The Boeing B-54 was an American

strategic bomber A strategic bomber is a medium- to long-range penetration bomber aircraft designed to drop large amounts of air-to-ground weaponry onto a distant target for the purposes of debilitating the enemy's capacity to wage war. Unlike tactical bombers, ...

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product ...

for use by the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

. Derived from the YB-50C Superfortress, construction of the prototype was canceled before completion, and the aircraft was never flown.

Design and development

Begun in 1947, the B-54 was the planned production version of the YB-50C prototype. The standard

Pratt & Whitney R-4360 The Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major is an American 28-cylinder four-row radial engine, radial reciprocating engine, piston aircraft engine designed and built during World War II. First run in 1944, at , it is the largest-displacement aviation ...

engines of the normal B-50 bomber were replaced with R-4360-51 Variable Discharge Turbine (VDT)

turbo-compound engine A turbo-compound engine is a reciprocating engine that employs a turbine to recover energy from the exhaust gases. Instead of using that energy to drive a turbocharger as found in many high-power aircraft engines, the energy is instead sent to ...

, the

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...

was lengthened by over and the wingspan was extended by , which required the installation of outrigger landing gear in the first and fourth engine nacelles. Large fuel tanks under the outboard wing section were required to carry an additional of fuel to reach the intended range; 14 .50-caliber machine guns comprised the specified defensive armament.Jones 1974, p. 183. On May 29, 1948, contracts were placed by the Air Force for 21 B-54A bombers and 52 RB-54A

reconnaissance In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities. Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops (skirmisher ...

aircraft;NMUSAF 2009 However, on April 18, 1949, the B-54 project was cancelled due to the development of better-performing jet aircraft; construction of the prototype B-54A had started at Seattle but was never completed. The cancellation was lambasted by the Seattle press, who claimed that it was a political decision instead of a military one.Olson 2003, p.184.

Variants

;B-54A: Intended production version of the YB-50C ;RB-54A: Reconnaissance version

Specifications

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

* . * * * * Swanborough, F. G. and Peter M. Bowers. ''United States Military Aircraft since 1909.'' Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989. . * {{USAF bomber aircraft B-54 Cancelled military aircraft projects of the United States Four-engined tractor aircraft B-54 Mid-wing aircraft Four-engined piston aircraft