The original B-32 had twin tails too. Regarding the high altitude pref, the Privateer was designed with a single tail & was intended for low altitude work...............
JBoyle wrote:
I hate to disagree with all of you, but
The B-36 was originally designed with twin tails.
It wasn't until the fall of 1943 when the USAAF Air Material Command did static tests of the twin configuration (this coming more than a year after initial wind tunnel tests at Langley, Ames, CALTECH and MIT) that it was decided to go with a single tail because of stress issues.
Considering the B-36 tail is much taller than the B-29 (a larger aspect ratio) and more like the taller tail that would eventually show up on B-50s & C-97, I don't think we can say Consolidated copied Boeing.
The fact that the B-32 eventually had a tall single tail may not be a copy case either. For the high atlitude missions for which the aircraft were designed, the single tail is the preferrable solution (after all, how many twin tail jet liners have you seen?).