Thursday, March 9, 2017

Amazing feat of flying


March 9, 1945. Iwo Jima. The crew of the American bomber Boeing B-29-45-BW,  named “Pride of the Yankees”, 882 squadron, 500th bomb group, inspects the damage to the aircraft. During a raid on Tokyo, the propeller of one engine came off and struck a nearby engine. The crew had to fly 700 miles to Iwo Jima with only two working engines on the starboard side.

5 comments:

  1. Nearly an impossible task. My father flew a B-24 and had a similar incident where both engines on one side quit. He told me that he and the co-pilot took ten minute turns with both feet on a rudder pedal to keep the plane flying straight.

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    Replies
    1. Wow, but they did it. No power steering in those days. Hats off to your dad.

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  2. Amazing feat. Back of the envelope calculation, figuring normal cruising speed= 220mph, but since 2 engines down reduced to ~150mph-- gives a flight time of 4.6 hours for 700 miles. That's a long, long time to be wrestling that aircraft!

    Those men deserved some R & R after that, so I hope Iwo Jima was safe when they got there!

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