On December 16, 1945, test pilot Lt. Col. Fred J. Ascani and two friends from his days at West Point took off from Bolling Field in Washington, D.C., in an experimental bomber, the Douglas XB-42. The second example built of the unconventional airplane, the XB-42 had set a transcontinental speed record just eight days earlier. Ascani’s flight was supposed to be just a routine test flight, but it proved anything but routine. Within 45 minutes of takeoff, the airplane lay in a crumpled mass in a Maryland field.
The propeller-driven XB-42 Mixmaster and its derivative, the jet-powered XB-43 Jetmaster, were two of many experimental military aircraft tested during the 1940s that failed to meet expectations, despite innovative designs. Nonetheless, both aircraft are notable in aviation history. The XB-42 demonstrated new ideas in streamlining, was the first pusher-type bomber to reach the flight-test stage and, most importantly, led directly to the first American jet-powered bomber to be built and tested.
Douglas developed the Mixmaster as a testbed for a high-speed, long-range bombardment airplane with improved performance, and the company intended to use the project for research on reducing drag and providing better propulsion. To do that, the company decided to develop a medium bomber that met specifications from the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), including a top speed of 400 mph at a time when USAAF bombers topped out at roughly 300 mph. When Edward F. Burton, Douglas’s chief of engineering, took charge of the project he began with a “clean sheet of paper” rather than attempting
