B-17 and B-52 Comparison

QUOTE: Originally posted by toomanyslurpees by the way my comments were origionaly in better context before I realized there was a second page here if that seemed alitte out of the blue. though now that you're talking engine noise, myself being twenty three can only wonder what a thousand bomber raid must have sounded like.

....and the sound of the tons of bombs raining from them!

QUOTE: Originally posted by butchy QUOTE: Originally posted by AJACKETSFAN QUOTE: Originally posted by shrikes Look at the Hawkeye, Orion, and Hercules. Of course, the B-17 had radial engines and today's planes use Turboprop engines... Heck look at the Tuplov "Bear", it's the counterpart of the B-52 and it's still in service. Yeh but I think the Bear is a much "newer" aircraft than the Buff.. A nice comparison would be the B 17 and B 29.. Big difference there and same time frames.

Kinda weird you mention the Tu-95 Bear and the B-29. They are very closely related! The Tu-95 is a direct descendent of the Tu-4 Bull which was a direct copy of the B-29. Their fuselage diameters are exactly the same and just everywhere you look on the Tu-95 you see B-29, from the nose all the way to the layout of the cockpit. Its really cool that the rudimentary elements of the B-29 still live on today in another country and that it does really well! The Bear is one of my favorite aircraft and it being related to the B-29 (my all time favorite) just makes it that much better.

Now we've really veered off, but if you're impressed by the legacy of the B-29, remember that its design was stretched to the B-50, to the C-97 and from there to the Guppy and from there to the Super Guppy. I wonder if all the old C-97 Super Guppies are grounded now? (Or the regular transports. There used to be several flying in and out of Miami IAP in late 80s, early 90s). And I used to watch the Super Guppy take off from NASA Houston not so long ago, and if it wasn't loaded, the rear wheels left the ground before the nose. I never, to this day, have been able to imagine how the designers knew that thing would fly. Especially with a big piece of a Titan missile or the Apollo Saturn on board. But at its heart (and tail and wings and, originally, engines) it's a B-29 all the way.
tom