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On 18 February 1943, Boeing’s chief test pilot Eddie Allen took off from Seattle in the second prototype of the B-29 Superfortress. Seventeen minutes later the bomber, its left wing on fire, crashed into the Frye meatpacking plant. The fire began in one of its four engines, the Wright R-3350 Duplex-Cyclone. That engine would go on to destroy more B-29s than enemy fighters and anti-aircraft fire combined. Yet the job of building it in war-winning numbers went to Dodge, a division of the Chrysler Corporation that had spent the 1930s making sedans and trucks. This documentary answers both halves of that puzzle: why the R-3350 was so dangerous, and why the US Army trusted a car company to build it. In this video, we cover: The B-29 programme, which cost more than the Manhattan Project, and General Hap Arnold’s gamble on an aircraft that had not yet flown. The engine’s flaws: rear cylinders that overheated, exhaust valves that failed, and magnesium parts that turned engine failures into wing fires. How the R-3350 compared with proven engines such as the Pratt & Whitney R-2800 and the Wright R-1820 that powered the B-17. Why Wright Aeronautical could not keep up with demand, and how the Truman Committee’s Lockland investigation damaged the company’s reputation. How K.T. Keller, Chrysler’s president, turned an unfinished, hand-fitted engine into a fully documented design that could be mass-produced. The Dodge-Chicago plant, designed by Albert Kahn’s firm. It was one of the largest buildings in the world, with its own foundries and forges and a workforce that had never built an aircraft engine. How Dodge compared with other carmakers’ war production: Ford at Willow Run, Packard’s Merlin, and Buick’s and Chevrolet’s Pratt & Whitney engines. The Battle of Kansas, when B-29s were rebuilt outdoors in a freezing winter to make their first deployment. Engine fires in India and over the Pacific, Paul Tibbets and the women pilots who proved the bomber could be flown safely, and the fixes that slowly tamed the engine: cooling baffles, cuffed propellers, better oil flow, cowl flap changes and direct fuel injection. Curtis LeMay’s switch to low-altitude raids, and the fuel-injected engines on the Enola Gay. Dodge-Chicago’s final total of 18,413 engines, the R-3350’s postwar life in the Lockheed Constellation, the Douglas DC-7 and the A-1 Skyraider, and the factory’s later life as the Tucker car plant and the Ford City shopping centre. The answer is clear. The engine was dangerous because of its rushed design and development, not because of Dodge’s workmanship. And Dodge built it because only Detroit’s mass-production methods could turn a flawed, hand-fitted engine into thousands of reliable ones in time. If you enjoy deep dives into World War II engineering, aviation history and the industrial story behind the Allied war effort, subscribe and tell us in the comments which car company’s war engine we should cover next. #B29 #B29Superfortress #WWII #WorldWar2 #AviationHistory #MilitaryHistory #WrightR3350 #Dodge #Chrysler #ArsenalOfDemocracy #WarProduction #EnolaGay #HapArnold #CurtisLeMay #PaulTibbets #AlbertKahn #BattleOfKansas #AircraftEngines #EngineeringHistory #History Sources Wesley W. Stout, Great Engines and Great Planes. Chrysler Corporation, 1947. (Chrysler’s account of the Dodge-Chicago plant and R-3350 production.) HistoryLink.org, “Prototype Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber crashes into Seattle’s Frye Packing Company on February 18, 1943.” Stephan Wilkinson, “Superbomber’s Achilles’ Heel,” Aviation History magazine (HistoryNet), September 2011. Aircraft Engine Historical Society, “Wright Cyclone Licensees” and “Case History of R-2600 Engine Project: Lockland Investigation.” NASA History Office, “The NACA Cools B-29 Engines During World War II.” Steve Birdsall, Saga of the Superfortress: The Dramatic Story of the B-29 and the Twentieth Air Force. Sidgwick & Jackson, 1981. Disclaimer: Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for ‘fair use’ for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. I do not own some or all of the video materials used in this video. In the case of copyright issues, please contact me at historymediachannel1@gmail.com for credit or removal.