Consolidated B-32
The Consolidated B-32 Dominator was the companion Very Heavy Bomber to the famed Boeing B-29 Superfortress. The B-32 Dominator (Consolidated Model 34) started as an enlarged Liberator with a pressurized cabin. The B-32, the "other" very heavy bomber produced during the war, had been viewed essentially as insurance against failure of the B-29. The authors of Air War Plans Division 1 [AWPD/1], the prewar contingency blueprint, had concluded that an interim force of 3,800 bombers-859 B-26s or B-25s, 1,600 B-29s or B-32s, and the rest B-17s or B-24s-would be needed to carry the war into Germany. The total number of aircraft envisioned in AWPD/1 exceeded 63,000, with almost 7,500 heavy bombers, including the B-17 and B-24, the even larger Boeing B-29 and Consolidated B-32 (neither of which had yet flown), or a truly intercontinental type, still on the drawing boards, that emerged after the war as the Consolidated B-36. In May 1940 the Air Corps circulated a request for bids for the production ofprototype bombers that would have a tactical operating radius of2,000 miles, a cruising speed of200 miles per hour, and a normal bomb load of 2,000 pounds. In the autumn of 1940 the air arm ordered an XB-29 from Boeing. Derived in part from extensive company-funded studies based on the XB-15 and B-17, Boeing's B-29 design beat out rival proposals from Consolidated, Lockheed, and Douglas in mid-1940. However, Consolidated's entry was deemed good enough to merit a prototype contract and was eventually developed and produced in small numbers as the B-32 Dominator. Simultaneously with the strategic air campaign against Germany, other Army Air Forces units would be dispersed in Alaska, Hawaii, Iceland, and South America to maintain hemispheric defense. To maintain a strategic defensive in Asia, the planners visualized a buildup of bomber forces in the Philippines and shuttling B-29 and B-32 aircraft from Alaska and the Philippines to a refueling and staging area in Siberia. This concept was so persuasive in fact that the planners urged immediate efforts be made to deploy four groups of B-17s or B-24s to the Philippines to deter theJapanese from moving toward the Netherlands East Indies. The prototypes of the B-29 and the B-32 did not fly until the summer of 1942. Under the new study, called AWPD/42, the Army Air Forces would use the B-17 and B-24 to carry the war to Hitler's Germany, with the B-29 or B-32 appearing in time to batter Japan from bases in China or on the islands of the far Pacific. The first two XB-32's were shaped in no small part by Consolidated's experience with the B-24; like it, both were twin-tailed. ??-32, as well as ??-29, was characterized by hermetic crew cabin and remotely controlled machine-gun rifle units. Prototypes XV-32 differed from each other with important elements of the design: the first had a rounded nose of the fuselage and a spaced, two- tail tail unit similar to the B-24 , the second - a modified nose with a stepped windshield of the cockpit, the third - the same fuselage design, but with tail feathers in the form of one high keel. The final layout was chosen for the Model 34 aircraft , adopted as a B-32 Dominator (somewhat smaller in size than the B-29). Flight tests, beginning in September 1942, having revealed aerodynamic difficulties calling for redesign, the third experimental model was a single-tail plane. It performed more satisfactorily, and the AAF during 1943 and 1944 placed production orders for just under 2,000 of the aircraft. In other words, the decision was to gamble on the hope of the plane's continued development, a natural decision in view of continuing uncertainties regarding the B-29 of advantage, in any case, of having two planes instead of one. AWPD-4, Air Estimate of the Situation and Recommendations for the Conduct ofthe War, appeared on 15 December 1941. The plan of action recommended by AWPD-4 recommended an air force of 90,000 airplanes, a production rate of 3,000 airplanes a month, and an Army of 3,000,000 men and women. The recommended air order of battle included a force of 13 medium bomber groups, 64 heavy bomber, 32 B-29 or B-32 bomber, and 59 long-range (4,000-mile) bomber groups. Unhappily, the development of the B-32 lagged far behind that of the B-29. In the development of the B-32, Consolidated encountered many different problems, because of which the aircraft was launched in the series only in November 1944, almost 8 months after placing the B-29 at the advanced bases in China. Not until August 1944 did the AAF put its first B-32 to service tests. Not counting the three experimental models, only 13 B-32's had been accepted by the end of 1944; total production by the end of August 1945 had reached 118. Only fifteen of these planes saw combat, in the western Pacific with the Far East Air Forces just at the close of the war. The ultimate failure of the B-32 had been predicted by the NACA in 1942, to the great resentment of officials of the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation. Nevertheless, the hope persisted at AAF Headquarters into the fall of 1944 that the plane had "nothing basically wrong which cannot be fixed." By late 1944, however, the operational experience of the Twentieth Air Force had removed all doubts as to the worthiness of its Superfortresses, and by December a need no longer existed for the B-32 as insurance against failure of the B-29. In February 1945 the Acting Chief of Air Staff, Brig. Gen. Patrick W. Timberlake, added the opinion that the "B-32 in its present form is not an acceptable bomber." He cited two outstanding unsatisfactory features: the inability of the bombardier to see properly during the bomb run and the weight of the plane. By summer it had been decided to limit production to a total of 214, of which 40 were to be used for training and the remainder for a variety of projects, including the equipment of one combat group in the Pacific. In October 1945, the AAF terminated its B-32 contracts and directed that all B-32 planes be declared excess and disposed of. The moral perhaps is simply this: in heavy bomber development, where engineers necessarily work on the frontiers of experience and knowledge, success is achieved only at the cost of some failures. And those who in the hour of national emergency provided the B-17, the B-24, and the B-29 need offer no apologies for the B-15, the B-19, or the B-32. The Dominator made its mark on history in the skies over Tokyo. Just days after the official cease fire was agreed upon by the battled Japanese fighters over a two day period marking the last official aerial combat of World War II. On 18 August 1945, two B-32s were making a reconnaissance flight over Tokyo when they were attacked by NIK2 “George” fighters. Both planes were hit and one suffered multiple injuries. One crewman, Sgt. Anthony Marchione, died - the last American killed in the Second World War. In the 1970s, one of the pilots, the ace Warrant Officer Sadamu Komachi, said that his pilots had been enraged that American planes were parading over the Emperor’s palace before the official surrender and acted on the spur of the moment. Ironically, Komachi himself had flown in the 7 December 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, so he took part in the first and last air engagements of the Pacific war. Crew: 10 people Length: 25.3 m Wing span: 41.2 m Height: 10.1 m Wing area: 132.1 m² Empty weight 27 000 kg Weight of the loaded 45 000 kg Maximum take-off weight: 50 580 kg Top speed: 575 km / h Cruising speed: 467 km / h Range: 4815 km Practical ceiling: 11 000 m Lifting speed: 3,4 m / s Load on the wing: 341 kg / m² Armament 10 × 12.7 mm Browning M2 Bomb load: up to 9100 kg
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