Model 299 Press Release IMMEDIATE RELEASE BOEING TEST BOMBER, MODEL 299 Hailed as the fastest and longest range bomber ever built, a giant four-engined all-metal airplane, today was brought to light by the Boeing Aircraft Company of Seattle after more than a year of work on the project. Known merely as the Boeing 299, the huge craft shortly will undergo test flights before being submitted to the United States Air Corps in open competition with other types at Dayton, Ohio. These tests, it was announced, are expected definitely to stamp the plane as the most formidable aerial defense weapon ever offered this country, with far more speed and a substantially greater cruising range than any bomber ever before produced. Military secrecy necessarily shrouds many details of the Model 299. Boeing officials said, however, that it would meet or exceed specifications of the Air Corps as set forth in a public call for bids and equipment. Among other things, these requirements are known to call for a high speed of from 200 to 250 miles an hour at 10,000 feet altitude, for an endurance at operating speed from six to ten hours, and for a service ceiling of from 20,000 to 25,000 feet. The Boeing "aerial battle cruiser" has a wing span of approximately 100 feet, length of 70 feet, height of 15 feet, and gross weight of about fifteen tons. It is of the all-metal mid-wing type, equipped with four Hornet engines of over 700 horsepower each and with the new Hamilton Standard three-bladed constant speed propellers. Clean streamlining is a feature, with retractable landing gear and tail wheel as further aids to speed. Officials declare the plane to be the first military type which will be able to complete a mission in the event one engine ceases to function. A number of new armament installations, developed by Boeing engineers, are carried in addition to the latest types of flight and engine instruments, including an automatic pilot, two-way radio telephone equipment and a radio "homing" device. Air brakes are used for the first time in any American aircraft, with these as well as the craft's wheels and tires having been especially developed. Construction is of typical Boeing semi-monocoque type, the structure consisting of longerons, skin stiffeners, bulkheads and smooth outside metal skin. The Model 299 makes its bow as the latest in a long line of Boeing achievements dating from 1916. Among these in recent years have been the company's high-speed twin-engined bomber of 1931 and commercial transport plane of 1933, both of which established the current trend in aircraft design and construction. An entire fleet of the transports, known as the Model 247-type, today is operating on the routes of United Air Lines, Pennsylvania Airlines, National Park Airways, Western Air Express and Wyoming Air Service. In addition, single-seater Boeing fighters are regular equipment at Army Air Corps bases, at Navy shore stations and on Uncle Sam's aircraft carriers. END WAR DEPARTMENT - July 5, 1935 Click here to return to the Boeing XB-17 Overview.