Martin 234 (A-45)

[Jos Heyman]

I am looking for a picture of the Martin 234 in its A-45 guise, ie a straight wing with 2 turboprop and 2 turbojet engines.

Can anybody help?

 

[nugo]

Hi Jos Heyman!

http://www.strange-mecha.com/aircraft/Prototype/USAF-PA.htm

 

[hesham]

Great find Nugo,

and you can put it here.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Bleah. Behold actual *good* artwork...

Guess where you can see a higher-rez version? That's right, the blog that dares to be to the right of Marx!
http://up-ship.com/blog/

 

[Jos Heyman]

Thanks to all of you.

 

[Rickshaw]

Bleah. Behold actual *good* artwork...

Guess where you can see a higher-rez version? That's right, the blog that dares to be to the right of Marx!
http://up-ship.com/blog/

Why do you claim it had three engines and then state it had two turboprops and two turbojets?

 

[smurf]

XA-45, initial design, 2 jets, 2 props
XB-51 final design, 3 jets (very different design!)

 

[Orionblamblam]

Why do you claim it had three engines...

Because it did.

and then state it had two turboprops and two turbojets?

Because it did.

 

[lark]

See : 'U.S.bombers' thread of April 24 2006.

 

[Just call me Ray]

It does amaze me how divergent the final product became; I take it there was ultimately no lineage between the two designs other than in name.

 

[Orionblamblam]

I take it there was ultimately no lineage between the two designs other than in name.

Doesn't seem to have been much of a link. Best I can tell - given that I haven't devoted a great deal of effort to researching this - it seems likely that the requirements kept changing and at some point the original concept jsut became unworkable, and a whole new answer was produced.

 

[Stargazer]

It does amaze me how divergent the final product became; I take it there was ultimately no lineage between the two designs other than in name.

To be quite frank, if I wasn't told that these represented Martin's XA-45 project, I could have sworn they were Douglas proposals: the shape of the tail, the general wing configuration, the twin cockpits...

 

[frank]

I dunno. It does have a bit of a Douglas look, but the tail to me is also reminiscent of the Mercator & the Marlin prototype tail. As i was looking at the drawing tho, it looks like Post WWII Soviet. Even the drawing (kinda plain & gray) looks like one of those concept sketches we used to see of what we "think it looks like"!

It does amaze me how divergent the final product became; I take it there was ultimately no lineage between the two designs other than in name.

To be quite frank, if I wasn't told that these represented Martin's XA-45 project, I could have sworn they were Douglas proposals: the shape of the tail, the general wing configuration, the twin cockpits...

 

[Stargazer]

Yeah. I think Hesham's picture was done by a non-professional, such as an illustrator for a popular science type magazine. The one OrionBlamBlam has posted looks genuine all the way. I just find it strange that the bug-eyed like twin cockpit, a typical Douglas feature used on their C-74/DC-7 and on the XB-42/-43, ended up on a Martin bomber project.