Nov 182010
From the SDAM via Mark Nankivil, a Douiglas Aircraft painting of the XB-43 jet-powered medium bomber flying low and fast.
The XB-43 was a jet-powered derivative of the piston-engined XB-42. Sadly, while an impressive design it came too late for WWII, and was overshadowed by advances in aerodynamics including the swept wing. I fully expect that Douglas designed a swept wing faster version, but if so, I’ve never seen it.
One Response to “XB-43 artwork”
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To me, the straight wing wasn’t the problem, it was the anemic amount of thrust its engines generated compared to its size.
With a max loaded weight of 40,000 pounds and only 8,000 pounds of thrust, it had thrust-weight ratio of 1/5, not very good for an aircraft expected to do any sort of low altitude maneuvering during an attack run, like shown in the drawing; climb-out after the attack to get back to efficient turbojet operating altitude would be ponderous.
By comparison, the B-45 Tornado had a thrust-weight ratio 1/3.73 in it’s fully loaded configuration, and all it had to do was reconnaissance or light bombing, not attack operations at low altitude.
The fuselage had been designed to house the two piston engines for the big tail contraprop, and just pulling them out and putting in two turbojets didn’t make very efficient use of its internal volume.
Considering that they decided to go the all-jet route with this one, it’s surprising they didn’t keep the underwing Westinghouse turbojets of the XB-42A to up performance during an attack run.