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The World War Two bomber that cost more than the atomic bomb
The Boeing B-29 was the most advanced bomber of World War Two, and more expensive to design and build than the atomic bombs it dropped.
The high speed of attacking planes in World War Two meant gunners often only had a split second to pick a target"You have to be on oxygen the whole time," says Hattie Hearn, the curator of the American Air Museum in Duxford in the UK. Crew members could crawl through a cramped tunnel between pressurised compartments right over the forward bomb bay (Credit: Getty Images)In order to cut down the amount of drag, the designers made the engine housing more aerodynamic. In February 1943, the second prototype, flown by Boeing's chief test pilot Edmund T Allen, crashed near Seattle due to an engine fire, killing all 11 crew, 20 workers in a meat processing plant and a firefighter.
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