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Show U. S. Flying Fort Wins Big Order War Department Total Is $337,447,057 for Our Mightiest Bomber. WASHINGTON. A mighty new long-range, higls altitude bomber, believed by authorities here to be one of the world's most powerful aerial weapons, was ordered into mass production by the war department depart-ment with awards of contracts totaling to-taling $347,156,674. Representing this country's latest contribution to the British drive to win aerial superiority over the Axis powers, especially in far flying bombardment craft, the new plane was described officially as a bigger, improved model of the Btjeing flying fortress. Carrying heavier fire power than the B-17D flying fortresses now in use in the American air forces and the British Royal Air force, the B-17E incorporates armament improvements im-provements resulting Jrom lessons learned in the European war. These include gun turrets on xhe top and bottom, all designW to give the plane resistance against attack from any direction. Speed was expected to be about the same as that of the B-17D around 300 miles an hour. I Contracts Given Quickly. The first B-17E rolled out of the Boeing Airplane company's factory at Seattle recently and two and a half hours later was on its initial test flight. Later the war department issued an announcement that tests were being made and that the plane would be turned out in mass production produc-tion by three manufacturers Boeing, Boe-ing, Douglas Aircraft company at Santa Monica, Calif., and the Vega Airplane company, a Lockheed subsidiary, sub-sidiary, at Burbank, Calif. This was followed a short time later by announcements of the award of two contracts to Boeing for $337,-447,057 $337,-447,057 and one to Douglas for $9,709,616. Presumably the Vega orders will be disclosed later. Neither the type nor number of planes covered by these contracts was divulged nor the delivery dates given but officials made no secret of the significance of the sequence se-quence of events as" evidence that the B-17Es were being ordered in quantity. 1,000 Estimated on Order. On the basis of estimates tijat each of the new planes would cost in excess of $300,000, it was generally gen-erally accepted that manufacture of about 1,000 had been provided for by these contracts. Many of these planes undoubtedly will go to Britain under the lease-lend lease-lend program and others, it is expected, ex-pected, will be moving a few months from now to such 1 strategic American Amer-ican outposts as those in the Far East, the Caribbean and the North Atlantic. Planes of the B-17D class already have seen extensive service in British Brit-ish raids over northern Europe. On one daylight flight in the high altitudes, alti-tudes, the war department said "they were virtually beyond the range of sight or sound by hostile ground crews" and the first warning of the attack came "when bombs screamed down out of an apparently clear sky." |
