the -29 cost more to develop and build than the bomb. And the B-29s built at the Bell bomber plant in Marietta were so bad initially crews were refusing to fly them. Also, with the tightly cowled 3350 engine, for a while more B-29s were going down to engine fires than combat.

Three B-29s landed in Russia and the Russians reverse engineered them.

On July 29, 1944 Ramp Tramp, a B-29-5-BW serial number 42-6256, was unable to return to its base after a raid in Manchuria and landed in Vladivostok.

On November 11, 1944 The General H.H. Arnold Special, serial number 42-6365, was damaged during a raid against Omura on Kyushu was forced to divert to Vladivostok

On November 21, 1944 Ding How, serial number 42-6358, also landed in Vladivostok.

In January, 1945 the crews of these aircraft were quietly returned to the U.S. via Teheran, but their aircraft stayed behind.

After flight tests of Ramp Tramp, Stalin launched a program to exactly duplicate the B-29 on June 22, 1945. The aircraft was initially called B-4, but was soon renamed Tu-4 after Andrei Tupolev became manager of the project


There were stories about some of the mistakes on the original B-29s were copied exactly because no one wanted to cross Stalin. Reportedly not true.. but the Tu-4 surprised many in the US after the war as few thought the Russians had the skill to build such a bomber.


The Chinese, never missing a chance, built their version and later even added turboprops (sorry for the huge images)