Description

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This title examines the U.S. bombers of World War 2, including experimental and lesser-known military aircraft variants, including the aircraft developed for both the U.S. Army and Navy air forces. To cover the subject coherently, the author selects design concepts and proposals from the period that advanced beyond the preliminary stages and contributed to the rapid developments in all aspects of bomber aircraft design during the war. The author discusses the technological maturation of U.S. aircraft and the rapid advances in electronic navigation, communications, radar, and electronic warfare, which greatly aided bombing accuracy and mission success. The bold moves to long-range heavy bombers and superheavy intercontinental bombers (the latter solely an American undertaking) further spurred system-intensive aircraft that were important transitions to the jet bombers that followed. How all this work contributed to actual fielded weapon systems is discussed including failures, course changes, and close-run competitions.

About the Author

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Bill Norton is a retired U.S. Air Force officer presently employed by JT3 at the Air Force Flight Test Center. He has been active in flight-test engineering and aircraft development since 1980. He has held numerous positions as a discipline engineer, lead engineer, project manager, and business manager. He has contributed in many flight test disciplines, on more than two dozen programs, including fighters, bombers, rotorcraft, UAVs, and missiles. His most recent efforts were as the lead flight-test engineer on the CV-22 program, structural loads FTE on the F/A-22, and as test director on the Global Hawk and Predator UAVs. He has written eight aviation books and many other professional publications and has served as a guest instructor at both United States Air Force and national test-pilot schools.