Subject: Bomber Series--Martin XNBL-2

From: [email-masked]
Date: 31 May 94 16:21:21 GMT

>From [email-masked]

During the early 1920s, the Glenn L. Martin company proposed an 
advanced four-place monoplane bomber design.  It was to have been 
powered by a pair of 700 hp 18-cylinder W-2779 engines designed by the 
US Army's Engineering Division.  The engines were to be mounted in the 
leading edge of the wing, which had a span of 98 feet.  The Army 
showed sufficient interest that they ordered two prototypes under the 
designation XNBL-2.  

For a time, Colonel Billy Mitchell had promoted the XNBL-2 as the 
answer to the Army's long-range heavy bomber needs.  However, the 
concept seems to have been far too advanced for the time, and the 
XNBL-2 project was cancelled before anything could be built.  

Sources:

  United States Military Aircraft Since 1909, Gordon Swanborough and
  Peter M. Bowers, Smithsonian, 1989.

  American Combat Planes, Ray Wagner, Third Edition, Doubleday, 1982.

Joe Baugher		AT&T Bell Laboratories
			Naperville, Illinois