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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: B52 Replacement (WAS Re: B2 vs. F117A )
Message-ID: <1991Mar6.035017.21032@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 6 Mar 91 03:50:17 GMT
References: <1991Feb26.011655.5357@cbnews.att.com> <1991Feb28.051210.8528@cbnews.att.com> <1991Mar4.204134.4041@cbnews.att.com>
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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
>From: dela@thermal.ee.rochester.edu (Del Armstrong)
>... what's so dumb about designing a heavy bomber
>variant of the Boeing 747 (or whichever big "mass produced"
>people hauler you happen to like)?

The main problem is how to put a big bomb bay in it.  You don't just go
cutting holes in the belly skin -- that skin is a very important part of
the plane's structure!  The concentrated weight is also a problem to
some extent.  Bomb bays are a structural nuisance even for purpose-built
bombers, and it's worse when you're trying to retrofit them in.

Of course, you could always do what de Havilland did for the Nimrod:  add
a second fuselage underneath the original!  (The Nimrod is a derivative
of the Comet airliner, with a peculiar figure-8 fuselage cross-section.)
-- 
"But this *is* the simplified version   | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
for the general public."     -S. Harris |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry