Get 47es

The Boeing B-47 Stratojet is an American jet-engine Strategic Bomber used by the United States Air Force from 1951 until 1977. Of the 2,032 aircraft built, 23 survive today, none of which are airworthy. All are located in the United States.

Sadly, the B-47 also suffered losses on a scale that would be utterly intolerable today. Over its lifetime, 203 aircraft (about 10 percent of the total procured) were lost in crashes, with 464 deaths. This article focuses on the two peak years, 1957 and 1958, when 49 B-47s crashed—incurring 122 fatalities.

The B-47 was also adapted to perform a number of other roles and functions, including photographic reconnaissance, electronic intelligence, and weather reconnaissance. While never seeing combat as a bomber, reconnaissance RB-47s would occasionally come under fire near or within Soviet air space.

The B-47 was designed to drop nuclear weapons from high altitude, but was later adapted to use a fighter-type "bomb toss" technique at low level. The large, thin swept wing was the source of new problems such as high-speed aileron reversal and pitch-up, which were solved by incorporating spoilers and vortex generators.

Each B-47 carried as much firepower as a thousand World War II-era B-17s and B-24s, and each was capable of penetrating to the heart of enemy territory. The pleasure we found in flying the airplane, however, was not in its capacity for lethal warfare but rather its sparkling performance.

The B-47 could fly higher and faster than jet fighters of the time, and it was also highly maneuverable. The B-47 was flown by a two pilots in a tandem cockpit. A navigator/bombardier was at a station in the nose. The Boeing B-47B Stratojet was the first full-production model.

The B-47 was also adapted to perform a number of other roles and functions, including photographic reconnaissance, electronic intelligence, and weather reconnaissance. While never seeing combat as a bomber, reconnaissance RB-47s would occasionally come under fire near or within Soviet air space.

The pilot was all too often a young first lieutenant, usually with less than 500 hours total time and perhaps 50 hours in the B-47. Time and again, the accident board concluded the primary cause was operator error: Faulty technique “allowed the aircraft to get into a position from which they were unable to recover.”