[Normy]

I got a tour of "Fifi" , the flying B-29 about 5 years ago.

I was surprised how small it actually was. Granted, I fly 727's these days, and was flying 747's back then.

The interesting thing about the B-29 is that it was turned into the Boeing 367 Stratocruiser during the 1950's, and equipped with R-4360 28 cylinder engines and electric propellors. This last was a big mistake- it wasn't uncommon for the governors of these propellors to fail, then the prop went into low pitch, and the engine would rev to 5000 rpm. 5000 RPM? Hello, they call this motor an "R-4360" because it is 4360 cubic inches. That means that EACH CYLINDER was 2.6 liters! These giant pistons couldn't handle that sort of RPM, and eventually the propellor would actually break off, and go spinning off in a random direction. If it went through the fuselage....due to its diameter, it could actually cut the nose of the plane off and send it spinning into the ocean. Not a good thing-

The Boeing 367 was a B-29 fuselage with a second, larger fuselage mounted on top, making a figure-8 profile seen from the front. When Boeing designed the "367-80", or 707 in 1954, they took the 367 fuselage and simply filled it in. Instead of a figure-8, it was egg-shaped. That fuselage still exists- the 707 fuselage was used on the 727, the 757...and still in production today as the 737. That means that the 737 is really a derivative of the B-29 first produced in the 1940's. The belly panels of a B-29 and a modern 737 are not interchangeable, but they are the same shape. And Airbus makes big light of that fact-

N!