![]() Top speed was 96 mph and cruising speed was 61 mph its range with a full bombload of 5,000 pounds was approximately 170 miles. ![]() Its empty weight was 27,703 pounds, with a gross weight of 32,203 pounds and a maximum takeoff weight of 42,569 pounds. Powered by six 420-hp Liberty 12A liquid-cooled engines-four tractors and two pushers mounted behind the two inboard tractor engines-it was 65 feet long and 27 feet high, with a wingspan of 120 feet. The largest heavier-than-air bomber of that period, it featured three mammoth wings and an empennage with four rudders and an elevator plane controlled by the pilot, held together in a box-like framework resting on a fixed tail skid. The bomber’s vital statistics, in addition to its cost, staggered the public’s imagination. Congress canceled further development work as well as the second prototype. ![]() Anthony learned about the Barling Bomber’s cost, initially estimated at $375,000 though later increased to $525,000, he objected. His July 1921 sinking of the German battleship Ostfriesland and three other ships seemed to validate his hypothesis. While Barling labored on the first bomber and monitored manufacture of its parts over the next three years, Mitchell forged ahead, eager to prove his assertions about the need for aircraft capable of combating warships. After it was discovered that the fabric wings had trapped rainwater, distorting the initial weight and balance measurements, a large hangar was built at old Wright Field at a cost of $700,000, so that construction could continue unimpeded by the weather. ![]() Due to this splintered system- with components manufactured 400 miles from where they would be assembled-there were serious problems with parts not fitting together properly. Army Engineering Division at McCook Field near Dayton, Ohio, where the planes were actually constructed. The parts were delivered by train from New Jersey to the U.S. of Teterboro, N.J., was contracted to manufacture the planes’ components, with the stipulation that war surplus Liberty engines were to be used. Moreover, he believed the Army Air Service deserved a budget that would fund them.Īfter Barling emigrated to the United States, in 1920 Mitchell approved specifications for two prototypes of a similar triplane to be designed by Barling and officially designated the Experimental Night Bomber, Long Range (XNBL-1). He was convinced that such huge planes, loaded with bombs, were capable of sinking battleships. Army Air Service, was impressed with the basic concept. But Mitchell, then assistant chief of the U.S. The Tabor turned out to be so heavy and out of balance that it nosed over on the takeoff roll for its maiden flight, killing its pilots. Barling, the airplane’s British designer and namesake, had already fathered the Tarrant Tabor, a large experimental six-engine triplane bomber built in May 1919 for the Royal Aircraft Establishment, when he took on this new project. Popularly known as the Barling Bomber, it was the largest aircraft of its day, and although ultimately a failure, it presaged a future in which even larger bombers would become the mainstay of American air power. To some it was the “Magnificent Leviathan,” to others “Mitchell’s Folly.” Its detractors considered the giant triplane a waste of taxpayer money, and dismissed it as reflection of the outsized aspirations of air power advocate Brigadier General William “Billy” Mitchell. Cost overruns and poor performance doomed the experimental strategic bomber, but it helped point the way to the future.
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