Boeing XPBB Sea Ranger

The Boeing XPBB Sea Ranger was a flying boat of the U.S. manufacturer Boeing, which should be used for deep-sea reconnaissance, anti-submarine combat and rescue. It was only built a prototype called XPBB -1, of the U.S. Navy serial number 3144 and the serial number was 2129. At the time of the first flight of the Sea Ranger was the largest twin-engine aircraft at all. The mission identifier PB stood from 1935 to 1962 for " Patrol Bomber". The factory designation Boeing Model 344 was

History

The development of the Sea Ranger began in early 1940. During the same year, the U.S. Navy issued after a thorough examination of the design documentation a contract to Boeing for the construction of 57 machines. For this purpose, the work of Renton was built on Lake Washington, which still belongs to the production of Boeing today. It was used in the early 1960s for the production of various Boeing commercial aircraft after a substantial extension.

The first flight took place on 5 July 1942 the test pilot Eddie Allen held on Lake Washington. After the Battle of Midway in June 1942 it had become clear that in the future the long -range reconnaissance was carried out by a land plane; the U.S. Navy pulled thereupon the production order issued back. The plant Renton was consequently converted B-29 Superfortress for the production of Boeing and put into operation in 1943.

In October 1943, the prototype according to the Patuxent River ( Maryland) was transferred to and from the former Naval Air Test Center ( NATC ) as a flying testbed for different tasks, for example in the context of the development of the Martin P5M Marlin. Due to the high maintenance costs and an increasingly difficult supply of spare parts it was put out of service in 1947, transferred to the Navy Air Station Norfolk ( Virginia) and scrapped there.

Construction

The Sea Ranger was designed as a twin-engined high-wing monoplane. As an airfoil, the BAC has been used 117, with a relative thickness of 23% at the root and 9% at the edge of the cap. The 5.15 m high and 3.18 m wide boat hull consisted of two decks. The center wing contained four bomb bays that were up to 9,000 kg ( 20,000 lb) of ordnance for the control of land and sea targets record. In the design of the structure, the designers were able to use the values ​​of the B-29 wing. With a fuel capacity of 36 240 liters and a maximum flight duration of XPBB -1 was calculated at 72 hours, she had a range of 18,000 km could cover.

Specifications

Pictures of Boeing XPBB Sea Ranger

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