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The sole XB-44 Superfortress was a B-29 Superfortress converted to test the possibility of using the R-4360 radial engine.. Development of an improved B-29 started in 1944, with the desire to replace the unreliable Wright R-3350 Duplex-Cyclone engines with the more powerful four-row, 28-cylinder Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major radial engines, America's largest-ever displacement aircraft ...
WB-50D 73 surplus B-50Ds converted as weather reconnaissance aircraft to replace worn out WB-29s. Fitted with extra gaseous oxygen storage tanks in the bomb bay , Doppler weather radar , atmospheric samplers (e.g. wing pylons to carry F-50 sampling pod) and other specialist equipment.
The squadron was reactivated in 1960 with a mixture of WB-50s, Boeing WB-47 Stratojets and Lockheed C-130 Hercules and resumed its typhoon hunting mission. The squadron was the last operator of the WB-50D Superfortress, retiring the last aircraft in 1965, when it operated C-130s.
The group continued its work on marrying weapons to aircraft. It worked on equipment testing to provide single Mark 15 and Mark 21 nuclear bomb capabilities for the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress. The group also began testing the TX-28 with the swept-wing Republic F-84F Thunderstreak. Aircraft modifications included pylon and weapon loading and ...
A Boeing WB-50D Superfortress, 48-093, c/n 15902, (built as B-50D-95-BO) [282] of the 58th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, fully loaded with fuel for a 3,700-mile weather reconnaissance flight, crashes two minutes after a pre-dawn takeoff from Eielson AFB, Alaska, with the wreckage and fuel burning in an inferno 200 yards long and 50 yards ...
WB-50 of the 58th Weather Squadron, Elelson AFB, Alaska WB-50 and personnel of the 58th Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron in 1951 Reactivated as part of Strategic Air Command in 1951 in Alaska, Equipped with very long range WB-29 Superfortresses 1951, upgrading to extended long-range WB-50D Superfortresses in 1956.
Reactivated in 1951 in Hawaii, Equipped with very long range Boeing WB-29 Superfortresses, upgrading to extended long-range Boeing WB-50D Superfortresses in 1956. Conducted long-range weather flights over the Arctic and along the northern periphery of the Soviet Union; the aircraft being equipped with sensors for detecting radioactive debris to ...
Its 27 operational Silverplate B-29s (the 309th had ultimately received 53 of the 65 produced) were transferred in 1949 to the 97th Bomb Wing at Biggs Air Force Base, El Paso, Texas, when the group converted to B-50D Superfortresses. The B-50D was the last derivative of the B-29 family and designed specifically for the atomic bombing mission.