This wing design allowed the B-29 to cruise at high speeds at high altitudes but maintained comfortable handling characteristics during slower airspeeds necessary during takeoff and landing.
#Where is the enola gay exhibit plus#
In April 1941, the Army issued another contract for 250 aircraft plus spare parts equivalent to another 25 bombers, eight months before Pearl Harbor and nearly a year-and-a-half before the first Superfortress would fly.Īmong the design's innovations was a long, narrow, high-aspect ratio wing equipped with large Fowler-type flaps. The Army was impressed with the Boeing design and issued a contract for two flyable prototypes in September 1940. Boeing, Consolidated, Douglas, and Lockheed responded with design proposals. It described an airplane that could carry a maximum bomb load of 909 kg (2,000 lb) at a speed of 644 kph (400 mph) a distance of at least 8,050 km (5,000 miles). Several years of preliminary studies paralleled a continuous fight against those who saw limited utility in developing such an expensive and unproven aircraft but the Air Corps issued a requirement for the new bomber in February 1940. Army Air Corps leaders recognized the need for very long-range bombers that exceeded the performance of the B-17 Flying Fortress. On August 14, 1945, the Japanese accepted Allied terms for unconditional surrender. Enola Gay flew as the advance weather reconnaissance aircraft that day. Sweeney piloted the B-29 Bockscar and dropped a highly enriched plutonium, implosion-type atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. Tibbets, Jr., in command of the Superfortress Enola Gay, dropped a highly enriched uranium, explosion-type, "gun-fired," atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. During the war in the Pacific Theater, the B-29 delivered the first nuclear weapons used in combat. Boeing installed very advanced armament, propulsion, and avionics systems into the Superfortress. It had more than 8-million visitors last year.Boeing's B-29 Superfortress was the most sophisticated, propeller-driven, bomber to fly during World War II, and the first bomber to house its crew in pressurized compartments. But the exhibition of the forward fuselage in the Air and Space Museum on the Washington Mall will put the plane on view in the single most-visited museum in the world. The Enola Gay has been accessible to the public for years at a Smithsonian facility outside of Washington, where a 10-year restoration project is nearing completion. "We're still continuing to talk with veterans groups and other interested parties and there's not any feeling by the museum that we can't still make some changes," he said. Museum spokesman Mike Fetters said the Smithsonian will consider the complaints. The letter notes that the exhibit includes 84 pages of text and 97 photographs on Japanese suffering but less than one page and eight photographs on the suffering inflicted by the Japanese from 1930 to 1945. They also said the exhibit underplays the importance of the atomic bomb attacks in saving American lives by ending the war before a U.S. The 18 Republicans and six Democrats who signed the letter said they want the exhibit to include more on the suffering inflicted by Japan on the United States and Asian nations during World War II. "The revised version still does not give a balanced perspective of the events surrounding the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
"The planners of this exhibit ignored many of the constructive criticisms," the lawmakers wrote. In response to complaints from veterans groups and historians, the exhibit has been revised once.