Posted on 03/13/2022 7:26:03 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
Much was made of the fact that the wing of the B-36 Peacemaker was deep enough to allow engineers to enter it and maintain the engines in flight.
Conceived during 1941 in case Germany occupied Britain, when US bombers would then have insufficient range to retaliate, the B-36 Peacemaker was to be primarily a ‘10,000-mile bomber’ with heavy defensive armament, six engines and a performance that would prevent interception by fighters.
It was one of the first aircraft to use substantial amounts of magnesium in its structure, leading to the bomber’s ‘Magnesium Overcast’ nickname. It earned many superlatives due to the size and complexity of its structure, which used 27 miles of wiring, had a wingspan longer than the Wright brothers’ first flight, equivalent engine power to 400 cars, the same internal capacity as three five-room houses and 27,000 gallons of internal fuel – enough to propel a car around the world 18 times.
Pilot Lt Col Ed Sandin of the 5th SRW pioneered a hazardous technique for reaching down and inserting a main landing gear down-lock in flight after numerous attempts to make the gear lock down. The narrow crawl-way to this position over the wheel well meant that the job had to be done without wearing a parachute, while trying to avoid looking down into an open abyss below.
(Excerpt) Read more at theaviationgeekclub.com ...
“You couldn’t do that today. Maybe they had faster computers in the 1940s? Or maybe our military acquisition is FUBAR.”
Why LIE to us? We’re right now in the process of developing our next bomber...ahhh, which will be deployed starting 2040.
They have one at the Pima Air Museum in Tucson
“Or maybe our military acquisition is FUBAR.”
Baby needs new shoes. :)
I saw one at the Castle museum in Atwater a few years back. I remember it created lots of shade, which was important at the time, as it was 107 degrees that day.
My dad used to talk about how the B-36 was supposed to be able to use the runway at Kadena (Okinawa) even though the lighter B-29s had pounded the concrete badly enough that there were considerable bumps in it already. He came back stateside without actually seeing a Big Stick land there.
I thought the same thing. the greatest fighter ever, the P51 Mustang was designed in April 1940 - its first test flight was 147 days later. It entered service in January 1942. We produced 15,000 of them, at a cost of $50K per copy (If you believe government inflation statistics, that's about $750K now)
Bids for the Hoover Dam were opened on January 10, 1931, and the completed dam was dedicated Sept. 30. 1935 - 4.5 years later. It cost $684 million in 2020 dollars.
If that were tried today - it would take 20 years and cost $20 billion, at minimum
We are not the same country we were.
“I still used one in the early 1970s, because I was too cheap to spring for the TI handheld calculator.”
It appears we attended college around the same time (1973-77 for me) with the transition from slide rules to the TI calculator. When I first started college, engineering majors were easy to identify with their long leather pouches suspended from their belt to carry their slide rule. A short time later, you could discern which engineering major had money because now the belt holster was one for a TI calculator.
“was obsolescent by the time it became operational”
But that didn’t stop Stuart Symington from shutting down the technically superior YB-49 program at Northrop to make sure the money went to his buddies at Convair.
Had he not done that, we would have had operational stealth bombers (a feature of the YB-49) in the 1950s, instead of the massive kludge that had to be parked at Davis-Monthan after not much more then a decade of use.
I knew a fellow who “upped” twice in B17s in WWII as a tail gunner, then stayed in after the war. He eventually became a tail gunner in a B36. They flew inside the Grand Canyon a couple of times just to loosen their bowels.
Six turning, four burning.
That’s a beautiful display setup!
Yup. Was just going to point that out.
Whats the prop job? DC what? Lord I cant remember anything anymore.
“C-54.”
Thanks to you. I can NOT remember anything anymore.
”Peacemaker”. Such an appropriate name. Those who don’t seek peace will have peace dropped on them until they are at peace.
I believe that there’s too many more corporations, departments, and politicians to pay off to manage all that corruption in the time required to match the 1940s era acquisition time.
I used a slide rule in college until about 1975 when I got a TI calculator from my parents for Christmas. Still know where the old Pickett is, though nowadays I use the HP 15C that I bought in 1984. That 15C sold me on reverse Polish notation, but I don’t think any calculators with RPN are still being made.
I have walked around underneath the B-36 at the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson. That’s a place well worth seeing, especially if you have a few days to spend there. Every cool plane you ever heard of, and then some.
It 2 B36. A C97 and a B47
Awesome cutaway! I can’t imagine working on that. I worked on diesels for 40 years.
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