CONVAIR B-36 - Story of the Strategic Air Command's Cold War Peacemaker

when you think of the strategic air command airplanes like the boeing b-47 and the boeing b-52 usually come to mind but before these jets there was another airplane it was the convair b-36 and we're going to be looking at this airplane in detail in a special episode of celebrating aviation with mike machat when you look at the b-36's place in history you have to realize it was designed as what is called a deterrent weapon this essentially means you're designing an airplane so that never has to be used in wartime to fully appreciate this let's go back to the very beginning before there was a rockwell b1 lancer there was a martin b1 america's first large manned bomber but the concept of strategic bombing came into its own during world war ii with airplanes like the b-17 the b-24 the long-range b-29 and its more powerful sibling the b-50 this is where our story begins for the strategic air command was established for the united states army air forces on march 21st 1946 the first airplane delivered to sac was the b-50 in june of 1948. the second airplane was the convoy b-36 in september of that same year well let's start with the company that built it consolidated volte consolidated volte built b-24s and later the b-32 during world war ii in a dedicated plant in fort worth texas the b-32 was the last airplane built before this new bomber which was envisioned in a army contract in november 1941. the army called for an airplane that would have a 300 mile per hour cruise speed a 10 000 mile range unrefueled a service ceiling of 40 000 feet a payload of ten thousand pounds and essentially four times the combat radius of the b-17 while carrying twice the bomb load and this airplane would be called the xb36 well the secret to any good airplane is a good power plant and the xb36 was to use the 3 000 horsepower pratt whitney r 4360 wasp major radial engine other airplanes using this engine at that time were the northrop xb35 flying wing the hughes hercules flying boat the xf-11 and xf12 photo recon prototype competitors boeing's beautiful strata cruiser and the b-50 super fortress fighters use this engine as well the goodyear super corsair and the martin mauler both use the r4360 here's a beautiful comparison of the new xb36 on the ramp at fort worth park next to the once massive boeing b-29 the secret to the airplane was aerodynamic cleanliness streamlining this is what gave the airplane a good range beautiful head-on view of the xb36 shows this at left is consolidated chief test pilot beryl erickson and on the right is his co-pilot gus green these gentlemen plus a crew of seven made the first flight of the xb36 on with his 160 foot length and 300 thousand pound takeoff weight the xb36 was roughly the same size as a boeing 767 300 today and note the consolidated c87 chase plane in this photo well there were some changes to the production airplane namely that the cockpit was raised up and the nose section was then developed into a three level uh compartment with the bombardier in the nose section that you see here also the original airplane had rounded propeller tips which were aerodynamically efficient but the inboard engines were beating up pretty badly on the fuselage and the noise and vibration created tremendous fatigue for the crew this problem was solved with square propeller tips seen here this is an interesting airplane ship four only had two flights the first in this photo is a shakedown cruise as it were to test all the systems the second was a one-way ferry trip from fort worth to wright-patterson air force base in dayton ohio for static testing but here we can see the clean lines of the b-36 an elegant airplane and very advanced for its time period to consider the late 40s this was really quite a quite a machine so much so that five of these airplanes were used to fly over the inauguration of president harry s truman in washington dc on january 19 1949 and here we see three of them flying over the capitol peacemaker was never an official name for the b-36 by the way but the city of fort worth was the name of this aircraft from the seventh bomb wing seen at the opening ceremonies for new york's idlewild airport on july 31st 1948. this airport is now jfk today but the b-36 was there and really wowed the public this big hand-painted sign really told the story and i could let you just memorize this i wouldn't have to narrate the rest of the program but i'll save you that i would like to mention that the the way these signs were written the way the information was conveyed to the american public at that time it was really amazing for instance the fuel capacity was 21 000 gallons well how much is that it's the amount of gasoline that an auto could circle the world 16 times and then still have enough to tour every state in the union that's a lot of gas the interior volume was the sign of 10 average american living rooms and the volume inside the bomb bays was equivalent to that of four railroad freight cars pretty cool stuff ads brought this message to the american public as well engineering to the nth power pretty cool the artwork in these ads was inspirational to me uh and really inspired my career as an aviation artist the color the shape and the layout was just magic to a young kid but now you notice the name is changed to conveyor and that's a contraction of consolidated volte aircraft what was the next step for the b-36 well jet power was needed to augment b-36 performance during takeoff and while inbound or aggressing a target area the answer five thousand two hundred pound thrust general electric j47 turbo jets in the same nacelle and pylon as the inboard engines of a boeing b-47 initial tests were flown with this b-36b fitted with gm allison j-35s the j-47s were modified to run on avgas eliminating the need for a separate fuel system aboard the bomber the b47 is lower in the cell pod that housed its outrigger landing gear was retained although the gear itself was removed and there was a landing light on the forward portion of that structure these are the novel retractable shutters that were used for streamlining engine cells when the jets were not in use the open position for the engine running is seen on the left closed position is on the right here's a beautiful shot of a factory fresh b-36d departing the pattern at carswell seen there at the top of the photo you notice there's no unit markings on the airplane yet and then if you look closer at the airport you see the mile-long consolidated plant 4 that was constructed for b-24 liberator production during world war ii adjacent to what was then called fort worth army airfield it was later renamed carswell air force base the initial runway length was 8 200 feet and lake worth can be seen at the right well here's b-24 production you notice there's two rows of liberators in this mile-long building but with the b-36 there's room for just one airplane canted at a 45-degree angle if you look at the second airplane in the row here ship025 you notice that the vertical stabilizer is well up in the girders of the building so how would they move the production line well i'm glad you asked it was a very novel technique the nose of the airplane was raised up in a specially designed cradle and then the main landing gear were put on dollies and then towed down the production line let's climb aboard and look inside the b-36 here's the lower nose compartment which houses the bombardier at front and the radar navigator at the table at left a gun sight for the nose turret was fitted into the small circular aperture seen at top center the pilot's instrument panel was pretty straightforward because all the engine instruments and controls were isolated on the flight engineers panel at the rear of the cockpit the flight engineer controlled the engines and monitored all aircraft systems the white top levers you see are the throttles while the blacktop levers at the left are the propeller controls this panel in the middle of the main flight engineers console controlled the pressurization for the forward and aft cabins you see separate altimeters an outside altimeter rate of climb and air flow and it was up to the flight engineer to keep everybody on the plane comfortable it was like juggling the radio operator sat in the mid deck compartment immediately after the cockpit note the vacuum tube trays above the radios pretty state of the art for early 1950s here's a crewman in the massive bomb bay showing the b-36s 12 and a half foot fuselage diameter in this section of the bombay about again the size of a railroad freight car we sit at see it fitted for carrying a nuclear device if that was ever necessary an unpressurized 80 foot long tunnel connected the forward and aft fuselage compartments crewmen propelled themselves through the tunnel by hand using the ropes seen above the aft compartment housed the somewhat spartan crew rest area as well as the aft galley lavatory and observation blisters with gun sights for the remotely controlled gun turrets here we see the 20 millimeter cannons in the retracted position on the top of the aft fuselage the b-36d was powered by upgraded 3500 horsepower pratt whitney r 4360-41 radial engines augmented by four general electric which generated the famous phrase six turnin and four burnin the rb36d uh was developed from this gentleman general curtis lemay seen in the cockpit of the boeing 367-80 jet transport prototype that he was checking out to be the next jet tanker for his uh jet bombers in the strategic air command lemay was a pivotal figure in the development of the air force and later became chief of staff and he had a theory about photo recon airplanes and that's where the rb 36 came in he felt that the photo recon aircraft should have the same capabilities as the bombers and so here's the rb-36 it's distinguished by a aluminum forward fuselage and i should mention that the main fuselage between the compartments that were pressurized was made out of magnesium which was a brittle metal that wasn't suitable for pressurization so on the rb there was a pressurized camera compartment for operators and a dark room on board for loading and unloading cameras and film and so this is readily identified it also has two windows as you can see there on the bottom of the rb36 we're what we're called ferret antenna this is electronic counter measure equipment and the radomes are very identifiable as well the rb-36d had a crew of between 18 and 22 men depending on the mission duration and to prove the aircraft's endurance a conveyor crew flew a demonstration flight in january of 1951 that lasted get this nearly 52 hours or more than two full days in the air that flight covered 11 000 miles and dropped a mock ten thousand pound payload as well this is a neat photo that shows the magnesium center fuselage structure and for you modelers out there this is a good example of the early markings of the airplane and compare this to the later and final markings of the airplane in the anti-nuke flash white undersides notice that the engine pylons or engine the cells rather are painted white as well there were a total of 384 b-36s built between 1946 and 1954. there are a number of variants of the b-36 let's take a look at those now first and foremost the very first prototype the xb36 was fitted with track landing gear this was all the rage in the late 1940s there were cargo planes all sorts of airplanes fitted with track landing gear the idea being that this could be used like a tank on soft or unprepared fields but it really wasn't necessary that wasn't a very successful situation as well so that never came to pass but here's an airplane that did take flight it's the wing and engine of the b-36 and the tail planes combined with a double-deck cargo fuselage that was about 30 feet longer than the b-36 and this is the xc99 believe it or not the xc99 was ordered by pan american world airways it would have carried 200 passengers in airline service but the post-war airline market was not supportive of that and the order was canceled for similar reasons smaller military airplanes like the fairchild c-119 flying boxcar and douglas c-124 globemaster took over the role of global airlift the xc99 was cancelled here's the main landing gear some similar to the b36 and you notice the engine markings on uh i guess that would be engine number four to identify each nacelle but the slanted lines are to show the position of the flaps when they're extended or retracted seen on the xc99's massive flight deck are consolidated chief of flight test russell rogers that left and project engineer robert hoover at right unlike in the b-36 the flight engineers sat in the center facing forward and operated engine controls and aircraft systems you can see the large bank of engine instruments on the overhead panel and aviation was very different in the 1950s the public was just really enamored with all the latest airplanes here we see an exuberant crowd greeting the xc99 landing on its first flight from san diego's lindbergh field on november 24th 1947 the next variant is called the ficon and that stands for fighter conveyor it was a concept where a large bomber could carry its own fighter escort scout airplane or as we'll see in a moment photo recon it was a novel approach the initial testing was flown with the republic f-84e thunderjet in 1952. fighters were also attached to the bombers wing tips but this was never adapted for operational use the prototype f-84f thunderstreak was adapted to ficon testing here we see it about to hook up to the trapeze ficon aircraft were launched and recovered at 25 000 feet and the grb-36s were fitted with separate fuel tanks carrying jp4 fuel for the fighters but here's the airplane that did become operational in the ficon roll republic built 25 grf-84ks to serve as ficon aircraft with the 99th bomb wing at fairchild air force base in washington in 1955. you'll note that the tail planes have a tremendous amount of anhedral or downward angle to be adapted into the b-36 bomb bay and this is the mating pit the b-36 was backed over this and then the f-84 was raised up into position an interesting single airplane was the nb-36h this was a heavily modified b-36 that served as an airborne test bed for a nuclear-powered aircraft and it did carry a reactor although that never did power the aircraft's engines the nb-36h made 47 test flights and would have been redesignated as the x6 had it advanced to a true nuclear aircraft test program now here's an interesting airplane as a possible competitor to boeing's b-52 two uncompleted b-36f were converted into swept wing yb60s powered by eight 8700 pound thrust pratt whitney j-57 engines the b-52 and yb60 both flew in april 1952 but the b-52 was 100 miles per hour faster and had better overall performance here's the yb 60 taking flight at edwards air force base it was an interesting airplane it was even a passenger version proposed but again the performance just was underwhelming especially compared to the b-52 and boeing already had the 707 coming into production the flight deck of the yb60 was different than the b-36 because the flight engineer like in the xc99 sat in the center facing forward and here are all the engine instruments integrated into the main instrument panel here you can see the unmistakable resemblance to the cockpit of the b36 and a very novel feature of the b60 was a tail wheel that extended in the event of a certain loads or cg situations where the airplane would become tail heavy and finally we have an airplane that looks like a mother ship about to launch some exotic delta wing x-plane but what this is actually is a modified b-36f that on march 12 1957 made a one-time ferry flight carrying a b-58 airframe from fort worth to right pat for static testing you'll notice that the props were removed from the inboard engines and the entire flight was made with a landing gear extended and here it is touching down at wright patterson interesting concept well for me the strategic air command is all about the crews these are dedicated men uh when i was in the air force sac was considered the best of the best and uh these are hard working folks you can see here the aircraft commander briefing his crew before boarding for what looks like a long-range mission and i couldn't talk about the b-36 without mentioning this fantastic movie jimmy stewart and strategic air command which i should mention uh was brought to the american public by curtis lemay working with paramount pictures to really convey the story of sac to america here we see colonel dutch holland saying goodbye to june allison the perfect air force wife and he's telling her it won't be too long it's only going to be one takeoff and one landing on this familiarization flight not realizing that they're going to make a round trip to alaska in between i don't want to give away the ending of the movie but here's uh colonel holland saying goodbye to general hawkes who was played by frank lovejoy and was based on general lemay it's a fabulous film if you can get it on dvd or download it i strongly suggest that you're going to love seeing all the aviation in this beautiful beautiful movie well the b-36 was a formidable airplane and it lived up to its requirement it never fired a shot in anger was never used in combat but what's really amazing is that as magnificent as this machine was only 11 years and three months later from the same runway at fort worth and flown by the same pilot barrel erickson this airplane took flight the mach 2 b-58 hustler and in this airplane ericsson achieved the distinction of becoming the first pilot to log a hundred hours of supersonic flight time so there you have it the story of the incredible conveyor b36 want to dedicate this program to my dear friend glenn weaver and a special thanks to the folks who allowed the usage of images and the stories and the technical information to make this presentation possible i hope you've enjoyed celebrating aviation with mike michelle thank you very much for watching we'd love to have you on board as a subscriber and until next time take care you

Channel: Celebrating Aviation with Mike Machat

Views: 226,334

Keywords: #convairb36, #usairforce, #fortworthtexas, #coldwar, #strategicaircommand, #carswellafb

Id: ycEsdappQiI

Length: 22min 47sec (1367 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 25 2022