B-29 variants with manned Turrets.

Dang. 224441 has those odd boob-cheek turrets and two Sperry ball turrets and two standard Martin top turrets. So how would they pressurize all of that?

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Farfignugen42@reddit

Most WWII bombers were not pressurized. And those Sperry ball turrets not insulated either. Just plexiglass and some metal. So in addition to being unpressurized, they were cold to boot.

The first pressurized jetliner may have been The deHavilland Comet that came out in 1949.

Before that bomber crews got oxygen masks and bomber jackets.

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vonHindenburg@reddit

The first pressurized jetliner may have been The deHavilland Comet that came out in 1949.

Before that bomber crews got oxygen masks and bomber jackets.

The production B29, though, was pressurized and didn't have manned turrets, except for the tail.

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Farfignugen42@reddit

Wasn't it only pressurized in the cabin and the crew tunnel? So the turrets would still not be pressurized?

I am asking because I am mostly only familiar with the ball turrets being on B-17s, which were not pressurized. It makes sense they might have used the ball turrets elsewhere, too, but I don't think they were designed to be pressurized.

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vonHindenburg@reddit

You can see here that it was only about the middle 1/3 that wasn't pressurized (other than the tunnel). The forward section back to just ahead of the wing and the tail, almost up to the wing were pressurized.

Aside from the tail, the 29's turrets were remote controlled. The gunners sat in interior seats where they could look through fixed domes and control multiple guns that were linked together by an absurdly complicated mechanical network.

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Farfignugen42@reddit

So when they put ball turrets on, did they pressurize those, too? Because it doesn't look like the ball part of the tail turret needed to be pressurized, just the part where the gunner sat. But in a ball turret, the gunner is in the ball.

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vonHindenburg@reddit

I’m guessing not. It would just be altitude-limited, but wouldn’t require the complex, experimental, and expensive gun control system.

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FxckFxntxnyl@reddit (OP)

Which means it likely had room for oxygen tanks, like what were carried on B-24/B-17’s.

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vonHindenburg@reddit

You could still go higher and do so in comfort on long missions in a pressurized chamber than with masks.

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DonTaddeo@reddit

I would expect the gunners would have to do without pressurization. The B-29 did not pressurize al or most of the fuselage - after the cockpit, there was a pressurized tunnel to allow access to other parts of the plane.

Pressurization got dropped from the competing B-32.

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vonHindenburg@reddit

Looks like those are all in the pressurized areas, but the real issue would be that only the tail turret on the 29 was directly manned. The others were remotely controlled by gunners looking through fixed domes, which didn't require sliding seals around their perimeters. While these turrets appear to mostly be in the same spots as the RC ones would be otherwise, they'd be a lot harder to seal. Which means the whole plane was probably unpressurized and had to fly at a lower altitude

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Traditional_Drama_91@reddit

Landings in that last one had to a nightmare

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Farfignugen42@reddit

Unless it was damaged, the ball gunner would usually get out of the ball before landing. I think so, anyway. Could be wrong.

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Traditional_Drama_91@reddit

This issue is the fairing’s blocking the pilots view

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Farfignugen42@reddit

Ahh. I was thinking of the ball turrets.

Yeah, pilot vision is something that is not as prioritized as you might expect sometimes.

The Concorde had a droop snoot to improve vision on take offs and landings, but I can't think of any other plane that had anything similar. The Spirit of St. Louis, Lindbergh's plane famously didn't even have a forward window. And the Bell X_1, which Yeager broke the sound barrier in had tiny windows, mostly for structural reasons.

Sometimes the pilot's just get told "These are the windows you get. Deal with it."

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iamalsobrad@reddit

The Concorde had a droop snoot to improve vision on take offs and landings

The first versions of the snoot had built-in periscopes because it blocked the pilot's forward vision.

Part of the reason it was revised to the version with actual windows was that the Americans didn't like the idea of a mach 2 airliner that the pilots couldn't see out the front of. Which seems fair to be honest.

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FxckFxntxnyl@reddit (OP)

Very cool website. Tons of details I’ve never seen or heard of before!

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Hyperious3@reddit

like trying to land a Concorde with the nose still up

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Traditional_Drama_91@reddit

Exactly

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Affentitten@reddit

I would say it retracts.

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Traditional_Drama_91@reddit

I’d be more worried about the paneling that restricts the pilots downward visibility

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Late-Application-47@reddit

I'm sure they had AR to help. 😆

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Reach_or_Throw@reddit

Best cockpit design ever, reminds me of star wars. Beautiful beast.

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Shaun_Jones@reddit

It’s actually probably more that the cockpit inspired Star Wars. There’s a lot of that: the TIE fighters are literally just B-17 ball turrets with a pair of panels bolted on, and the frontal silhouette of a Star Destroyer is based on nose-on photos of USS Texas.

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