Martin XB-51

leaded50

Legendary member
In February 1946, the United States Army Air Force (AAF) sought design proposals for an attack aircraft to replace the Douglas A-26 Invader. The Glenn L. Martin Company (Martin) responded with its Model 234, a straight-wing aircraft of a rather conventional layout, except that the engine nacelle on each wing housed a turboprop and a turbojet engine.
The Martin XB-51 was a unique attack bomber designed at the dawn of the jet age. The first prototype is seen here with its original tail. Note the inlet for the fuselage-mounted engine. The dark square behind the canopy is a window over the radio operator.
The new requirements necessitated a complete redesign of the XB-51, which Martin completed and submitted to the AAF in February 1947. After slight modifications, the design was somewhat finalized by July 1947. The AAF ordered two prototypes.
The Martin XB-51 was a radical departure from the firm’s previous aircraft designs. The XB-51 was an all-metal aircraft that featured a relatively large fuselage supported by relatively small swept wings. The aircraft had a crew of two and was powered by three General Electric J47-GE-13 engines, each developing 5,200 lbf (23.13 kN) of thrust. Two of the engines were mounted on short pylons attached to the lower sides of the aircraft in front of the wings. The third engine was buried in the extreme rear of the fuselage.

The XB-51 used tandem (bicycle) main gear that consisted of front and aft trucks, and outrigger wheels that deployed from the aircraft’s wingtips for support.

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leaded50

Legendary member
closer and closer to ready. connect pushrods, fix the two retracts with dual wheels, and its ok. Pretty lot of trouble to get the 6* degree anhedral wing to function with variable incident angle. Its fixed :) two servos, one servo reverser, custommade rods and fastner through the fuselage side into pipes in wings.


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leaded50

Legendary member
soon ended, just to get the retract covers to function properly. 3 X 4500 Kv 55mm EDF´s, adjustable wing incident, flaperons,weels support on wing ends, as on original.Full incident adjusted (10mm) down at rear, the wing wheels extactly touches ground approx. With normal flight incident, wing wheels dont touch before plane tips a bit to one side.. This adjustment of incident was done for better take-off situations, and sight for the pilot.
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