The B-45 was the first jet to drop a live atomic bomb. This is the one that did it, on November 1st, 1951.



48-001 was the first B-45C built and one of the few to retain the C-model's distinctive tip tanks. Only ten C-model bombers were built, not enough to equip a combat unit, so they all went to the Air Research & Development Command. ARDC farmed some of them out to other USAF agencies for various test purposes, and to several private companies for jet engine and other test work, few of which required the extended range provided by the tip tanks.

If you look really closely at the nose you can see that the radome had been replaced by aluminum skinning with a small rectangular window at the tip of the nose. That's for the old Norden bombsight that was needed because the Tornado’s sophisticated bomb/nav system still wasn’t working.