Boeing C-97 Stratofreighter
The Stratofreighter
“A B-29's wings under a double-decker fuselage.”
Boeing · military
Boeing built the C-97 by putting a two-storey fuselage on the wings and tail of the B-29, and most of the 888 built were KC-97 tankers that refuelled Strategic Air Command's jets through the 1950s. The problem was that a piston tanker could barely keep up with a jet bomber, so the KC-97L got two extra jet engines under the wings. Its airliner twin was the Stratocruiser. A single KC-97L still flies, with the Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation.
The KC-97L carried six engines: four big radials and two jet pods borrowed from the F-86, bolted on so it could refuel jets without stalling.
A huge, deep fuselage with a figure-eight cross-section, four radials, and a tall single fin. The KC-97L carries a jet pod under each outer wing.
One might be overhead right now.
Bogey turns the The Stratofreighter from a dot in the sky into a card in your logbook.
