Air Force's
Strategic Air Command (
SAC) in 1951. It never saw combat as a bomber, but was a mainstay of SAC's bomber strength during the late
1950s and early
1960s, and remained in use as a bomber until
1965. It was also adapted to a number of other missions, including photographic reconnaissance, electronic intelligence and weather reconnaissance, remaining in service as a reconnaissance platform until
1969 and as a testbed until
1977...
Development
Origins
The B-47 arose from an informal 1943 requirement for a jet-powered reconnaissance bomber, drawn up by the
U.S. Army Air Forces (
USAAF) to prompt manufacturers to start research into jet bombers...
In
December 1944,
North American Aviation, the Convair Corp., Boeing and the
Glenn Martin Company submitted proposals...
Swept wings
In May
1945, the von Kármán mission of the
Army Air Forces inspected the secret
German aeronautics laboratory near
Braunschweig. On von Kármán's team was the eminent chief of the technical staff at Boeing,
George S. Schairer. He had heard about the controversial swept-wing theory of
R. T. Jones at
Langley, but seeing models of swept-wing aircraft and extensive supersonic wind-tunnel data generated by the
Germans, the concept was decisively confirmed. He wired his home office: "
Stop the bomber design", and changed the design of the B-47 wing.
Analysis work by Boeing engineer Vic
Ganzer suggested an optimum sweepback angle of about 35 degrees...
The engines were moved out to streamlined pods pylon mounted under the wings, leading to the next iteration, the Model 450...
The USAAF was very pleased with the refined Model 450 design, and in
April 1946, the service ordered two prototypes, to be designated "XB-47".
Assembly began in June
1947.
The first XB-47 was rolled out on
12 September 1947, a few days before the USAAF became a separate service, the
U.S. Air Force, on
18 September 1947. The XB-47 prototype flew its first flight on
17 December 1947...
The total number of B-47s built was 2,
032...
The USAF Strategic Air Command operated B-47 Stratojets (B-47s, EB-47s, RB-47s and YRB-47s) from 1951 through 1965...
The first overflight of
Soviet territory with an
RB-47 took place on
15 October 1952, when an RB-47B flying out of
Alaska overflew Soviet airfields in
Eastern Siberia. RB-47s operated from almost every airfield that gave them access to the
USSR... At least five of these aircraft were fired on, and three were shot down...
General characteristics
Crew: 3
-
Length: 107 ft 1 in (32.65 m)
-
Wingspan: 116 ft 0 in (35.37 m)
-
Height: 28 ft 0 in (8.54 m)
-
Wing area: 1,428 ft² (132.7 m²)...
-
Empty weight: 79,074 lb (35,867 kg)
-
Loaded weight: 133,030 lb (60,340 kg)
-
Max. takeoff weight: 230,000 lb (
100,000 kg)
-
Powerplant: 6 ×
General Electric J47-GE-25 turbojets, 7,
200 lbf (32 kN) each...
Performance
-
Maximum speed: 607 mph (528 kn,
977 km/h)
-
Cruise speed: 557 mph (484 kn, 896 km/h)
-
Combat radius: 2,
013 mi (1,
749 nmi, 3,240 km) with 20,000 lb (9,000 kg) bombload
-
Ferry range: 4,647 mi (4,037 nmi, 7,
478 km)
-
Service ceiling: 33,100 ft (10,
100 m)
-
Rate of climb: 4,660 ft/min (23.7 m/s)...
-
Thrust/weight: 0
.22
-
Lift-to-drag ratio: 20.0 (estimated)
Armament
-
Guns: 2×
20 mm (0.787 in) M24A1 autocannons in a remote controlled tail turret with AN/APG-39
Gun-laying radar[47]
-
Bombs: 25,000 lb (11,000 kg) of ordnance, including:
- 2 × Mk15 nuclear bombs (3.8 megaton yield each), or
- 1 ×
B41 nuclear bomb (25 megaton yield), or
- 1 ×
B53 nuclear bomb (9 megaton yield), or
- 28 ×
500 lb (
227 kg) conventional bombs...
- published: 22 Feb 2015
- views: 3922