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One of the signs accompanying the buzz bomb. It reads

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Republic/Ford

JB-2 Loon (V-1 "Buzz Bomb")

The JB-2 was the US made copy of the famous German V-1 surface-to-surface, pilotless flying bomb first used against England in June 1944. The Republic Aviation Corporation built the airframe for the JB-2 from drawings prepared at Wright Field, using dimensions taken from the remains of several V-1s brought from Germany. The Ford Motor Company built the engine, which was a copy of the V-1's 900 lbs thrust Argus-Schmidt pulse-jet.

Republic and Ford built 1,000 JB-2s for the Army and Navy. Production deliveries began in January 1945, but the US Army Air Forces cancelled further production when World War II ended. The first JB-2 test flight took place at Eglin Field, Florida, in October 1944. Just before the end of the war, an aircraft carrier en route to the Pacific took on a load of JB-2s for possible use in the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands. Although never used in combat, the JB-2 provided valuable data for the design and construction of more advanced weapons.

The JB-2 displayed was obtained from the Continental Motors Corporation, Muskegon, Michigan in December 1956.

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Technical Notes
Armament:	2,100 lb high-explosive warhead
Operating speed:	375-400 mph
Range:	150 miles
Operating altitude:	2,000-4,000 ft
Weight:	5,023 lbs loaded

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