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Aviation History
1942
1942 - 1595.PDF
JULY 30TH, 1942 IEIR CHARACTERISTICS V CERTAINLY one of the most perfectly streamlined aircraft in existence to-day, the Martin Marauder (B-26), was actually designed before the not-quite- so-modern looking Baltimore, and although no performance figures are at present available, a top speed well in excess of 300 m.p.h. has been quoted in America. Probably the difference in the general lines of the Marauder and the Baltimore may be accounted for by the fact that the former is the outcome of a designer's ideal, evolved before that fatal December 7th, whereas the Baltimore's features have been dictated in the hard school of practical experience in warfare. That is not to suggest, of course, that the Marauder has sacrificed the essential factor of serviceability for mere beauty of line, for it is fully expected that, in the hands of both the U.S. Army Air Forces and the R.A|F., it will prove itself to be a fast and powerfully offensive weapon. In overall dimensions it is slightly larger than the Balti more, and is powered by two Pratt and Whitney Double- Wasp 18-cylinder engines of 1,850 h.p., which drive the newer type of four-bladed airscrew having sheet metal cufls on the inner parts of the blades. The function of these cuffs is to make the round parts of the blades a more efficient shape, and thus to force more cooling air into the engine cowling immediately behind them. - Other modern features of the Marauder are its tricycle undercarriage and the moulded plastic nose, which is free of all structural supporting members except for one hori zontal one, and is a most efficient aerodynamic shape. Details of its armament and bomb-load are not released for publication, but it has a "bubble" gun turret above the fuselage aft of amidships and either a gun position or turret irr the tail. Incidentally, the original design as intended for the U.S. Army Air Forces had a gun position in the rear which took the form of a sloping V-shaped transparency through which it was apparently intended to mount a single flexibly mounted machine gun or cannon, but the R.A.F. version of the B-26 appears to have been modified here to take a power-operated turret.
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