B-29 Flight Procedure And Combat Crew Functioning (1944) 

Greetings from Guam

That's really cool. I found out when I think I was like 15, that my great grandfather captained one of these. I never met him because he died when I was three in 2007. But he captained "The Big Stink." His name was Hermann Stanley Zahn and he died a retired Colonel. I wish I could've met him.

I'm sorry for your loss :(

Sorry for your loss.

Your dad was part of a great effort to win the war. We still enjoy today some of the fruits of his effort. You should be proud of him and it sir.

Ĺ

Then he was a master metal worker!

They were fearless people who didn't regard their own survival above that of their countrymen. Incredible bravery.

Greatest generation.

And the engineer was 19?? Sorry but its not creidible, the age of the crew sounds imposibble.

I got 3 boys and not a SnowFlake in the bunch. I'd trust my life to the animals I Raised. They would be MORE than up for this. God Love Every One Of them ! ! Bradley, Bryce, and Andrew ! EXCEPTIONAL MEN ! ! ! ! ! !

@@edmondmcdowell9690 horse shit.

The R 3350 were rushed into production , without working out all the bugs . As the Air Force would say , we will just fix it in the field.

The Gas tank is full and I expect it to be that way when you return it!

Great God 🙏 bless the boys 💕💕💕💕💕💕 amen for ever

Lol

@@garyrunnalls7714 ö ok koop

@@mikewhipkey6863 there better not be a single scratch on it neither !

That's funny...

You mean your war.Not theirs.

@@Russia-bullies -- Idiot...

My dad was a command gunner on B-29s, and explained how the gunners' firing controls automatically calculated range, deflection, etc., which allowed for greater accuracy. The command gunner also had the ability to take control of all or some of the turrets to meet a greater threat coming from one direction. Very high-tech, but required substantially more training than the older systems on B-17s/B-24s.

@@dhall058 Good info, must of been a much smaller crew on a b29 with automatic defensive system?

@@russellherbert9670 Still a crew of 10+. The guns still needed gunners but the remote computer aiming system was an incredible leap in gunnery.

It's a re-upload for me, I had a VHS looking copy. This one is miles better.

The story on that B29 going to England is on the net somewhere. Martin Caidin wrote about it.

The Germans mounted robot guns on their Hetzer tank destroyer during WW2.

there she is.....the Putt Putt: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-q7aSEErZUag.html

That is what caugt fire on the KEE BIRD.

0111

Eisenhower is no longer President. It's been a long time since I heard "Commie Menace" scare rhetoric! Several B-29's were downed by North Korean Mig 15's. Take Care.

@@unclebob6728 good ole' Uncle Bob sounds a little red

@@_smallmac_ B29 wasn't used in Europe during WW2.

The aircraft was an early B-29 probably built in late 1943. The film has a 1944 date but was probably shot in 1943.

@@TheBalls55 No. May be a couple flights but that was it.

Must’ve been a nice improvement. He was the commander?

@@joaopedrotavaresdafonsecal1529 The b29 was a big improvement. It could fly faster, higher, carry more bombs, remote controlled machine guns, pressurized cabin, and yes, he was the captain. He even flew a secret mission at night carrying two atom bombs from somewhere in the Dakotas to a southern state somewhere.

You must be old as Methuselah. I just turned 74.

Not exactly. The pressure is tapped directly from the engines (likely the superchargers). If the pressure vessel sustains damage the system will try to compensate, but if there is too much damage the crew will have to revert to oxygen masks.

Shit the planes would leave me in the dust I'd still be checking my tires psi 😂😂😂☠😵

Like this back tire is 74 can we get a air pump back out here...☠😂

The Nazis seemed to deliberately have a confused system of leadership, by dividing it they made sure no one person could challenge the fuhrer. For one example, the boundaries of party regions (gau) didn't necessarily match those of German states. Though those became pretty unimportant it did create parallel administrative systems.

@@richardweil8813 Sort of odd for Germans who are noted for organizational skills. I guess you can over organize just like you can over engineer things.

Until Hitler sealed Germany's fate by declaring war on the U.S., neither German war doctrine nor its geographic situation required a strategic bombing capability.

Carswell doesn't have a runway 10. MacDill maybe?

That was probably a ten to twelve hour round trip. Ultimately the pilot is responsible for the plane and the souls on board. If anything went wrong it was his head on the block. I'm sure the experienced pilots could look at the gear and appraise their condition by look and trust the crew to check other items. This wasn't like it is today where the plane is kept in constant rediness and the crew just rushes out and boards and flys away. There were scheduled launch times so they could drop bombs at a specific time and maybe return in the daylight so, there was plenty time to do the rediness checks.

@@darylullman7083 ty for the info.

The Twentieth Air Force of the U.S. Army Air Force was adamant about the role of the B-29 in the Pacific. They wanted the aircraft used for the massive strategic attacks on Japan, operations subject to planning as @Daryl Ullman noted, rather than the short-notice support of in-theater objectives for which MacArthur wanted them.

As a 24 year veteran of the RAF I can tell you with absolute confidence that this is not what happens today, and I am pretty sure that back in WWII the aircrew didn’t do all of the things that they show here, that is what the groundcrew are/were for, they would do a Before flight inspection, checking everything including everything seen here and a lot more besides, after each flight they would do a complete After Flight inspection covering a huge amount of of things, oil levels, refuelling, replenishing anything used during flight as required and so many individual items that on an aircraft the size of a B-29 a team of probably six would be needed with each person responsible for a specific area of the aircraft, there was/is what is called a turnaround servicing, basically a refuel, re-arm all around visual inspection for any damage from the previous flight, and That IS what groundcrew did and still do, maybe not in the USAAF or USAF but in the RAF that is exactly what we did, and every time a flight servicing was done the people who did it had to annotate on a form things like the fuel content, how much fuel was loaded and when necessary what tanks was it in, oil levels, weapons load, etc etc and then sign to say that everything was done correctly in accordance with procedures and any special instructions, and when a pilot came to get his aircraft he would sign to say he accepted the aircraft and that he was happy (aircrew are never happy) that the aircraft was ready, they did/do carry out a walk round inspection but nothing like what is depicted here, it just wouldn’t be practical or necessary.

@@allandavis8201 Thank you very much DJ Phantom for the detailed information. But I must say, I was out of breath reading your comment because there were no periods where there should have been sentences. I actually held my breath for about 30 seconds reading your comment and then wondered to myself why I was out of breath. LOL, but it was a great informative comment never-the-less. Thank you.

The WW2 B29 Program was 3 billion .

@@lindycorgey2743 How much did the Manhattan Project cost?

The U.S. Govt spent 2 billion on the A Bomb project. Hard to believe the B29 cost more then the bomb it dropped.

@@lindycorgey2743 Yeah, and with all the security measures we took, the Soviets ended up stealing copies of both. The B29 was an amazing piece of work, but nearly obsolete by the time it was built. In the end, they both did their job well and ended the War sooner than without them.

A lot of information went out in the lend-lease aircraft that flew to Russia. But I seriously doubt that even if the program was drum tight. Once the bomb was used. The Genie would be out of the lamp. It may have taken longer. But the Russians would have worked out the technology. The same as for the B29. The U.S. had licensed the Curtiss Wright R1520 to the Russians in the 1930s. They used it to eventually develop the engine used in the TU-4.

Varying the pitch of the propeller blades varies propeller speed at a given throttle position.

@@davidfifer4729 Ah, thanks.

They didn't make it up that high. 20,000 feet was about maximum a fighter could reach (a few). The problem was that the jet stream was so fast above that, that the B-29's couldn't hit their targets so they began lower altitude drops, which put them within reach of fighter attack and artillery bursts

Great question. They could have some mechanism in place to prevent firing at specific azimuths to avoid striking the aircraft. Given that guns have computer control this is likely so. That said, manual override would not have this feature. Anyone familiar with government contracts may be jaded. What you ask could have been a requirement or it may be missed or omitted for all manner of reasons or excuses. I look forward to someone with experience with the guns sharing their knowledge.

@@RickSaffery Yes, they had interrupters that prevented firing at specific locations. These were invented and used in WW1.

@@R.U.1.2. They stopped you shooting your propeller off with the forward firing mg. They literally interrupted the firing just before the blade reached the muzzles position.

Great question. I'd like to know too.

@@RickSaffery The controls and anything the pilot might need to read. These are red lights like in a submarine to prevent blinding yourself in the dark.

You can't see much of the 'glow' from UV light, it won't light up a surface unless it's painted in a colour that reflects it. The needles and instrument writing is painted as such, but the rest of the panel etc isn't, so using a UV light prevents any glow from the cockpit that could be seen by enemy forces/aircraft, but illuminates the needles etc perfectly. The same technique is used in modern endurance racing cars to make all the buttons in the cockpit flouresce at night but without a glow that would distract the driver.

@@MA-iv7ol I don't think they are red lights (UV is invisible). Could they be used to make the control markings glow in a controllable manner? Radium could do the same thing, but would not be controllable?

What do you fly?

No computers then.

Agree, but then Cessna, Piper and glider aircraft (trained in all) are not even close in scale or power. What gets me is the narrow window between landing and stall speed, though I understand airliners have not that much room either. Still, from what little I know about them jets are simpler engines than these monsters. I suspect a lot of the bomber pilots of the era had experience tinkering with cars and farm machinery, and that may have helped them.

@Ken D....that is my question, too. LOL. thanks. Everybody had their assigned tasks...no modern electronics to rely upon.

@@darrellborland119 That's why you have various checklists (start, taxi, takeoff, etc.,) to insure you don't overlook anything.

@@WAL_DC-6B fun fact, the reason they introduced checklists on these kind of birds was because of a mistake made by a B-17 crew. They forgot to unlock the wheal at the tail and couldn't steer on the runway, resulting in them steering off the runway. I don't know of there were any casualties, I hope there weren't. I also don't know the date when this happend because I heard it from a classmate in aircraft maintenance school

@@scjvz04d5 That was the crash of the Boeing 299, the four engine aircraft Boeing build to compete for the Army Air Force's next bomber contract. This aircraft is the direct ancestor of the Boeing B-17. The pilots of the bomber on a test flight at Wright Field in Ohio on October 30, 1935 overlooked disengaging the "gust locks" which locked the control surfaces in place while the aircraft was on the ground. When the experimental aircraft took off, it stalled shortly after leaving the ground and crashed killing the pilot and co-pilot. I've read somewhere in the past that it was indeed this crash that led to the use of check lists for aircraft.

@@WAL_DC-6B nice to hear mote information about this, thank you. As you can clearly tell I didn't know the entire story, but I got at least 4% right :). Thank you for the info again

The quads were added later in the war, after this flick was made.

I believe only the front top turret was upgunned to deter frontal attacks

Possibly they knew how much ammo they had and how much film and to make sure the film lasted until the ammo ran out (and vice versa) 16 fps was the correct film speed.

My thoughts exactly. It indicates to me that there must have been an issue with tires on the early B-29.

Redundancy. Checking the work of other members of the crew. That's what a commander does.

It's just a training film. Made before they had much real world experience with the aircraft. At that time the B-29 had major "teething" issues. The film was made by the USAAF FPMU in Culver City CA. It let Hollywood people "contribute to the war effort" with little risk for the risk averse. It was led for most of the war by Paul Mantz who spent so much time flying around in his personal B-17 and not minding the store he lost the job.

Each of the five gunners had a computing gunsight which they aimed at a target. The guns where slaved to the gunsights. Selecting which guns were slaved to which gunsight was the job of the crew member called the "Gun Commander" in this film.

They got a video on it too...the gunners would look into a reticle and aim it at a target and the computer would take in lead angle speed and flight direction and aim the guns at it at the correct angle n everything! It was literally like a video game he had a little box as a reticle and he had to put the silhouette of the aircraft in this box and the computer would do the rest pretty much

These same type of gun computers were later put onto anti aircraft guns on big ships like aircraft carriers. When they would work it worked good. When they didn't everything missed big.

hardly the case! A detailed checklist is run as well!

@@creigiihtondenynis39 -- And how do you know??? lol

@@neo-RU-vidStoleMyHandle because thats how it was supposed to be. Even if it was a modern stealth bomber if the pilot didnt do any before flight checking it'll not fly

@@billytheshoebill5364 Naaa...just tell it you did the flight check and fool it...

common to call airplanes ships. We called helicopters ships.

@@tracywilkinson1820 Remember the good ol' days when we traveled on airliners?

@@JazzWithJakeInSF I'm old enough to remember wearing nice clothes to fly on Braniff Airlines.

LOL!!!

Put put is an onboard generator. Used when engines are off.

It's more formally called the "Auxiliary Power Unit."

@Tommy Voctor Buch...no s.oy in their diet!. thanks.

Yeah, but I don't see any minorities in the mix.

Luckily for them, you werent around

That's right, mate!

ok the b29 has a pressurized cabin how did it hold pressure with that little door looking at the front strut?

I believe you meant murderERS? That makes your comment doubly wrong. Last time I looked at the history of WWII, it seemed that we stayed out of that war until we were attacked. Yes?

@@billmcgill3739 Yes.

Glamorous task. Rape of Nanking and attack on Pearl Harbour? Must be nice to live in a world where your country has never been attacked by another country.