B-2 Spirit Bomber Essay

Because of the tight formations and gutsy flying by the B-17 crews they were able to put thousands of tons of bombs on target with great accuracy. The insight and information of the crews was a vital part in the military to create bigger and better equipment to help the war come to a close. While many of the crews were lost, the steel on target and the information provided saved thousands of lives. The average death toll of a B-17 pilot during World War II was eighty percent. To put that in perspective CPT. Morgan, the pilot of the Memphis Belle, said it like this, “You eat breakfast with 10 of your closest buddies, go on a mission, and only two would be at

On July 28, 1935, the first porotype of the B-17 or also known as the B-299 took off from Boeing Field in south Seattle on its first ever test flight (Boeing “B-17”). Seattle Times reporter Richard Smith dubbed the new plane, with its many .30 caliber machine-guns, the “Flying Fortress,” (qtd.in Boeing). A name that Boeing quickly adopted and trademarked for the gigantic bomber (Boeing “B-17”). The U.S. Army Air Corps designated the plane as the B-17. Boeing created the plane in response to the Army’s request for a large, multi-engine bomber. The B-17 financed entirely by Boeing, went from the design board to flight tests in less than a year. In Boeings description of the B-17 was a low-wing monoplane that combined aerodynamic features

The Curtiss P-40 Warhawk was a single-engine, single-seat, metal fighter plane and ground-attack aircraft that was made by the Americans. The P-40 Warhawk fighters first flew in 1938 and caught the attention of the United States Army Air Corps, who placed the largest fighter plane order it had ever made for fighters for a count of 524 at a cost of US$13 million. This was the earliest serious fighter in WWII and did its job until better fighters came out. It was known as a safe and secure aircraft that was able to fly pilots back home after being shot up in action. Many variants of this plane were later created. In addition, the shark teeth graphics were a big feature on this plane.

The first flight occurred in 1903 when the Wright brothers famously took their airplane for a final test flight in December. In the years after this historic flight many people start to see the potential for airplanes in war, transportation, and shipping. Other builders disregarded previous doubt about flying and began to replicate the ideas of the Wright brothers in creating planes with three axes. In addition, the approach of WWI prompted military personnel to pursue uses of airplanes as a war machine. The airplane influenced many aspects of American culture after it’s invention including civilian life, war technology, and individual possibility.

Planes were important in the Pacific war. The B-29 delivered weapons to American soldiers in the region. Those weapons helped them win many major battles against the Japanese. They also helped America win the war. The B-29 was used to drop the “Little Boy” bomb on Hiroshima and “Fat Man” on Nagasaki.

On paper, it was generally comparable to the B-17, but for one major advantage. Thanks to auxiliary fuel tanks and slender, ultraefficient Davis wings, it could fly literally all day, a decisive asset in the sprawling World War II theaters. Flat-faced, rectangular, and brooding, the B-24 had looks only a myopic mother could love. Crewmen gave it a host of nicknames, among them “the Flying Brick,” “the Flying Boxcar,” and “the Constipated Lumberer,” a play on Consolidated Liberator. The cockpit was oppressively cramped, forcing pilot and copilot to live cheek by jowl for missions as long as sixteen hours…

The Curtiss SB2C Helldiver was first introduced into combat with the Unites States Navy in November 1943. However, the design was first thought up in May of 1939 to replace the obsolete SB2U Vindicator and the old but reliable SBD Dauntless dive-bomber. When the first prototype models came off the production lines, there were several major problems with the design, which delayed its entry into official service with the United States Navy. The Curtiss Helldiver design was a modest step up from the older SBD Dauntless. The basic principle of the dive-bomber did not change with the introduction of the Helldiver. The SB2C was equipped with dive flaps, but on the first models the flaps were solid and caused buffeting when going into the high “g” dives. This was later changed to perforated dive brakes that improved the diving performance of the aircraft. Just like the SBD Dauntless, the Helldiver was crewed by two

The British pilots were blessed to have the Hurricane and Spitfire fighter aircraft. These were fast, highly maneuverable, small fighter planes that had a great deal of speed. They could fly faster than bombers, and were

involvement in the war was the bombing they were able to throw at Germany constantly. Because the U.S. used the high altitude B-17, the bombing runs had to be done during the day so the pilots could hit their targets. Since, the bombers rarely had escorts during their bombing runs; the B-17 planes would fly in tight, box formations, which allowed the bombers to overlap their machine-gun fire for protection. The tight formations that the bombers flew in were also their weakness, allowing them to get hit from Luftwaffe fighters, making the U.S. bombing runs have a high number of casualties. Later on in the war, with the invention of the P-51 Mustang the number of casualties from the bombing runs dropped

The Warthog plane has a gun that can fire 4,100 rounds every minute. And let's not forget that it can carry up to 16,000 pounds of other deadly weaponry.

The bomber plane was truly changed in World War II. It was changed from the history, when bomber pilots had to hand throw the bombs. It was changed when the B-17 flying fortress was created and used. And, it was definitely changed when it became able to drop nukes and fission bombs. In conclusion, bombs from bomber planes can affect people, countries, and the world’s

Northrop met this challenge, when in 1947 he introduced his new YB-49. Powered by eight jet engines, this one hundred and seventy-two feet wingspan monster was capable of flying at over five hundred miles per hour, at a ceiling of over forty thousand feet. Jack had taken the American flying wing off the design boards, and into the air. Unfortunately it was incredibly difficult to fly, and the air force felt that as a bomber it was too unstable and dangerous. In late 1949, in an unprecedented decision, the U.S. government ordered that all Northrop's YB-49s were to be destroyed. After the destruction of the 1st flying wing, came a perilous time in history. Relationships between the East and West were rapidly deteriorating, and the Cold War was heating up. The world was entering a new era of nuclear power.

Towards the end of the War the airplane becomes a practical device of war being able to carry weapons. Anthony Fokker and Louis Bleriot create the most successful of early modern biplanes known as the D-VII and D-VIII. Biplanes are eventually taken over by the monoplane, or one wing. This new design allowed for faster flight and better visibility for the pilot. Air-cooled engines lead the way for commercial aircraft, and Boeing introduces the first modern airliner the 247. Airplanes are effected the greatest by supply and demand of war. New styles of war begun to emerge so did new and improved types of aircraft. The population of the U.S. also begun to grow which leads to the modern most sophisticated commercial airliner the 777. Most aircraft improvements are found in the military and intelligence field. The most high tech aircraft known today for such things as spying are the SR-71 Blackbird, and the U-2 Spy plane. The most complicated and best aircraft performance is still held by the space shuttle and probably always will be. The last 200 years have seen incredible changes in aircraft from the man with wings to heavier than air flying machines that can travel at supersonic speeds.

The B- 2 Spirit was Jack Northrop’s dream it was an aircraft concept that he worked hard to develop and the technology used in the aircraft surpassed any aircraft build up to that time. The B-2 is one the preeminent fighter planes ever created because of the stealth technology used in the aircraft. Stealth technology, also known as LO technology allows the B-2 to avoid radar and being detectable to the enemy. The stealth technology allows the aircraft to have a great advantage over the United States of America adversaries. Radar technology was developed in the 1930s, which allowed military forces to detect aircraft. Once radar was developed scientist started conducting research to create a technology to allow aircraft to be invisible to radar the stealth technology was an answer to radar. Stealth technology allows the B-2 spirit aircraft to elude military radar, also the B-2 is equipped several different forms of (RAM) radar absorbing material and the use of maneuvering and avoidance tactics and radar jamming equipment give B-2 a great advantage over other aircraft.

The B-58 itself showed to the world that the possibility of a civilian SST was at least worthy of accurate investigation and capital investments. Although the large bomber implemented the supersonic efficient area-ruling design first introduced by Whitcomb (mid 1950s [1]) and therefore it could deliver a nuclear payload cruising at Mach 2 for about two hours, the light and thin wings, designed for high altitude flight and inefficient close to the ground at subsonic speed, highlighted a new set of primary technical challenges to be addressed by a commercial SST: the realization satisfactory structural design, the optimization of the wing aerodynamics for subsonic flow, and related to the last point, the improvement of takeoff and landing performance. A deadly crash at 1961 Paris air show summed up all the concerns about safety issues related to a not optimal overall design [4].