The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia
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Consolidated
B-32 Dominator
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Crew |
10 | ||
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Dimensions |
135'0"
by 82'1" by 32'2" 41.15m by 25.02m by 9.80m |
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Weight |
100,000 lbs 45,000 kg |
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Maximum speed |
357 mph at 30,000
feet 575 km/h at 9100 m |
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Cruising speed |
290 mph 467 km/h |
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Service ceiling |
30,700 feet 9360 m |
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| Four 2200 hp (1640 kW) Wright R-3350-23 Duplex Cyclone two-row eighteen-cylinder radial engines driving four bladed propellers. | |||
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Armament |
10 0.50 machine
guns |
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Bomb load |
20,000 lbs 9100 kg |
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Range |
3000 miles (4800 km) with
10,000 lbs (4500 kg) bombs |
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| A total of 118 of all types, mostly at Consolidated-Fort Worth, Texas | |||
The Dominator was insurance for the B-29
program, which looked to be in serious
trouble in 1943. It was a derivative design based on the
successful B-24
and was both less ambitious and (it was
thought) less risky than the B-29 project. However, the project
bogged down when the twin stabilizers of the prototype were found to
produce serious stability problems, forcing a redesign with a single
large stabilizer. The bugs in the B-32 were
eventually worked out, but only 118 Dominators were built.
Fifteen of these aircraft saw
limited service over Japan
late in the war, and actually flew the last combat mission against
Japan.
References
Gunston
(1986)
Harding (1993;
accessed 2009-6-24)
National
Museum of the Air Force (accessed 2008-9-17)
The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia © 2006, 2008 by Kent G. Budge. Index
