Originally Posted by
Hydro Junkie
And, once more, no guesses. I'm only going to give one clue today, but it should help a bit.
I'm looking for an aircraft:
1) The subject plane was designed and built by the same company that designed and built several "iconic" aircraft
2) Of the "iconic" aircraft, many of them saw combat
3) Some of the "iconic" aircraft saw service decades after their introduction
4) The subject plane was multi-engined
5) The subject aircraft was not a "single-seater"
6) The subject aircraft was armed with two guns an could carry over 10 tons of ordinance
7) The subject plane was developed as an answer to a plane designed and built by an adversary
8) The subject plane even has some design features in common with the adversary's plane
9) The subject plane used both old and new tech in its design
10) The subject plane was designed for one mission, spent most of its service life doing another
11) Ironically, another "iconic" aircraft from the same manufacturer suffered from the same mission change
12) Also ironically, the newer plane(who's first flight was 13 years after the subject plane) was over twice as fast, had half of the engines and crew but carried less than half the ordinance load at half the range as initially configured
13) Both planes had the gear required for the original mission removed and the specialized equipment for the new mission installed not long after being made operational
14) Roughly 150 of each type of aircraft were produced, including 36 of the iconic plane being built to replace 27 lost to the enemy and operational accidents
15) Both the subject and iconic plane from the last 4 clues were equipped with a tricycle landing gear arrangement, as was the adversary's plane mentioned previously
Good Luck
HJ; I'm paying attention; I just don't have a decent guess at this time. Things are pretty busy right now, but I may have a chance to do some research later today. Thanks; Ernie P.