Boeing B-47 Prototypes & Projects

[Yellow Palace]

According to this article the B-47 was considered for the Gunship II requirement that lead to the AC-130, which did indeed carry four M61s.

The Awesome Power of USAF Gunships | Air & Space Forces Magazine

The big guns pouring it on from a pylon turn can ruin an enemy's whole day.

www.airandspaceforces.com

Whether the drawing has any link to this proposal, I have no idea. There's certainly no mention of the B-47 in the official USAF history of gunship development.

 

[iverson]

and

The drawing is from Habermehl and Hopkins, Boeing B-47 Stratojet: Strategic Air Command's Transitional Bomber (Crecy, 2028):200-201.

They say that Tropic Moon IV was a Boeing/Emerson Electric proposal that did not impress the USAF. Some 30-40 of the best B-47 airframes available would have been given a new radar, Low-Light-Level Television (LLLTV), an IR sensor, and a laser range finder. Armament would have included a bomb-bay-mounted bomblet dispenser in addition to the M61 gun turrets.

The book also discusses other proposals for using updated B-47s in Vietnam, as bombers, reconaissance platforms, and remotely piloted flying bombs filled with explosive slurry.

 

[hesham]

From Boeing magazine 1950.

 

[hesham]

From Air Force 1950,

the upper right picture 2 is to a half model from its developments,very
strange to me ?,have a look..

 

[BAROBA]

That would be model 448.
It has 3 pages of information ( mostly pictures) in Scott Lowther's book:
Boeing B-47 Stratojet and B-52 Stratofortress: Origins and evolution.
Pages 22 to 24.

Edit: Updated with extra book information

 

[hesham]

From Air Force 1957.

 

[hesham]

That's Boeing B-47,right ?.

Aviation Week & Space Technology 1957-03-25: Vol 66 Iss 12 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Aviation Week & Space Technology 1957-03-25: Volume 66, Issue 12.Digitized from IA1514330-06.Previous issue:...

archive.org

 

[XP67_Moonbat]

This old chestnut, yet again. This time, from Skyrocketing Into The Unknown (1954) by Charles Coombs

 

[CJGibson]

Literally just found this on a discord group, no source given (yet, I've asked), and... Is there anything to this?

View attachment 701189

It's my drawing, one of many I did for Mike Habermehl and Robert Hopkins' Boeing B-47 Stratojet, published by Crecy.

I also discuss a B-47 used for contrail elimination trials in the UK in They Also Serve.

Chris

 

[Pioneer]

Boeing artist impression of their proposed Model 704 land-based mine layer for 1951 USN OS-128.

(Source: Aircraft that never were and What if Group, Facebook)

Regards
Pioneer

 

[Christopher Wang]

Boeing YB-47C / Model 450-155-33

SOURCE: Lowther, Scott. (2022). Boeing B-47 Stratojet and B-52 Stratofortress: Origins and Evolution. Tempest.

 

[Elan Vital]

Boeing YB-47C / Model 450-155-33
View attachment 742771
SOURCE: Lowther, Scott. (2022). Boeing B-47 Stratojet and B-52 Stratofortress: Origins and Evolution. Tempest.

It feels like a B-47 reworked to a similar standard as a B-52, but scaled down.

 

[NUSNA_Moebius]

Considering the useful longevity of the B-52, an improved, modernized, wet wing B-47 with 4x medium bypass turbofans and external hard points would’ve been useful in the low intensity conflicts of the 21st century.