Witteman-Lewis XNBL-1

Infobox Aircraft
name = Witteman-Lewis XNBL-1
type = Heavy Bomber
manufacturer = Witteman-Lewis



caption ="AS 64215", "Barling Bomber" at St. Louis Air Meet 1923
designer = Walter Barling
first flight = 22 August 1923
introduced =
retired =1928
status =Experimental
primary user = United States Army Air Service
more users =
produced =
number built = 1
unit cost = $525,000
variants with their own articles = The Witteman-Lewis XNBL-1 "Barling Bomber" was an experimental long-range, heavy bomber built for the United States Army Air Service in the early 1920s. Although unsuccessful as a bomber, it was an early attempt at creating a strategic bomber.

Design and development

The XNBL-1(Experimental Night Bomber, Long Range) was designed by Walter Barling, who had previously designed the Tarrant Tabor, which was similar in concept but was destroyed in a fatal crash on its first flight in 1919. Like the Tabor, the Barling Bomber was a large six-engined triplane with a cigar-shaped fuselage. Unlike its predecessor, the XNBL-1 had a crew of seven with all of its engines mounted level with the fuselage. The undercarriage consisted of 10 wheels, including two wheels mounted towards the front of the aircraft (to prevent a nose-over on takeoff) and a tail skid. Components of the aircraft were assembled together to begin flight testing at Wilbur Wright Field. Final cost of the XNBL-1 project was $525,000, not including a $700,000 hangar to house the airplane.

Testing

Although capable of carrying a 5,000 lb (2,268 kg) bomb load, performance was disappointing. The overly complex structure of three wings and their accompanying struts and bracing wires created so much interference drag that the six engines could barely compensate. A fully-loaded XNBL-1 had a range of only about 170 miles (273.59 km) with a top speed of 96 mph. In contrast, the "short-range" Martin NBS-1 had a range of about 450 miles (724.20 km) and could carry a 2,000 lb (907.18 kg) at the same speed. On a flight from Dayton, Ohio to Washington, DC, the Barling Bomber failed to fly over the Appalachian Mountains and had to turn around.

Although the XNBL-1 was not put into production, it had advanced features such as aluminium fuselage components, adjustable multi-wheel undercarriage, separate compartments for crew, a flight engineer, electrical instruments and advanced engine controls. One unusual feature was that the incidence of the tailplane could be adjusted in flight using a lever in the cockpit. [Winchester 2005, p. 179.] The XNBL-1 was the largest aircraft in the United States until the Boeing XB-15 in 1935.

Frequently characterized as "Mitchell’s Folly" (after Brig.-Gen. William "Billy" Mitchell who had championed the project), later in the decade, the aircraft had been disassembled by Air Service personnel and stored at Wright Field. After lying in disrepair for years, the Barling was "surreptitiously destroyed in 1928 at the order of General H.H. Arnold so that no public outcry would be made over the million-dollar waste of taxpayer's money." [ [http://home.earthlink.net/~ralphcooper/pimaga17.htm Barling Bomber] ]

pecifications

aircraft specifications
plane or copter?=plane
jet or prop?=prop
ref=
crew=Seven (two pilots, five gunners)
capacity=
payload main=
payload alt=
length main= 65 ft
length alt= 19.81 m
span main= 120 ft
span alt= 36.58 m
height main= 27 ft
height alt= 8.23 m
area main=
area alt=
airfoil=
empty weight main= 27,132 lb
empty weight alt= 1,242 kg
loaded weight main= 42,569 lb
loaded weight alt= 19,309 kg
useful load main=
useful load alt=
max takeoff weight main=
max takeoff weight alt=
more general=
engine (prop)= Liberty L-12A
type of prop=
number of props=6
power main= 420 hp
power alt= 313 kW
power original=
max speed main= 95.5 mph
max speed alt= 154 km/h
cruise speed main= 61 mph
cruise speed alt= 100 km/h
stall speed main=
stall speed alt=
never exceed speed main=
never exceed speed alt=
range main=170 miles
range alt=273.59 km
range more=with full bomb load (varied by bomb load carried)
ceiling main= 7,725 ft
ceiling alt= 2344 m
climb rate main=
climb rate alt=
loading main=
loading alt=
thrust/weight=
power/mass main=
power/mass alt=
more performance=
armament=
* Up to 5,000 lb (2268 kg) bombload
* 7 × 0.3 in (7.62 mm) machine guns
avionics=

References

Notes

Bibliography

* Tilford, Earl H., Jr. "The Barling Bomber." "Aerospace Historian, June 1979", pp. 91–97.
* Winchester, Jim. "The World's Worst Aircraft: From Pioneering Failures to Multimillion Dollar Disasters". London: Amber Books Ltd., 2005. ISBN 1-904687-34-2.

External links

* [http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=2434 USAF Museum]
* [http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj02/win02/notam3.pdf#search='barling%20bomber' Maxwell AFB]