Posted on 03/13/2022 7:26:03 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
Go Hokies!!! I work in the building with the VT supercomputer
The B-36 was bristling with 20mm cannons.
hnroed = honored
I wish you could go back and edit posts for typos!
I knew what you meant.
By 1976 or so, it seemed like everyone had calculators, true. For a while you’d see plenty of slide rules in thrift stores, but not recently. My old slide rule is in a junk drawer in the spare desk rather than on the wall.
We had a VT grad working for a while at the Arizona copper mine I retired from. Don’t know if he’s still with the company.
Well truth in advertising I’m from WV. In order to be allowed back in the will and not have to eat at the ‘little kids table’ at family gatherings I had to “fix” my VaTech mistake. So I went to grad school at WVU (worked part-time at first!). I also switched to EE\Math. Got an MS in that eventually, and then went to work for a while. My family went to WVU since the beginning of time. As I stated above I was a pariah for not doing my undergrad there. (Seriously I was! My uncles were pissed at me!) Another thing driving going to grad school, it was the late 1970s, oil prices were crashing as were geoscience jobs. I already survived one layoff, I wasn’t going to chance another particularly while I was still a free man. Later I returned there for a PhD.
I have two “connections” to the B-36:
In 7th and 8th grade (1953-1955), I lived in Lakeland, FL. As it turned out, Lakeland was in the landing pattern for MacDill AFB over in Tampa,
and B-36s routinely flew over Lakeland. Most all activity stopped as those behemoths “droned” overhead! Unmistakable sound!
In Sept. 1964, returning FRom a marvelous post-commissioning leave trip to Wausau, WI, I accidentally passed by the now defunct Chanute AFB.
There was a static display B-36 out by the main gate, and for some reason, the aircraft was open for casual inspection. I was able to inspect the cockpit,
forward crew area and bomb bay. It was, as you all know, enormous! I have no idea why the fence around the aircraft was open, nor do I have any idea
why access to the cockpit and bomb bays was available to passers-by. I have pictures of it, somewhere!
Anybody on this forum know the disposition of that “Peacemaker?”
When I attended AOCS in Pensacola, FL, in 1964, that R-4360 cutaway was used to teach us about “round engines.”
Several of the Unlimited aircraft that race every year at Reno use this powerplant.
The R-3350 is the more common “round engine” - e.g. Rare Bear, Super Corsair, re-engined Sea Fury, etc.
Of course, Merlins and Griffons abound!
Really? My Dad was a SAC B-47 navigator from 1958-64. He liked to refer to the B-52 as "the box the B-47 came in." :)
As I'm sure you know, the B-47 was a huge technological leap over anything that existed before.
You know the old saying: Life is what happens when you’ve made other plans. For much of my life, if I ever tried to predict a year in advance where I’d be and what would be happening, I’d be wrong.
Flexibility is the watchword! Rigidity and single-minded specialization are for dinosaurs i.e, guarantees job\professional extinction!
Who imagined a ten engine aircraft would have ever been manufactured?
So, you live in Rome?
When I was four year old, we lived in a house for which the fence in the back yard was the perimeter fence for the airfield area of Carswell AFB.
When the B-36s took off, the ground shook.
Plus, the base had a construction project going to lengthen the runway, so there was constant bulldozer/scraper activity.
For a four-year-old kid, it was glorious.
Here are several photos.
B-17, B-29, B-36, B-52, B-58
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Carswell_Air_Force_Base
Many many aircraft: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/502010689698608815
Bookmark
It was, but the family didn’t know much about what he was working on until the rest of the public did. It was always top secret. That said, I was, and still am, intrigued by the model he had of a flying saucer, complete with Air Force insignia and air frame number. Seriously. I wish I had paid more attention, but as a girl I was far more interested in what he would bring me from his trips to Alamogordo and London. SMH
It was similar, but I don’t remember a cockpit for a pilot.
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