The B-29 Bomber: Russia Loved (and Copied) This Iconic Plane
Few aircraft have as great a mark on history. Here's What You Need to Know: Stalin instructed the Tupolev design bureau to abandon its own design program and instead make an exact copy of the B-29. Few aircraft have as great a mark on history as the B-29, the pencil-shaped American four-engine bomber that dropped the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What’s less well known is that the Soviet Union had its own B-29—as in, literally the same airplane, in all but a few respects. And like its American counterpart, this duplicate B-29 would deliver the Soviet Union’s first air-dr...