Boeing's über-Bomber!!!

What could be better than one B-17 bomber? Five of them! One Boeing engineer by the name of Herman Zuviel submitted this project right after the Pearl Harbor attack and the company managed to get the Air Force curious enough about the design to allocate a designation in a specially created "UB- for Ultra Bomber" class: Boeing XUB-1 Ultrafortress.

Fortunately somebody must have realized that the idea was doomed from the start and by June 1942 the project was heard of no more, and neither was Zuviel, who ended up in a mental hospital...

The Ultrafortress was created using the top view drawing of the Boeing B-17 that was duplicated, with some elements blended or redrawn.

Clearly designed as a wacky-looking aircraft with no attention to believability, I doubt the Ultrafortress could have flown or operated very well... that is, if it had found runways and hangars to properly accomodate her, anyway!!