STRATOSAURUS

WERE IT NOT FOR A 32-YEAR-OLD U.S. AIR FORCE COLONEL WHO HAPPENED TO BE AN MIT-DEGREED ENGINEER, THE B-52 STRATOFORTRESS WOULD HAVE BEEN A TUPOLEV TU-95 BEAR LOOKALIKE— A BIG, SWEPTWING BOMBER WITH FOUR MASSIVE TURBOPROPS DRIVING EIGHT CONTRAROTATING PROPELLERS.

That was the configuration Boeing’s engineers had settled on when they proposed to build the B-52. They pitched it to Colonel Pete Warden during an October 1948 meeting at a hotel in Dayton, Ohio, near the development and testing center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. “Get rid of those props or your proposal will be rejected,” Warden said, in what was in fact an overstepping of his authority. But Warden was a fan of turbojets and realized that despite fuel consumption problems and low power output numbers, jets were the future. He knew Pratt & Whitney was developing the J57 turbojet, which would change aviation history by powering both the Stratofortress and, as the civil JT3D, the 707.

It was a remarkable engine. Pratt had been excluded from jet engine development during World War II, since their piston radials were crucial to the war effort, but they had done enough fiddling on their own to come up with the 10,000-hp T45 turboprop, designed to be easily convertible into a pure jet. That conversion resulted in the J57/JT3D, one of the great turbojet engines of all time. Adding a fan to the J57 produced the TF-33, the low-bypass engine that ushered in the age of the fanjet. The ancient TF-33 would become the B-52H’s engine, today powering the only Stratofortresses that are still flying.

During a weekend thrash, the Boeing engineers reconfigured their proposal. Presented to the Air Force on Monday, the design featured eight turbojets paired in pods hung beneath swept wings.

The proposal was buttressed by a silver-painted balsa model carved by Boeing chief aerodynamicist George