Superbomber’s Achilles’ Heel

[zqwerty]

An interesting read:

"For anybody familiar with General Motors’ stultified, bloated, internally competitive, hierarchical 1980s corporate culture, a snapshot of Curtiss-Wright in the 1930s and ’40s will look familiar. This was a company that apparently would rather have left bombers on the ground than license engine production to a competitor. At times, Curtiss-Wright seemed more concerned with its potential postwar competitiveness than it was with solving wartime problems. The company’s several divisions had no autonomy, and Wright had a bad enough reputation in the trade that it had trouble attracting top executive and engineering talent"

https://www.historynet.com/superbombers-achilles-heel/

[piroska]

Yes, well airlines had, maybe still do, a cost benefit ratio thing.
Was it cheaper to pay out the families than the cost of replacing/upgrading their fleets?

[1101]

its a nonsense article

"In fact the B-29 was such a dangerous airplane that had it been peacetime, only one or two XB-29 prototypes would have been built before the U.S. Army Air Forces said, “No money for you, "

If it was peacetime, MANY WW2 aircraft would never have been developed

Ignores the fact that after the war ended , they kept flying the B29 (dangerous ?)
Ignores that fact B29 was on the very edge of 1940's tech . Tech pushed to the very limit will have alot of failures
Ignores the fact B29s were still flown well after they were retired from active service . Doesnt sound like a dangerous aircraft ?

Plenty of other WW2 planes would be considered unsafe today .
Plenty of WW2 planes had high failure rates , incl in air failures . Tail breaking off issue for 1 British WW2 fighter


The B29 cost more to develop the Manhattan Project (the atomic bomb) .
thats how far they were pushing technology for that plane .