By the Summer of 1941 the Second World War had been raging for almost two years. Though
the United States had thus far avoided being dragged into this escalating global conflict,
President Roosevelt’s support of the Democratic nations in western Europe, and the rapid breakdown
of diplomacy with Imperial Japan, had led many to believe that the US would eventually
become involved whether it wanted to or not. It was in the shadow of this looming threat that
the US Army Air Corps unveiled their newest aerial weapon. Rolling out from a hangar in
Santa Monica was the XB-19, built by the Douglas Aircraft Company, and it was the
largest and most capable aircraft in the world. Developed in secrecy for over half a decade,
and at extreme cost, the XB-19 could carry an eight-tonne bombload over a range of 5,200 miles,
making it the world’s first intercontinental bomber. Nothing on this scale had ever been
attempted before, and it was claimed that the XB-19’s construction had revolutionised
the production of large aircraft, encouraged the development of new and advanced engines, and had
given the US Army Air Corps the ultimate platform to fight a European air war from American soil.
Unsurprisingly, a media frenzy followed the XB-19 leading up to the day of its maiden flight. The
Air Corps Newsletter of May 5th 1941 likened the removal of the XB-19 from its factory (after 3
years of construction) to that of trying to get a boat out of a cellar in which it
was built – a metaphor that would culminate half a century later with the boat building
machinations of one Jethro Gibbs…and for those unaware of the tv show NCIS that was a joke.
The Newsletter went on to hail the XB-19 as a tribute to the ingenuity and ability
of the men of the Air Corps and the Douglas Aircraft Company. It was a monument to the
farsightedness of the Secretary of War and the Senate and House Military Affairs Committees,
who, back in 1936, had approved such an advanced project and voted for the necessary
funds to make the proposed airplane a reality. All of this praise was deeply, deeply ironic, as
although the XB-19 was indeed a massive, complex, and innovative machine…it was in fact already
obsolete. It was also horribly over budget; it was not the result of far-sightedness but that
of abject stubbornness; and it wasn’t even going to enter service as an intercontinental bomber. It
was going to be used instead as a testbed for the development of future intercontinental bombers.
While it was being paraded by the press as the next big bomber for the Air Corps, despite not
having even flown yet, contracts had already been signed for the XB-35 and XB-36 prototypes. There
was also little mention of the fact that when the XB-19 first rolled out of its specially built
hangar, who’s doors had to be demolished, its sheer weight immediately caused cracks to appear
on the ground….or the fact that it was given appalling odds of 13-1 that it would even survive
its maiden flight, as many thought that even with 2,200 hp engines it was still underpowered.
Obviously there was a bit of media bias towards the whole things, both on the part of the Air
Corps and Douglas itself, who’s own newsletter talked up the XB-19 quite excessively. And this
is a problem that continues to this day, which is why I want to quickly talk about Ground News,
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And now lets get back to the XB-19. Though technically obsolete by the time of
its maiden flight, the XB-19 was not inherently bad or in any major way poorly designed. For
the most part, its obsolescence was due the glacial pace in which it was developed and
built; something not helped by bureaucratic wrangling on the part of the US Government,
and a reluctance on the part of Donald Douglas to invest any more of his company’s finances
into what he called a “flying money pit”. The Origins of the XB-19 can be traced back
to the mid-1930s, when the US Army Air Corps initiated experimental programs to
develop a new generation of long-range heavy bombers. Known as “Project A” and “Project D”,
they sought out designs for bombers with a range of 5,000 miles and 10,000 miles respectively and
called for bombloads in excess of 8,800 pounds. First drawn up in 1933, these projects represented
a monumental task for the United State’s aviation industry. At the time there was
nothing in service that could even be classified as a heavy bomber, and the Air Corps main bomber
-the Martin B-10- had a range of just 1,200 miles and a bomb carrying capacity of just 2,260 lbs.
Eventually, three manufacturers would rise to the challenge and submit proposals: Boeing, Douglas,
and Sikorsky. These designs would receive the designation of XBLR which stood for “Experimental
Bomber Long Range”. These designs were not all submitted at once, and in fact Boeing got
off to a significant head start, being issued a contract to build their XBLR-1 in August of 1934.
This would eventually become known as the XB-15. The commencement of the Boeing project, designed
to meet the specifications of Project A, prompted Donald Douglas to task his company with submitting
a proposal for the more ambitious Project D. By 1935 the company was enjoying remarkable success,
its DC-2 airliner had been popular, and the new DC-3 was receiving large production
orders and was on the verge of national and international greatness. Douglas wanted to
mimic this success with military designs, and he saw Project D as the perfect opportunity
to both gain favour with the Air Corps, and to wipe the eye of his main rival: Boeing.
Following discussions with the Air Corps during the first half of the year, Douglas was tasked
with completing preliminary plans for a heavy bomber to meet the requirements for Project D. On
the 9th of July, the model designation of XBLR-2 was officially given to the Douglas project,
and shortly thereafter a competing design from Sikorsky was approved as the XBLR-3.
The design proposal drawn up by Douglas dwarfed anything they had produced before. The
aircraft was to be powered by either four or six engines, depending on the powerplants available;
the fuselage was to be 130 feet long, the wingspan would be in excess of 200 feet,
and the aircraft would have an empty weight of at least 80,000 lbs. For comparison’s sake,
the largest aircraft currently in mass-production by Douglas -the DC 3- was powered by two engines,
had a wingspan of just 95 feet and an empty weight of around 16,800 pounds.
Along with the task of designing and building a new aircraft of a scale never yet attempted,
there was also the matter of the project’s timeline – which was equally as ambitious
as the design project itself. Douglas was to have the preliminary design complete by
the end of the year; detailed design work was to commence no later than January 31st 1936; a scale
mockup was to be produced for inspection by the Material Division of the Air Corps by mid-year;
and the prototype itself was to be complete by no later than March 31st 1938. Douglas was
given a quotation of just under 1.5 million dollars to cover the cost of the project,
with payment to be made once the aircraft had been completed, flown successfully,
and accepted for delivery by the Army Air Corps. Contracts of the time had no provisions for cost
overruns, and Douglas was surprised by the modest terms of the contract. He had
expected to invest at least 2 million. But the air corps wouldn’t budge on this point,
and the company got to work with their accountants already feeling more than a little uneasy.
Three months -and $100,000 later- the mock-up of the XBLR-2 was complete.
It was then presented to an evaluation team from the Material Division, where,
to Douglas’s relief it was deemed superior to a competing design that had been submitted by
Sikorsky. This relief, however, would be short lived. Though the Air Corps were interested in
Douglas’s design, getting official sanction for their contract to build and finance the prototype
was to be prove a considerable challenge. In 1935, with the economic effects of the
depressing still affecting military budgets, and with the US still trying to pursue a strong policy
of isolationism…talking about the development of a intercontinental bomber was one thing,
but justifying and funding said development was another matter entirely. There simply
wasn’t enough money, nor enough broad support to take the XBLR project from a drawing board
concept to a reality, especially as the Boeing XB-15, which was built for the less ambitious
project A, had already encountered all sorts of difficult and expensive development problems.
Because of this, the project sat in limbo for almost two years and it wasn’t until the 22nd
of September 1937 that the Government was finally in a position to purchase the prototype if it were
built. By now, enough time had passed that Douglas had to make multiple modifications to the design
to keep with advances in aviation technology. The biggest change in the design was the
powerplant. As aircraft rapidly grew bigger in scope, engine development had lagged behind,
leading to a lot of large, impressive, but ultimately underpowered designs.
The original proposed engines for the XBLR-2 had been 850hp Pratty & Whitney Twin Wasps,
which (according to engineers) would have been just enough to safely get it airborne
and flying whilst better engines were still being developed. Then things had switched to
the experimental Allison XV-3420. This 1600hp engine was essentially two V-1710 engines that
had been stuck together via a single crankshaft to produce a massive V-24. However, by the end of
1937 this engine was not yet ready -indeed it was being plagued by development problems- and Douglas
was forced to look for yet another alternative. The alternative engine proved to be the Wright
Duplex Cyclone. It was a huge 54.8 litre, twin-row 18 cylinder supercharged radial,
and at the time it was rated for 2,200hp at take-off. This newly developed engine would
become the backbone of the United States Strategic bomber force, though nobody back then yet knew it,
and it took significant convincing from Douglas before the Air Corps approved
them for use on the XBLR. Once said approval was granted, and the new design was approved,
it received the new designation of XB-19. As construction got underway, Donald Douglas
had already accepted that the time, resources, and finances required to complete the XB-19 far
exceeded the agreement signed with the Air Corps. A lot of this came from lessons being learned with
the experimental Douglas DC-4E, which was a large four-engine airliner. Though this
project gave Douglas engineers vital experience to put to use on the XB-19, it also highlighted
the complexity and cost of building something so huge, and the DC-4E, though large itself, was not
at all on the same scale as the XB-19 project. Because of this, just one year into the XB-19’s
construction in August 1938, Donald Douglas decided that he wanted out. The changing political
situation in Europe was leading to more demand for small and medium sized aircraft, and the XB-19 was
taking up thousands of man hours that could be put into work for export orders. Thus, at the end of
the month, he formally wrote to the Army Air Corps and recommended the cancellation of the project.
Unfortunately for Douglas, his wishes were denied. Partly because the Air Corps did not want to
suffer the embarrassment of seeing such a project go to waste, and partly because the
XB-19 was now being viewed as an experimental testbed, rather than as the prototype for an
actual bomber series. It was hoped that the XB-19 would now help to solve many of the
problems that faced large bomber construction so that other projects (those for the B-29, XB-35,
and XB-36) could be completed more easily, and more importantly, at a better cost. The irony
of the situation reportedly drove Douglas to such a state of exasperation and rage, that the
Air Corps was forced to demand weekly construction reports as they feared he would take men away from
the XB-19s assembly line and simply put them to work on other more profitable aircraft instead.
Finally, in the second half of 1941, after another two years of construction, over 130
progress reports, and a no-doubt concerning increase of Donald Douglas’s blood pressure,
the XB-19 was almost ready. Douglas would later report that the completion of the prototype had
required 500 engineers, technicians and mechanics; 9,000 drawings that could be
spread out over a four-acre area; 42,000 research and testing hours; 700,000 engineering hours;
1,250,000 shop hours; and, most painfully, the expenditure of $2.5 million, putting the
whole thing a million over budget. But although the project was horrifically
behind schedule, overbudget, and in the eyes of its creators unnecessary,
the Douglas Aircraft Company had built the largest and most complex aircraft the world had ever seen.
Pretty much everything about the XB-19 was record breaking. With a length of 132.3 feet,
a wingspan of 212 feet, and a maximum gross weight of 162,000 lbs, it was the longest,
widest, and heaviest aircraft ever built. Going over the full construction details
of the XB-19 would probably take this video to well over two hours in length,
so to keep things simple I will summarise. If you do want to know more about the design,
however, I recommend the book by William Wolf which I will link in the description below.
Additionally, if enough people ask, I’ll look at doing a video analysing
the XB-19s construction and compare it to others such as the B-29 and B-36.
So, as mentioned already, the length was just over 132 ft and the wingspan was 212 feet.
The tail surfaces were equally massive. The horizontal stabilizer had a span of 61 feet,
which was the same as the total wingspan of the Douglas A-20 Havoc, and the tip of the fin towered
42 feet above the ground. With ailerons that had a greater span than the wings of most conventional
fighters, and with a rudder larger enough to warrant its own postcode, it would have been
impossible to operate them in the traditional sense. Instead, the pilot controls operated the
control tabs on the respective surfaces, and once the surface was moving hydraulic
pressure would take up the additional work. The maximum gross weight of the aircraft,
exceeding 160,000 lbs, presented a challenge in producing the undercarriage. Other larger
aircraft of the past had almost exclusively been tail-draggers, but Douglas decided to use
a tricycle arrangement like that used on their experimental DC-4E. The result was the largest
landing gear yet designed for an aircraft. The mainwheels had a diameter of 96 inches,
and the nosewheel had a diameter of 56 inches. The massive tires were manufactured by Firestone,
and they were often featured in numerous promotional articles at the time.
Carrying such a package into the air, and for the distances required, would of course take a
lot of fuel. In total the XB-19 could have a fuel capacity of just under 12,000 US Gallons. This
comprised of approximately 10,300 gallons of fuel housed in wing tanks, and the rest was made up of
two auxiliary tanks that could be placed in the bomb bay. This fuel was fed by an electric pump
system to the four Duplex Cyclone engines, which drove massive three-blade propellers.
These had a diameter of 17 feet, weighed 700lbs each, and were at the time the largest to be
equipped to any aircraft in the world. With the largest wings in the world,
the largest landing gear, propellers, and fuel system too, it will come as no surprise that the
XB-19s support systems were equally as massive. A vast hydraulic system was used to operate the
wheel brakes, landing gear, wing flaps, control surface boosters, bomb bay doors, bomb bay hoist,
and the gun turrets. The main electrical system, not counting backups and isolated units,
was equipped with a 120-volt, 400-cycle, 600-ampere, three-phase AC powerplant
which was supplied by two engine-driven generators that delivered 15 kilowatts.
Continuing the trend of “big” was the cooling system for the engines. Together the four main
oil tanks supplied 376 gallons of oil, and this system, together with the fuel lines
and the engines themselves, could be accessed by a passageway that was built into the wing.
This allowed flight engineers to carry out maintenance and emergency repairs during flight;
though very cramped, these passages were at least illuminated by electric lights
for the engineer’s convenience. Though intended as a flying testbed,
rather than as an actual bomber, the XB-19 was still fully equipped with bombing in
mind. Depending on the mission profile, its planned bombloads ranged from 11,000 lbs all
the way up to 37,100 pounds – the latter coming at the cost of massively reduced range. The
bombs could be carried in the bomb bay and on specially mounted wing racks. In its heaviest
configuration the XB-19 could carry eighteen 2,000 lb bombs, or an equivalent in smaller bombs.
Defence would come in the form of 11 machine guns (six .30 calibre and five 50. Calibre)
and two quick-firing 37mm cannons. These were spread across 11 gunner stations; some were
manually operated, like the waist guns, and some were installed in complex electro-hydraulically
driven turrets. Though this did much to help with the development of gun turrets for US bombers,
the XB-19 was actually considered under-gunned. The Boeing B-17, which was considerably smaller,
had more guns than the XB-19, and as things would turn out, the use of 37mm cannons on
aircraft as defensive weapons proved to be an exercise in fantasy as they were woefully
inaccurate and prone to overheating and jamming. Unsurprisingly, such a massive aircraft required
a large crew. The XB-19 nominally had a 16-man crew, which consisted of: the pilot, co-pilot,
aircraft commander, navigator, flight engineer, radio operator, bombardier,
and the rest of the crew were gunners. For long-range flights a support crew of two mechanics
and six relief crew could also be included. To accommodate such a large crew, the XB-19 was
designed to take on the role of a flying house, as well as that of an intercontinental bomber. It had
a sound-proofed and heated sleeping compartment that contained six permanently-installed bunks,
it also had a table and four chairs, the latter of which could be folded up to provided additional
sleeping space. Aft of this cabin was the galley, which was provided with utensils,
an electric stove, a supply of drinking water, and portable tables. As the XB-19 was designed
to be airborne for up to two days, it came with a fully-functioning lavatory system,
rather than the occasional bucket that some smaller craft were forced to use.
These luxurious features, and the numerous other innovations of the XB-19 were first revealed to
the American public in September of 1940, when the top-secret status of the project was finally
lifted. Between then and the completion of the XB-19 in the spring of ’41, it was touted by the
Air Corps as “a gigantic new bomber for American defence”. It didn’t take long for the media
frenzy to take hold, and even before the XB-19’s first flight it was known as the “Wonder Bomber”,
the “Super Bomber”, the “Giant of Santa Monica”, and the “Guardian of the Hemisphere”.
The first flight of the XB-19 had been scheduled for May the 17th, with take-off to commence
from Clover Field, Santa Monica, but this was quickly delayed due to problems arising with
the aircraft’s massive bulk. For ground testing it had been loaded to its maximum weight of 162,000
pounds, and this weight -concentrated through just three tyres- caused everything underneath
it to buckle, break, or otherwise behave in an un-structure-like manner.
The XB-19s kill count included the concrete ramps leading out of the Santa Monica factory,
various pieces of tarmac, then the taxiways and concrete ramps leading onto the Clover Field
runway, and finally the runway itself – which forced a hasty retreat so that workers could
first repair the end of the runway, and then also reinforce it with thicker sections. All
of this, by the way, came at Douglas’s expense. The black comedy continued when Douglas engineers,
having observed their oversized monster sink into the runway of Clover Field from its own mass,
looked at the length of said runway, looked back at the giant XB-19, and very quickly broke out
into a cold sweat. Following a mass panic attack, the XB-19 was lightened by the removal of the
defensive guns and any bulky equipment that could be spared; it was also decided that the first
flight would be made with the undercarriage down, and the fuel load was also kept to a minimum.
Finally, the adjacent runway at Clover Field was lengthened at the cost of thousands of dollars,
with the undertaking also requiring the grading of a hill and the re-routing of a main street.
In the middle of what must have been a chaotic liaison between the Air Corps and City planning,
things were further complicated by the discovery that the XB-19’s wheel brakes
didn’t work very well. Various tests saw problems with acute brake chatter,
the shearing of various torque bolts, and the failure of at least two brake spiders.
Addressing this issue took several weeks, as stronger parts had to be fabricated, and the date
of the first flight of the XB-19 was gradually pushed back from May the 17th to June the 27th.
On that day, six weeks, numerous modifications, repairs, and 4000ft of additional runway later,
the XB-19 was rolled out for the main event in front of a crowd of 45,000 people. Uknown to
many on that day was the fact that the XB-19 had attained another record, it had the most
expensive aviation insurance policy in the world. Douglas had paid an enormous premium of $84,000 to
insure the first minute of the aircraft’s first flight, and then a more reasonable sum of $3,000
per hour of flight testing until the aircraft was to be accepted by the Army Air Corps.
Taking off from Clover Field, the XB-19 was to fly just 22 miles to March Field, near Riverside,
where it would undergo the first of many test programs. For this flight the crew was limited
to seven, with the controls beings in the hands of chief pilot Major Stanley Umstead and co-pilot
Major Howard Bunker. Douglas’s chief test pilot, and Vice-President, Carl Cover was meant to have
been in control, but he was suffering from the recurrence of complications from a spinal injury.
Escorted by four Curtiss P-40 Warhawks, the XB-19 completed its maiden flight with much fanfare.
Much like how they handled the original unveiling of the XB-19, the Air Corps took a similar amount
of creative licence when it came to their press release following the aircraft’s maiden flight.
According to the Air Corps, the engines were started quickly and the XB-19 taxied
down to the far end of the runway without incident, much to the adoration of the crowd.
In reality, the XB-19 had performed its old trick of breaking ground surfaces,
and the starboard mainwheel had sunk several inches into some asphalt. It took a dozen
Douglas engineers with wooden planks, and the application of the engines to get it free.
According to the Air Corps, the XB-19 couldn’t wait to be off the ground,
with Major Umstead holding it down as it approached and exceeded 75mph. Then,
when he eased off the controls, it apparently shot off into the sky like a fighter.
In reality, when Umstead first pulled back on the controls nothing happened. Then,
after more pressure, the aircraft’s nose almost couldn’t be stopped from pitching up, and
Umstead fought for several hair raising moments to get a stable attitude.
And, according to the Air Corps, the XB-19 proved remarkably easy to land, and in the
words of the flying observer “No actual jar of contact with the ground could be noticed; it was
difficult to know when we had actually landed.” The readily available film of this landing, which
shows the XB-19 wobbling about on its approach and then violently bouncing along the runway is clear
evidence to the contrary. If a less capable pilot had been at the controls this first landing would
probably have been the XB-19s last. As it turned out part of this instability was a result of the
lightening of the aircraft by some 30 tonnes, the full effects of which could not be fully
assessed until it was actually airborne. After landing at March Field, the XB-19
immediately became a menace once again by damaging the taxiways and parking apron. This ruled out a
suspected problem with the pavement mix used at Clover Field, and a subsequent investigation
would eventually lead to the development of new design procedures to enhance pavement subgrades,
ones that are still used today. March Field marked the beginning of the
XB-19s career, not as an intercontinental bomber as proclaimed a year earlier,
but as a “Flying Laboratory”, a name that the Air Corps now emphasised in its public releases,
and one that Douglas mirrored in its company magazine. The armament which had been removed
to shed weight was reinstalled, and two tons of flight testing equipment was also added.
An initial 30-hour test program was agreed upon, with Douglas being obligated to supply
both the equipment and the personnel until the Air Corps accepted the aircraft for delivery.
The initial flight tests of the XB-19 were both extensive and exhausting, both due to the size of
the aircraft and the sheer number of materials, components, and systems that needed testing,
and due to the problems that naturally arose. As the XB-19 wasn’t going into
series production spare parts weren’t exactly numerous, and if anything moderately complex
broke it had to be fabricated from scratch. The biggest challenge during these tests proved to
be the engine. The R-3350 repeatedly overheated, and because of this the XB-19 was forced to fly
with its cowl flaps permanently open. This compromised its already modest top speed,
and the highest speed it could now achieve was just 204 mph, though its cruising speed
was considerably worse at 140. This put the aircraft below the performance guarantees
of the contract signed between Douglas and the Air Corps, but, as the development of
the engine was vital to the B-29 program, this airspeed performance was disregarded.
This period of testing ran until late February 1942, during that time only two major events
of note occurred: In October, the XB-19 made a dazzling public display at Douglas’s new plant
at Long Beach, flying less than 100ft above the crowd, and seven weeks later the Pacific War
erupted at Pearl Habor. Following this, the XB-19 was quickly repainted in olive drab and it would
carry out all further test flights with trained gunners manning all of the defences. Security on
the ground was also tightened up, and access to the aircraft was restricted to keep it as secret
as possible. Admittedly, with the XB-19 becoming something of a local tourist attraction due to
its vast size, attempts at maintaining even a modicum of secrecy were a total failure.
By the time the XB-19 was delivered to what was now the Army Air Force in June of 1942,
its total cost had reached four million dollars: 2.5 million spent by douglas,
and another 1.5 by the government. As a flying laboratory, the XB-19 had completed one of the
most extensive test programs in history, providing valuable data that was being put to immediate
use in the development of the Boeing B-29. It was especially useful in highlighting cooling problems
with the Duplex Cyclone engine, something that also plagued the B-29’s development,
but now that this testing period was apparently over, the Army Air Force quickly realised that it
had to justify the vast expense of this aircraft to the American taxpayer in a time of war.
Their solution was to continue the aircraft’s career as a flying testbed. In a press release,
the Air Force justified that the four-million-dollar aircraft had already paid
for itself with inestimable research data, and that, even in the new state of war, it would be
short-sighted to curtail all further research. In January 1943, the XB-19 left for its new home
at Wright Field in Ohio where its presence was apparently meant to be kept secret. Unsurprisingly
hiding the aircraft proved to be an impossible task, both on the ground and more obviously in the
air, and the Air Force was once again compelled to make a press release about their giant flying
experiment. However this time, they only provided the local press with the bare minimum of facts,
most of them outdated, as the XB-19 was being put through a modernisation program.
This included the installation of Bendix disc brakes to replace the useless drum units,
an updated 24-volt electrical system, new engine starters, auxiliary powerplants,
heating systems, oxygen systems, an autopilot, revised radio equipment, and, most importantly,
an improved electric stove for the galley. Six months later at the completion of these
upgrades, the XB-19 was finally accepted into service with the Air Force, which meant that
Douglas finally got paid…a mere 1.5 million dollars. Thankfully they could easily absorb
a million dollar loss thanks to the huge production orders for their other aircraft,
with the company holding contracts for 6,000 SBD Dive bombers, 7,500 A-20s,
1168 C-54s, and a staggering 10,000 C-47s. With Donald Douglas merrily waltzing off into
the sunset, free from his money pit at last, the story of the XB-19 ran on to its bittersweet
end. Air Force interest in the Allison XV-3420 engine had revived, and it was now being heavily
considered as an alternative for the troubled R-3350 in the B-29. The XB-19 was selected as
a testbed for the engines in 1943, being given the 2,600hp XV-3420-11 with turbo-superchargers,
and with this new powerplant installed it took to the skies again in January of 1944 as the XB-19A.
With the change of engine, the cooling problems that had plagued the XB-19 immediately
disappeared. The aircraft’s performance also significantly improved, with the top speed
jumping up to 275 mph at 20,000 feet. Yet despite this marked improvement, the new Allison engine
would not go into mass-production, and with its temporary role as an engine testbed fulfilled,
the XB-19A went back to Wright Field. Operated by Air Technical Service Command,
it was primarily used for a number of extremely high-altitude performance tests.
These provided data on airframe structures, new airborne equipment, heating systems,
and powerplants. As these tests were directly related to improving strategic bomber design
as the world war reached its climax, the XB-19, for the first time, operated mostly in secret.
At the conclusion of these tests, it was finally decided to retire the aircraft from military use.
In its last public statement about the XB-19 the Army Air Force’s closing remarks were
nothing but glowing praise: “After flying three years of flight tests without a major mishap,
the XB-19 produced mountains of priceless and time-saving data. The B-29 Superfortress
was made possible through these efforts.” Remarks from the ATSC were equally poignant,
with the Command declaring that by providing important engineering and flight data for other
big bombers, the XB-19A has contributed more to the war effort than any other single airframe.
Because of the vital role it played in the development of the B-29, and the numerous
other contributions it made to the development of extremely large aircraft, the XB-19 was one of the
few prototypes that could claim to have succeeded after it had failed. Though it never entered
production as a frontline aircraft, it still had a huge impact on the future of military aviation.
With that in mind it is a huge shame that this aircraft wasn’t preserved. Following
its retirement from as a testbed it was converted into what was, for a time, the world’s largest
transport aircraft. Though it was estimated to be able to carry loads of up to 45,000 lbs,
records show that the XB-19A only completed a few local flights in this role. The problem was that
it was actually too big to be practically useful, as many airfields couldn’t even service it.
It was then given over to the All-Weather Flying Centre in Ohio, who also had no real use for it,
and the giant aircraft was parked outside at the edge of the facility out of the way.
Eventually, the XB-19 found itself back home in California, where it completed
its final flight on August the 17th 1946. This flight took it to Tucson, Arizona,
where it was originally intended to have the aircraft placed in secure storage, the end goal
being to preserve it as a historic aircraft for the planned National Air Museum. Unfortunately,
a few years later, a new base commander decided to have a clear out of older aircraft he didn’t
think were historic enough to be preserved, and the XB-19 apparently met this criteria.
It did get one last laugh before the end, though. A mobile salvage contractor had to be brought in,
and the XB-19 proved to be so large that even with chains tied to heavy trucks they couldn’t
pull it apart. Eventually cutting torches sliced the aircraft down piece by piece, until just the
front of the nose remained, having been preserved by the salvage director upon hearing about the
aircraft’s significance after the fact. Eventually though, the nose too would be gone, but one part
of the XB-19 does remain today: the giant main wheels. One is on display at the Hill Air Force
Base in Utah, and the other is at the National Museum of the United States Air Force.
As always thank you all so much for watching, and a big thank you of course to the patrons,
who’s names you’ll see here. Now I know I’ve done a lot of long videos recently,
but moving forward things should be a bit more balanced now that I’ve got some things from my
urgent to do list out of the way. The exception being the Patron-voted video which is probably
going to be about an hour long. A big thank you of course to our Wing Commander tier patrons,
our highest tier members. And a quick update on my future plans for video layout, style
etc has gone up today so please feel free to check that out when you have a moment.
But thank you all for your continued support, and I’ll catch you all next time. Goodbye.