Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers, Boeing Aircraft Company, Wichita, Kansas plant
Description:
View of Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber aircraft under construction at the Boeing Aircraft Company at the Wichita, Kansas plant. Label on back: "Easy does it! Complete with huge dual wheels of the main landing gear and two of the four 2,200 horsepower engines, the 17-ton main center wing section of a Boeing B-29 Superfortress is lowered to join the fuselage bomb bay section at the Wichita, Kansas Division plant of Boeing Airplane Company. Because the two units are manufactured for a perfect fit, it is necessary to jack up the center of the bomb bay section to allow a quarter of an inch tolerance 'spread' as the two nestle together. Removal of the jacks takes up the quarter-inch slack, resulting in a joint in which pre-bored bolt holes are perfectly aligned. Two of Boeing-Wichita's 10-ton cranes are called into united operation for this 17-ton job which is part of the Boeing-created multiline system of production by which the plants in Wichita have been turning out B-29 Superfortresses for more than a year. Besides being produced at the Boeing plants in Wichita and in Seattle and Renton, Wash., the Boeing-designed Superfortresses are being built at the Martin plant in Nebraska and the Bell plant in Georgia." Stamped on back: "Photo courtesy of Boeing Airplane Co., Wichita Division, Wichita, Kans. Please credit, Boeing-Wichita." Handwritten on back: "Aircraft propellers."
