Plane Facts: Bombers

First bombing: 1911, just eight years after the first flight by the Wrights

Place: Libya (Italo-Turkish War)

Payload: specially designed steel bombs containing picric acid.

Casualties: Zero

First purpose-built bombers: 1913, Bristol T.B. 8 (British) and the Caproni Ca. 30 (Italian)

First use in war: November 25, 1914.

Maximum Payload: 120 pounds

First strategic bombing: WWI, city of Antwerp, Belgium.

Other WWI bombers: 1915, Zeppelins, which dropped bombs on towns near London

Deaths from these attacks: 557

Max payload: approximately 8,000 pounds

Loss rate for Zeppelins: 40 percent

Casualties from bombing in WWII: As many as 5 million on all sides

Most produced bomber WWII and of all time: Consolidated B-24 Liberator, 18,482 built

Top speed: 290 mph

Number of airworthy B-24s remaining worldwide: 2

Most famous WWII Allied Bomber: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, 12,731 produced

Top speed: 287 mph

Bomb payload: 4,500 pounds (long range) to 8,000 pounds (short range)

Most produced Axis bomber: Junkers Ju-88 light multi-role bomber

First Jet Bomber: German Arado Ar 234 Blitz

Number produced: 234

Top speed: 461 mph

Biggest payload WWII bomber: Boeing B-29 Superfortress, 20,000 pounds

Most famous B-29: Enola Gay

Most famous mission: Dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima, August 6, 1945

Power of that bomb: 16 kilotons of TNT

Atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.

Power of the Nagasaki bomb: 23 kilotons

Deaths from the two bombings: approximately 250,000.

Largest piston engine bomber ever: Convair B-36 "Peacemaker"

Wingspan: 230 feet (Boeing 747 span, 196 feet)

B-36 Number of engines: six Pratt & Whitney Wasp Major, 28 cylinders, 3800 hp each

Later B-36 modification: Added jet engines.

Top speed: 435 mph

First US intercontinental all-jet bomber: Boeing B-52, 1955

Top Speed: 650 mph

Propulsion: 8 Pratt & Whitney TF33 turbofans, 17,000 lbs thrust each

Range: Up to 10,000 miles unrefueled.

First stealth bomber: Horton Ho 229 jet-engine powered flying wing, 1944

Current stealthy heavy bombers: Northrup Grumman B-2 Spirit

Top speed: Mach .95

Ordinance payload: 40,000 pounds (30,000 pounds less than the B-52)

First sortie: Kosovo, 1999

Declared operational: 2003

Cost per unit: Approximately $1.5 billion

Number lost in combat: zero

Lost at home: one, in Guam after computer malfunction

Fatalities: None. Crew ejected safely.