Key Points – The Boeing B-47 Stratojet, developed in the late 1940s as the first US jet-powered medium bomber, was a technological marvel featuring a revolutionary swept-wing and podded-engine ...

Was the B-47 Stratojet just too good for its own time, or did its revolutionary engineering compel an entire generation of pilots and designers to reconsider what was possible and survivable in ...

The six-engine configuration was also distinct—and more importantly, powerful; when the B-47 rolled off the assembly line in the late 1940s, the type was regarded as the fastest bomber in the world.

According to Robert Robbins, B-47 test pilot, “the best way to tell about the performance of the Stratojet was to say that any good crew could have flown it. It took no unusual ability or education.

The B-47 was adopted into reconnaissance roles, weather reporting duty, and of course, carrying bombs. It stopped production in 1956 with 2,032 B-47s in all varieties taking to the skies.

A smashed engine from a crashed B-47 bomber attracted the attention of spectators, who flocked to the scene north of Comfrey to view the crash 50 years ago.