I've always been Amazed by that aircraft My father flew in Sac for 7 years on the B-36 and the B-47 I've always been extremely proud of my father for the sacrifice and he made for our country bless his soul rest in peace Miss very much
They had a sound that when you heard it, there was no mistake it was a B-36. I grew up in Sioux City, Iowa......not all that far from Rapid City and Ellsworth AFB. One Sunday afternoon, there was a tremendous rumble overhead. I ran outside to witness five of these monsters flying in formation, heading, I guessed, back to Ellsworth. Just a hundred miles south of Sioux City, is Omaha and Bellevue, Nebraka. Offutt AFB (near Bellevue) is/was headquarters for SAC. My guess was that there was probably perhaps a change of command at Offutt and the flyover of the five B-36’s was part of that ceremony. And, I supposed that the formation made a low pass over Sioux City, on the way back to Ellsworth.
Yes they sacrificed so much. I remember being in the MeKong delta in the summer of 1967. We were pulling Leeches off our gear and ourselves staying low because Charlie was trying to register a Mortar on our position. Pvt Jones remarked how at least we weren't sitting ready alert in Nebraska. But Hey "They also serve who only stand and wait" (John Milton).
Thanks for posting this. The announcer erred in staying that at 50,000 the plane was cruising in the "troposphere". He meant "the stratosphere"...the troposphere is the lowest part of the atmosphere.
I'm starting an internship at Castle Air Force Museum where I'll get to work on one of the four surviving ones! It's an RB-36H. The museum is in Atwater, CA
@@jetstream01 We can dream, can't we ? Just rebuilding the engines would not be all that prohibitive. There is at least one shop out there that can rebuild the Wasp 4360's for about 200k each. The J-47's are do-able at about 250k per. So that's only 2.2 million for 10 fresh motors. Figure another million to renovate and upgrade the cockpit, a million to re-wire the plane, and another 1-2 million for fresh hydraulics. New tires are about 5k or more each , so that's only another 50k. The real bugger in the project is replacing all the magnesium parts, which by now have just about corroded to dust. The replacements would have to be fabricated out of aluminum alloy. The main wing spar is something I haven't looked into, but on the freshest plane of the four it might still be OK . Replacing the spar is probably not do-able. The example at Pima Air and Space Museum, B-36J, Ser. No. 52-2827, the last B-36 built, would be the likeliest candidate. Some sporadic restoration has been done on it and it looks to be in pretty good overall condition. Funding efforts in the 1970's for a complete airworthy restoration fell short, and it has been on static display since.
@@antoniograncino3506 I don't think all the money in the world could ever get one airworthy again. The best chance would have been in the early 70's but unfortunately we both know how that turned out. We'd probably have better luck inventing a time machine that could take us back to the 40's and 50's to see them fly again. If you haven't already, check out B-36 Interest Group on Facebook. Lots of former B-36 crew members are active in that group.
@@lincbond442 The failure of the airworthiness project in the '70s was due to a lack of funding for a complete job. Some superficial work was done, but no bucks for the meat of the matter.
I remember when my father served in the Air Force back in the day and seeing one of those bombers was an awesome sight to someone who was a toddler. He was in Search and Air Rescue so he was the elite of the service. Great first 10 years of my life it was.
Yes. Bigger than a Buff. Almost 3 feet longer, 6 feet taller and *45 feet* greater in wing span. I had the pleasure of seeing one once. It's absolutely enormous.
There is a cutaway of a B36 engine at the SAC museum in Omaha..One of the most amazing mechanical things I have ever seen..Have climbed around inside (and saw it land about '53 in Sacramento,,McClellan AFB) the only XC99...two B36 fuselages stacked atop each other...no jets.
I co authored the book on the LOCKHEED R60-1 Constitution which came out about the same time as the B-36. The Constitution had multiple wheel landing gear which spread the weight. Both would have been used in the Pacific had the Japanese taken out the fuel tank farms at Pearl harbor.
Actually, at high altitude, all the b-36 had to do to avoid a Mig-15, or any of the eary jets for that matter, was to enter into a slight turn. The MIG, with it's smaller wings, would stall out if it tried the follow in the turn.
Charles Walker Thats true! I've read the same statement from several different former Pilots of the B36. I think people forget how unmaneuverable early jet fighters were at close to maximum service ceiling.
When dad came back from Korea (F-80's) and transitioned to F-86's, the fighter "jocks" would try to intercept the B-36's at altitude. Dad tried to take a handheld picture of his successful intercept. All he had to show was a silver blur. It seems as he was trying to manipulate the camera, he kinda got behind the airplane. . . . and fell out of the sky just when he tripped the shutter. And that 36 just kept on flying.
I had a few old timers who told some of us new guys about the B-36 bombers when I went to my first duty station. They worked on them and was glad to be on the B-52's. I never heard anyone talk about the B-47 bomber though, either negative or positive.
The plane shown is not a featherweight model it is a D model. All featherweight modifications were done on J models. The Featherweight had no guns, except the radar controlled tail gun, or blisters. The crew was reduced as there was no need for gunners. The rear compartment was pretty bare bunks and kitchen removed.
@saepler Wrong, when stalled the wings dropped nose first because a stall causes the center of lift to jump further back. Charles Tucker did a complete stall test series in the YB-49 and it always nosed down. On one recovery he pulled out too fast and it went into an inverted flat spin from which he quickly recovered. Tucker also reported that with the "Little Herbert" yaw damper engaged the wing was "rock solid", not unstable. Look up "Charles Tucker YB-49".
I was a B-36 Engine mechanic stationed at Rapid City AFB (Ellsworth today) and Ramey AFB in Puerto Rico. I was sent from Rapid City to the 72nd Strat Recon Wing in Ramey AFB Puerto Rico for the last two years of my hitch. When the B-36s first landed at their new (old base) but remodified runways they shattered the WWII windows out of our barracks. They had a heck of a drone. Our maintenance squadron was close to the flight line. Photos bring back fond memories.
Hi, I was sent to Shephard AFB to attend engine school. The base is still operational today. There was a B-36 parked on the ramp being guarder by Air Police men with machine guns. I was amazed at the size of this aircraft.
Wow the B36 is both beautiful and insane it must have cost an absolute fortune to maintain these huge aircraft.... Bet the maintenance personnel absolutely loved changing all those sparking plugs on the 6 piston engines!! Absolutely insane... Kept the peace and never used in anger can't argue with that guys.... 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧UK
This plane was not a waste of cash!. It successfully carried out the mission it was given, which was to keep the Russians in check. Just because it never dropped a bomb in anger does not make it a failure. It did the same thing as an ICBM does, sits there and scares the crap out of your enemy.
Featherwheight was great for speed and altitude and range but we lost or kitchen and the big plexiglass blisters which gave us great views of the dark sky of the troposphere and the stars. Now we only had small widows to keep check on the status of the engines.
ya....thanks. a friend spent 30 days continous up in the air in one of these. he was a mech. they would shut down the engine and he would service it, by way of a track down the wings
@@rogersmith7396 oiling wasn't the cause of the common engine fires. Also they carried hundreds of gallons of oil which they consumed during flight. Not sure what you mean they couldn't oil the engines during flight.
@@tylerbonser7686 See the crewman interview at Castle Air Museum. I figure the guys who flew them know about this stuff. He will also tell you how high they fly and that MiG 15s were no threat to them.
@@rogersmith7396 I've done ample research and seen many interviews on the B-36. All my original comment was getting at was that the OP is completely full of shit or his buddy is and he was dumb enough to believe it.
The B-29, B-50, and B-47 lacked intercontinental range without refueling and there was a six year gap between the introduction of the B-36 and B-52. The West depended on the the B-36 as a deterrent during the early cold war years.
The 36 was always known to be an interim design. Jet engines were poorly developed and small in the 40s and early 50s. The 36 was a WWII design for intercontinental range.
The old Air Force Museum did not want to move theirs from where it was to the new location in the early 70s so they chopped it up on site. Got to poke around in the pieces. They got a different one on display of course, now.
Up to 50 or more trips around the world in a modern compact car. The B-36 with modifications had a maximum fuel capacity of 36,000 gallons. Some of that was jet fuel but it probably could have been fueled with gasoline only. It used the jet engines only during takeoff and to increase speed during combat runs, but, fortunately, it never saw combat. It did however overfly Soviet territory on reconnaisance missions. The original airframe was developed during World War II with the intention that the plane, powered by the six prop engines, be used for high altitude conventional bombing. The B-36 had about five times capacity of a B-29 and 20 times the capacity of the B-17. The jet engines were added later to reduce the takeoff roll, increase rate of climb and increase top speed. Without the jet engines. the cruising speed was about 230 miles an hour, about 50 mph faster than a DC-3. Two turning, two, burning, two smoking, four choking. The plane had some operational problems which the crews were well aware of related to the reverse mounted piston engines and the operational experience of early jet engines.
It was designed in WW2 to bomb Germany from the US side of the Atlantic and return nonstop when it looked like Britain could fall to the Germans. The first copy was completed in '45 just as the war ended. Jet technology was in its infancy and could not yet power such a large aircraft. Then there was a decade long gap between the end of WW2 and the B-52 becoming operational in sufficient numbers to take its place as the US's only intercontinental heavy bomber. It filled that ten year gap nicely.
The B36 was on the drawing boards in early 1941, but was put on the back burner in favor of B29 development when it became apparent that We would still have England as a base, so it's range wasn't needed. In the realm of 'what if', what if we would have had a few dozen of these in 1943, operating out of Newfoundland? These would have bombed Germany into a parking lot with impunity, far above the range of German anti aircraft guns, and also above the effective altitude of all enemy fighters of that time. It was well known that at 45000 ft, all a B36 would have to do to evade any of the early jet fighters would be to enter a gentle turn.
A fully loaded Avro Vulcan could do 50,000 feet, a Victor could do 59.000. They were also far faster and more agile. The B36 was an impressive aircraft with good range and huge bomb load but if the plane could carry a nuke then the extra weight was not such a big factor. The Vulcan holds the world record for the longest ever operational bombing mission
A B 36 crewman at Castle reported he knew of them flying at 63000 feet. Flying over Russia was routine. B 36s have been in the air 36 hours continuous.
Great video. Someone didn't proof the narration. "the B-36 featherweight is capable of cruising in the troposphere". The troposphere is the domain of paper airplanes and butterflies. I think they meant the stratosphere. Strangely I feel relieved. We did lots back then so if a few typos slipped by maybe we're not as screwed as I thought when I find such errors today.
The largest combat aircraft ever built. And they knew going in that it was an interim solution, to be replaced soon by jet bombers as soon as they were ready. The B-36 served for only eleven years and never dropped a bomb in anger.
Dunno if you want the props turning at the same frequency , i would imagine you could get them into resonating oscillation wich would damage the airframe
blnstr apparently is weak on his history of the American global position in the 50s. As a teacher AND a SAC crew member on the "peacemaker", I know what the Heavy mutha and the Feather Wt. aircraft could do... and why they existed. We had "the bomb" and the method of delivery before Russia. We demonstrated our abilities WITHOUT the need to drop a bomb. The B-36 was a "big stick", and it worked. OLDENTYME
So what was the frapping point of reaching 50,000 feet without a bombload, Mig 15 had a service ceiling of 54.000 ft Peacemaker would have been a sitting duck , just ask Francis Garry Powers.
The Flying Wings both YB-35 and YB-49 were unstable and when stalled drop tail first into an inverted flat spin. That was what killed Major Edwards. Also neither was designed to carry the H-Bomb of that era the wings were essentially medium bombers.
Jack Northrop even stated that the Wings were unstable and were too far ahead of their time. It finally took the computer becoming fast enough and small enough or could be made small enough to let them fly at their proper design and abilities. Thus we now have the B-2 and soon B-21. Also the F-117 (Nighthawk) was another airplane that needs the computer to help the pilot fly the aircraft because it is another that is not "balanced" correctly due to design to fly without one being used.
@saepler The Mk-14 H-bomb introduced in 1954 was too big for the wings, the Mk-15 introduced 6 months later was small enough to be carried by the wings, 1200 of the Mk-15s were made and carried by B-47's. Also the wings could carry 2 Mk-15's, which were about the same size as the Mk-1 Hiroshima atom bomb. The B-35 prop wing could fly further than the B-36, and much higher, plus had about 10% of the radar cross section.
I really want to see one of these fly again. Someone like Kermit Weeks or Jay Leno may get a crazy idea. To fly one of these monsters again. Expensive. Time consuming. I remember the sound of them. Peacemaker was a good name. They never flew a combat mission. Which is exactly why we built them. Big boy locomotives and B-36s. Maybe someone is crazy enough to do it. I sure hope so!
Jeff Bezos money. Dump the recips and put in turbo props. Supposedly the AF still owns the survivors, the one private one was scrapped. The AF would'nt allow City of Ft. Worth to be flown. They may have been included in a treaty with the Soviets.
Final sentence of the commentary - I fail to see how stripping a bomber of everything (including its bombs!) could add to the defence capability of its country.
Of course, the actual service ceiling would have been in excess of SIXTY thousand feet. But, Soviet SAM's were becoming capable of taking down the U-2 at SEVENTY thousand feet, though Gary Powers wouldn't know that for a few more years.
@sailordiver2007 I thought the same the first time I saw this as well. What good is an empty bomber at 50,000 feet. That must of been a hell of an instrument panel at 1:04 (I take it that's the flt. engnr.). I was a jet mech in the '80's on B52 G & H's & they have an impressive array of ancient, electro-mechanical, analog guages as well. Night time was quite the sight with 'em all lit up. But that B-36 & it's 10 engines, an engineering marvel even though it was a waste.
Funny, if they built a NEW one today, with our modern electronics, alloys, etc., it would be a "Featherweight" automatically or by default! One of my dreams...
@saepler Edwards was killed because pilot Danny Forbes let the speed build up too fast during a stall recovery, and as a result pulled out too hard (5g's) snapping the outer wing panels off. Without outer wings panels the main section was unstable and went into an unrecoverable inverted flat spin. The main section pretty much burned up, the outer wing panels were recovered intact a few miles away.
@555bladerunner Sorry Charley. Think about it. What aircraft before the B-36 spread the load with multiple wheels on the mains? Think about it.... It looks kinda like a B-36. I'll bet if you look it up you'll find a paper on runway loading via multi wheel landing gear on some NACA/Langley publication from the 1930's.
Yes and no. There are a couple of flyable airframes but that's about as far as it goes. The fuel they use (and they use A LOT) is hard to come by. 145 octane av gas. You might get away with the 100LL but those engines need all the power they can get. The aircraft also has 336 spark plugs that need to be maintained. Yes they can fly, but it would cost millions.
@hotrod4you2 No the sequence to the 747 was B-29 -> B-47 -> 720(707) -> then the 747. The '36 was a dead end Convair concept. The reason for American decline is not infighting, we've been doing that since day one. I'd say it's not enough infighting. We're poor because the office of the president can use the military for what ever he wants, and in order to sell t-bonds at a good price we export our industry overseas. We just have to tie down the gov and stop taking sucker deals from Asia.
Isn't it obvious that they are comparing a stripped down, combat loaded (with bomb load) B-36 with a fully equipped, standard weight, combat loaded aircraft?
The footage in this newsreel is false and misleading. First off, the footage is dated 1956 but the aircraft is sporting the triangle and "U" (11th BW) markings on it's tail that were discontinued in 1953. In addition, most of the B-36 fleet had their undersides painted white by 1955. Aircraft 5732 was a B-36H that was later modified to Featherweight III standards yet the nose guns and gunners blisters are still present on this plane. This footage was obviously released to mislead the Soviets as to the actual appearance of a Featherweight B-36.
If you watch the movie "Strategic Air Command" which was filmed in 1954, you will see the traces of the triangle on the tail which had been removed a few months earlier. The B-36 in the movie is 5734 which came off the assembly line soon after 5732 which is featured in this newsreel. Both planes were assigned to the 11th Bomb Wing at Carswell AFB.
It was removed and shipped from Chanute in 1975 from what I was told when I went there to visit the Air Museum. They said it went to another old base. the lady I was talking to, did not know where. I remember seeing the B-36 come into Chanute, (late 56 or middle 1957) and also remember watching it being moved and mounted as an outside static display. THAT was a true eyeopener due to its size.
The Chanute aircraft (a featherweight II RB-36H, the 51-13730) was disassembled when Chanute closed and transported via railroad to the Castle AFB museum, where it was reassembled. It can be still seen today there.
@555bladerunner Can you provide the optimization function? By my pin headed understanding it will be a function that will have a local first derivative of zero when you take the derivative of concrete load vs number of wheels. See by my pin headed understanding pressure is force divided by area. So a 200,000 lb airplane whos tires constitute a rest area of 16 ft^2 the concrete would have to be rated for 12,500 lb/in^2. But you see in that there is no optimum at 4 wheels/truck. Please explain.
The original airplane had a 2 wheel main landing gear but only one airport in the world, at the time, could handle the weight so they had to change the design to a 4 wheel main landing gear. In my world of the Boring 747, with all 18 of those wheels we actually put less stress on the runway than the 10 wheels of the far lighter Boeing 707.
If you remove all the armament to reach that altitude, then it isn't really worthy of the arsenal, now is it? The B-36 represents the peak of technology in 1940 with a jet grafted on. It was obsolete when it was put into service. Only the Texas congressional lobby got it off the runway.
Have seen them both. The goose has a much bigger fusalage as it was a troop carrier. It would have been slow. The 36 in Omaha dwarfs a 52 and a 747 in the same hanger. Its incredible. The pusher props are great. 230 ft. wingspan is most of a pro football field.
I've always been Amazed by that aircraft My father flew in Sac for 7 years on the B-36 and the B-47 I've always been extremely proud of my father for the sacrifice and he made for our country bless his soul rest in peace Miss very much
They had a sound that when you heard it, there was no mistake it was a B-36. I grew up in Sioux City, Iowa......not all that far from Rapid City and Ellsworth AFB. One Sunday afternoon, there was a tremendous rumble overhead. I ran outside to witness five of these monsters flying in formation, heading, I guessed, back to Ellsworth. Just a hundred miles south of Sioux City, is Omaha and Bellevue, Nebraka. Offutt AFB (near Bellevue) is/was headquarters for SAC. My guess was that there was probably perhaps a change of command at Offutt and the flyover of the five B-36’s was part of that ceremony. And, I supposed that the formation made a low pass over Sioux City, on the way back to Ellsworth.
Bless your dad! Mydad was a communication officer on the B36 during Korean conflict and flew out of Spokane Washington.
@@stephengunlock1940born at ellsworth and lived at Offutt from 60to64 heard all that and more but sure didn't know what dad did. Someday I'll ask him
Yes they sacrificed so much. I remember being in the MeKong delta in the summer of 1967. We were pulling Leeches off our gear and ourselves staying low because Charlie was trying to register a Mortar on our position. Pvt Jones remarked how at least we weren't sitting ready alert in Nebraska. But Hey "They also serve who only stand and wait" (John Milton).
I wish there was still one of these flying!
Thanks for posting this. The announcer erred in staying that at 50,000 the plane was cruising in the "troposphere". He meant "the stratosphere"...the troposphere is the lowest part of the atmosphere.
I'm starting an internship at Castle Air Force Museum where I'll get to work on one of the four surviving ones! It's an RB-36H. The museum is in Atwater, CA
If I had Jeff Bezos' money I would fund a restoration of the best of the four remaining '36es to airworthiness. Cost would be 10-20 million.
@@antoniograncino3506 that would be amazing.
@@jetstream01 We can dream, can't we ? Just rebuilding the engines would not be all that prohibitive. There is at least one shop out there that can rebuild the Wasp 4360's for about 200k each. The J-47's are do-able at about 250k per. So that's only 2.2 million for 10 fresh motors. Figure another million to renovate and upgrade the cockpit, a million to re-wire the plane, and another 1-2 million for fresh hydraulics. New tires are about 5k or more each , so that's only another 50k. The real bugger in the project is replacing all the magnesium parts, which by now have just about corroded to dust. The replacements would have to be fabricated out of aluminum alloy. The main wing spar is something I haven't looked into, but on the freshest plane of the four it might still be OK . Replacing the spar is probably not do-able. The example at Pima Air and Space Museum, B-36J, Ser. No. 52-2827, the last B-36 built, would be the likeliest candidate. Some sporadic restoration has been done on it and it looks to be in pretty good overall condition. Funding efforts in the 1970's for a complete airworthy restoration fell short, and it has been on static display since.
@@antoniograncino3506 I don't think all the money in the world could ever get one airworthy again. The best chance would have been in the early 70's but unfortunately we both know how that turned out. We'd probably have better luck inventing a time machine that could take us back to the 40's and 50's to see them fly again. If you haven't already, check out B-36 Interest Group on Facebook. Lots of former B-36 crew members are active in that group.
@@lincbond442 The failure of the airworthiness project in the '70s was due to a lack of funding for a complete job. Some superficial work was done, but no bucks for the meat of the matter.
I remember when my father served in the Air Force back in the day and seeing one of those bombers was an awesome sight to someone who was a toddler. He was in Search and Air Rescue so he was the elite of the service. Great first 10 years of my life it was.
1958 was the last time one flew and none are airworthy although there a couple in museums. The most awesome bomber ever made, period!
Behind ×b 70 I'm afraid as most awesome there gumby! 👳♂️🥳🎯
Yes. Bigger than a Buff. Almost 3 feet longer, 6 feet taller and *45 feet* greater in wing span.
I had the pleasure of seeing one once. It's absolutely enormous.
It had a sound like no other aircraft!
I went into SAC in 1957 and only saw one of these, we had B52, B47 in French Morocco but up
in England they had the Hustler, what an aircraft
george andrews what base? SidiSlamine ?
There is a cutaway of a B36 engine at the SAC museum in Omaha..One of the most amazing mechanical things I have ever seen..Have climbed around inside (and saw it land about '53 in Sacramento,,McClellan AFB) the only XC99...two B36 fuselages stacked atop each other...no jets.
Beautiful plane (with or without kitchen sinks).
I co authored the book on the LOCKHEED R60-1 Constitution which came out about the same time as the B-36. The Constitution had multiple wheel landing gear which spread the weight. Both would have been used in the Pacific had the Japanese taken out the fuel tank farms at Pearl harbor.
Actually, at high altitude, all the b-36 had to do to avoid a Mig-15, or any of the eary jets for that matter, was to enter into a slight turn. The MIG, with it's smaller wings, would stall out if it tried the follow in the turn.
Charles Walker Thats true! I've read the same statement from several different former Pilots of the B36. I think people forget how unmaneuverable early jet fighters were at close to maximum service ceiling.
When dad came back from Korea (F-80's) and transitioned to F-86's, the fighter "jocks" would try to intercept the B-36's at altitude. Dad tried to take a handheld picture of his successful intercept. All he had to show was a silver blur. It seems as he was trying to manipulate the camera, he kinda got behind the airplane. . . . and fell out of the sky just when he tripped the shutter. And that 36 just kept on flying.
36 flew higher than MiG 15 which only had guns. 36 had radar directed 20 mms. It was still fast, over 400 mph. TU 95 over 500 mph.
I had a few old timers who told some of us new guys about the B-36 bombers when I went to my first duty station. They worked on them and was glad to be on the B-52's. I never heard anyone talk about the B-47 bomber though, either negative or positive.
Excellent. As a child in the mid-50s, one flew over my house on takeoff from an air show at SFO. Very unique sound, lots of smoke. Unforgettable
The plane shown is not a featherweight model it is a D model. All featherweight modifications were done on J models. The Featherweight had no guns, except the radar controlled tail gun, or blisters. The crew was reduced as there was no need for gunners. The rear compartment was pretty bare bunks and kitchen removed.
@saepler
Wrong, when stalled the wings dropped nose first because a stall causes the center of lift to jump further back. Charles Tucker did a complete stall test series in the YB-49 and it always nosed down. On one recovery he pulled out too fast and it went into an inverted flat spin from which he quickly recovered. Tucker also reported that with the "Little Herbert" yaw damper engaged the wing was "rock solid", not unstable. Look up "Charles Tucker YB-49".
It did'nt stop the Martians. It was no good.
I saw one of these at Strategic Air Command in Omaha. It's breath-taking in person.
I was a B-36 Engine mechanic stationed at Rapid City AFB (Ellsworth today) and Ramey AFB in Puerto Rico. I was sent from Rapid City to the 72nd Strat Recon Wing in Ramey AFB Puerto Rico for the last two years of my hitch. When the B-36s first landed at their new (old base) but remodified runways they shattered the WWII windows out of our barracks. They had a heck of a drone. Our maintenance squadron was close to the flight line. Photos bring back fond memories.
Hi, I was sent to Shephard AFB to attend engine school. The base is still operational today. There was a B-36 parked on the ramp being guarder by Air Police men with machine guns. I was amazed at the size of this aircraft.
Saw some of these in 1957 when I was in SAC.
What a huge contraption, great uncle (sac) flew it in af
I like the worms eye view!
Wow the B36 is both beautiful and insane it must have cost an absolute fortune to maintain these huge aircraft.... Bet the maintenance personnel absolutely loved changing all those sparking plugs on the 6 piston engines!! Absolutely insane... Kept the peace and never used in anger can't argue with that guys.... 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧UK
I have to have one of these. So nice.
I know an old boy who flew these from 1954-57. In 1958 he was moved to the B-52 and flew them until his retirement
This plane was not a waste of cash!. It successfully carried out the mission it was given, which was to keep the Russians in check. Just because it never dropped a bomb in anger does not make it a failure. It did the same thing as an ICBM does, sits there and scares the crap out of your enemy.
The swept-wing Boeing B-47 was more efficient with only 3 crew members instead of 15 men aboard a Convair B-36 !
johnhale57 :It truly earned its name “Peacemaker”...
Ph MWU ...but it didnt have the unrefueled range of the 36...
@@phmwu7368 It also had a maximum range of 4000 miles (unrefuelled) to the B-36's 8000+ miles...
@@phmwu7368 It was short range, low payload and a death trap.
Featherwheight was great for speed and altitude and range but we lost or kitchen and the big plexiglass blisters which gave us great views of the dark sky of the troposphere and the stars. Now we only had small widows to keep check on the status of the engines.
ya....thanks.
a friend spent 30 days continous up in the air in one of these. he was a mech. they would shut down the engine and he would service it, by way of a track down the wings
Sure you don't mean 30 hours? At best it remain in the air for 2 days. But with the required maintenance going past 30 hrs was rare.
@@tylerbonser7686 There was no way to oil the engines in flight. They leaked like crazy and caused many fires. The wing space was very small.
@@rogersmith7396 oiling wasn't the cause of the common engine fires. Also they carried hundreds of gallons of oil which they consumed during flight. Not sure what you mean they couldn't oil the engines during flight.
@@tylerbonser7686 See the crewman interview at Castle Air Museum. I figure the guys who flew them know about this stuff. He will also tell you how high they fly and that MiG 15s were no threat to them.
@@rogersmith7396 I've done ample research and seen many interviews on the B-36. All my original comment was getting at was that the OP is completely full of shit or his buddy is and he was dumb enough to believe it.
The B-29, B-50, and B-47 lacked intercontinental range without refueling and there was a six year gap between the introduction of the B-36 and B-52. The West depended on the the B-36 as a deterrent during the early cold war years.
G
The 36 was always known to be an interim design. Jet engines were poorly developed and small in the 40s and early 50s. The 36 was a WWII design for intercontinental range.
Great find, thanks for sharing
The old Air Force Museum did not want to move theirs from where it was to the new location in the early 70s so they chopped it up on site. Got to poke around in the pieces. They got a different one on display of course, now.
wow.. nice vid.. awesome vintage aircraft:)
imm puting that on my list of places to visit someday... thank you
Awesome footage!!! Love the worm's eye view!
That was the only B 36 I ever saw. I was there in Feb-Mar '80. If I remember right, it was quite accessable, no fence. Should of taken a pic of it.
awesome, i just got a model of this plane, and its freakin amazing! Its awesome! great vid too.
Up to 50 or more trips around the world in a modern compact car. The B-36 with modifications had a maximum fuel capacity of 36,000 gallons. Some of that was jet fuel but it probably could have been fueled with gasoline only. It used the jet engines only during takeoff and to increase speed during combat runs, but, fortunately, it never saw combat. It did however overfly Soviet territory on reconnaisance missions.
The original airframe was developed during World War II with the intention that the plane, powered by the six prop engines, be used for high altitude conventional bombing. The B-36 had about five times capacity of a B-29 and 20 times the capacity of the B-17. The jet engines were added later to reduce the takeoff roll, increase rate of climb and increase top speed. Without the jet engines. the cruising speed was about 230 miles an hour, about 50 mph faster than a DC-3. Two turning, two, burning, two smoking, four choking. The plane had some operational problems which the crews were well aware of related to the reverse mounted piston engines and the operational experience of early jet engines.
They burnt Avgas in the jet engines. They modified them (the dual engine pods came from the B-47) so they only had to use one sort of fuel.
It was designed in WW2 to bomb Germany from the US side of the Atlantic and return nonstop when it looked like Britain could fall to the Germans. The first copy was completed in '45 just as the war ended. Jet technology was in its infancy and could not yet power such a large aircraft. Then there was a decade long gap between the end of WW2 and the B-52 becoming operational in sufficient numbers to take its place as the US's only intercontinental heavy bomber. It filled that ten year gap nicely.
Only because it never faced combat, If it had, there would have been a lot of American widows.
@@willbranson3216 It was used to completely map the USSR. That was its main mission. The Russians had nothing that could threaten it.
@@rogersmith7396 Tell that to Gary Powers.
@@willbranson3216 He was shot down after the B 36 was no longer in service.
The B36 was on the drawing boards in early 1941, but was put on the back burner in favor of B29 development when it became apparent that We would still have England as a base, so it's range wasn't needed. In the realm of 'what if', what if we would have had a few dozen of these in 1943, operating out of Newfoundland? These would have bombed Germany into a parking lot with impunity, far above the range of German anti aircraft guns, and also above the effective altitude of all enemy fighters of that time. It was well known that at 45000 ft, all a B36 would have to do to evade any of the early jet fighters would be to enter a gentle turn.
A fully loaded Avro Vulcan could do 50,000 feet, a Victor could do 59.000. They were also far faster and more agile. The B36 was an impressive aircraft with good range and huge bomb load but if the plane could carry a nuke then the extra weight was not such a big factor. The Vulcan holds the world record for the longest ever operational bombing mission
A B 36 crewman at Castle reported he knew of them flying at 63000 feet. Flying over Russia was routine.
B 36s have been in the air 36 hours continuous.
As originally built it was under powered and stripping it down improved it greatly
@sailordiver2007 Apparently the last and lightest model, the B-36J could do 58 000 feet, unarmed and with reduced crew
Great video. Someone didn't proof the narration. "the B-36 featherweight is capable of cruising in the troposphere". The troposphere is the domain of paper airplanes and butterflies. I think they meant the stratosphere. Strangely I feel relieved. We did lots back then so if a few typos slipped by maybe we're not as screwed as I thought when I find such errors today.
Hats off to the men who flew those Cold War recon missions. Some sources say a tight-running RB-36-III could reach 58,000 feet
63000 I have heard.
The largest combat aircraft ever built. And they knew going in that it was an interim solution, to be replaced soon by jet bombers as soon as they were ready. The B-36 served for only eleven years and never dropped a bomb in anger.
It bombed Albequerque.
Was also a testbed for a nuclear reactor.
@@rogersmith7396 An accident, not a bomb dropped in anger. Cool story, though.
I cant imagine the vibration from those 6 props and 4 jets all going at the same time, getting the props in synch must have been a bear.
Dunno if you want the props turning at the same frequency , i would imagine you could get them into resonating oscillation wich would damage the airframe
blnstr apparently is weak on his history of the American global position in the 50s. As a teacher AND a SAC crew member on the "peacemaker", I know what the Heavy mutha and the Feather Wt. aircraft could do... and why they existed. We had "the bomb" and the method of delivery before Russia. We demonstrated our abilities WITHOUT the need to drop a bomb. The B-36 was a "big stick", and it worked. OLDENTYME
Yes it was fine. Detractors are ignorant. The worst part was the engine fires.
@mhpfiddler Wow, how many people can say that. The B36 is rare enough but you got to ride in the B49 as well. Exclusive indeed. Hats off.
So what was the frapping point of reaching 50,000 feet without a bombload, Mig 15 had a service ceiling of 54.000 ft Peacemaker would have been a sitting duck , just ask Francis Garry Powers.
Pima Air Museum in Tucson has one.
The Flying Wings both YB-35 and YB-49 were unstable and when stalled drop tail first into an inverted flat spin. That was what killed Major Edwards. Also neither was designed to carry the H-Bomb of that era the wings were essentially medium bombers.
Jack Northrop even stated that the Wings were unstable and were too far ahead of their time. It finally took the computer becoming fast enough and small enough or could be made small enough to let them fly at their proper design and abilities. Thus we now have the B-2 and soon B-21. Also the F-117 (Nighthawk) was another airplane that needs the computer to help the pilot fly the aircraft because it is another that is not "balanced" correctly due to design to fly without one being used.
@saepler
The Mk-14 H-bomb introduced in 1954 was too big for the wings, the Mk-15 introduced 6 months later was small enough to be carried by the wings, 1200 of the Mk-15s were made and carried by B-47's. Also the wings could carry 2 Mk-15's, which were about the same size as the Mk-1 Hiroshima atom bomb.
The B-35 prop wing could fly further than the B-36, and much higher, plus had about 10% of the radar cross section.
it was in service from 1949-59
I really want to see one of these fly again. Someone like Kermit Weeks or Jay Leno may get a crazy idea. To fly one of these monsters again. Expensive. Time consuming. I remember the sound of them. Peacemaker was a good name. They never flew a combat mission. Which is exactly why we built them. Big boy locomotives and B-36s. Maybe someone is crazy enough to do it. I sure hope so!
Jeff Bezos money. Dump the recips and put in turbo props. Supposedly the AF still owns the survivors, the one private one was scrapped. The AF would'nt allow City of Ft. Worth to be flown. They may have been included in a treaty with the Soviets.
All tube electronics and they were extensive including radar and ECM. It had chaff dispensers. Inertial navigation.
That's an 11th Bomb Wing, 98th Bomb Squadron B-36 circa 1952 or 53.
Final sentence of the commentary - I fail to see how stripping a bomber of everything (including its bombs!) could add to the defence capability of its country.
Thought the same thing.Still a beast of a plane.
That's versions role was photo reconnaissance
That's versions role was photo reconnaissance
It was like parking a cop car under a bridge with no cop in it. While the ability to enforce was zero, it was a visible deterrence.
Of course, the actual service ceiling would have been in excess of SIXTY thousand feet. But, Soviet SAM's were becoming capable of taking down the U-2 at SEVENTY thousand feet, though Gary Powers wouldn't know that for a few more years.
They shot every thing they had to bring him down.
The B-36 was an impressive plane but the quantum leap was the B-47.
Not long range, poorly developed design and unsafe with high accident rate. A true widow maker.
The quantum leap was the b58 hustler
@sailordiver2007 I thought the same the first time I saw this as well. What good is an empty bomber at 50,000 feet. That must of been a hell of an instrument panel at 1:04 (I take it that's the flt. engnr.). I was a jet mech in the '80's on B52 G & H's & they have an impressive array of ancient, electro-mechanical, analog guages as well. Night time was quite the sight with 'em all lit up. But that B-36 & it's 10 engines, an engineering marvel even though it was a waste.
It was invulnerable until missles. Our missles did'nt work in Viet Nam.
That is good news...our military stuff too I hope.
Ugh's airplane had got 97metres wingspan, where as B-36 has got a 230 feet one (about 70 metres). But I think b-36 could take off with more playload
An early version, first, the rail wheels. Future ones were fitted with just one large one. Second, the tail belly radars. They are missing.
Only the prototype had single wheels.
50,000 feet!
Not all of it! The brand new instrumentation in my airplane is made in New Mexico, California and Massachusetts.
Correct. Hughs' XF-11 spy plane could only reach 44,000feet.
6 turnin’ 4 burnin’
Funny, if they built a NEW one today, with our modern electronics, alloys, etc., it would be a "Featherweight" automatically or by default! One of my dreams...
It was called the Magnesium Overcast.
@@rogersmith7396 Well, it would be the "Aluminum Overcast" today...
Probably a maintenance's nightmare.
@saepler
Edwards was killed because pilot Danny Forbes let the speed build up too fast during a stall recovery, and as a result pulled out too hard (5g's) snapping the outer wing panels off. Without outer wings panels the main section was unstable and went into an unrecoverable inverted flat spin. The main section pretty much burned up, the outer wing panels were recovered intact a few miles away.
I read that each engine of this bomber took 75 spark plugs.
Well 2 per cylinder times 36 I believe. The government bought low quality plugs which did'nt last long.
Imagine if the B-36 could have been modified for in-flight refueling.
It could go 36 hours without. The crew could only stand so much.
@RobSar63 yeah I asked the cubans that were at the bay of pigs about that, they didn't share your enthusiasm.
funny been called featherweight was probably the heaviest plane on the planet lol
Not to mention contrails from the engines.
@555bladerunner Sorry Charley. Think about it. What aircraft before the B-36 spread the load with multiple wheels on the mains? Think about it.... It looks kinda like a B-36. I'll bet if you look it up you'll find a paper on runway loading via multi wheel landing gear on some NACA/Langley publication from the 1930's.
Are any of these incredible planes that have survived airworthy and if not when is the last time one was in the air?
No. 1959 I think.
Yes and no. There are a couple of flyable airframes but that's about as far as it goes. The fuel they use (and they use A LOT) is hard to come by. 145 octane av gas. You might get away with the 100LL but those engines need all the power they can get. The aircraft also has 336 spark plugs that need to be maintained. Yes they can fly, but it would cost millions.
How technology gets always surpassed by new technology.
2:44 Not a feather-weight version if it still has nose guns.
All turrets except the tail position were removed.
There was a Feather weight II and a III. Don't know which had what.
@hotrod4you2 What is air-to-air travel exactly? Is that when you leap from one 747 to another? Suppose that would cut down on layover time.
@hotrod4you2 No the sequence to the 747 was B-29 -> B-47 -> 720(707) -> then the 747. The '36 was a dead end Convair concept. The reason for American decline is not infighting, we've been doing that since day one. I'd say it's not enough infighting. We're poor because the office of the president can use the military for what ever he wants, and in order to sell t-bonds at a good price we export our industry overseas. We just have to tie down the gov and stop taking sucker deals from Asia.
Isn't it obvious that they are comparing a stripped down, combat loaded (with bomb load) B-36 with a fully equipped, standard weight, combat loaded aircraft?
Well that is the difference between a standard B36 and a featherweight. So not quite sure what you're getting at?
@@tylerbonser7686 - Yes. I worded it poorly.
@@tylerbonser7686 5 tons like he said. It had several automated gun turrets with 20 mms like a b 17. They were removed.
@@rogersmith7396 he didn't say any of that
Still has Guns installed in some of the shots...
How come it retained some of its guns if all non-essential components were stripped for this experiment?
Didn't he mean to say "stratosphere"? The troposphere is the bottom most layer after all...
How long was this planes actual service life ?
Around 7 years I think. It took a while to make enough 52s to replace it.
pretty sure he was talking about the naked eye or the human ear.
So did the Mig-15
were these planes ever used in war.
WHOA
Sorry, it last flew on Feb 12, 1959. My bad.
No, they were never used in a war. They were replaced by the jet B-47.
52.
Some accounts they were used for high altitude recon in Korea/China
The footage in this newsreel is false and misleading. First off, the footage is dated 1956 but the aircraft is sporting the triangle and "U" (11th BW) markings on it's tail that were discontinued in 1953. In addition, most of the B-36 fleet had their undersides painted white by 1955. Aircraft 5732 was a B-36H that was later modified to Featherweight III standards yet the nose guns and gunners blisters are still present on this plane. This footage was obviously released to mislead the Soviets as to the actual appearance of a Featherweight B-36.
If you watch the movie "Strategic Air Command" which was filmed in 1954, you will see the traces of the triangle on the tail which had been removed a few months earlier. The B-36 in the movie is 5734 which came off the assembly line soon after 5732 which is featured in this newsreel. Both planes were assigned to the 11th Bomb Wing at Carswell AFB.
I've been to Chanute and didn't see the B36. Only one I've seen was at Wright Patterson. Wonder what happened to the Chanute B36?
It was removed and shipped from Chanute in 1975 from what I was told when I went there to visit the Air Museum. They said it went to another old base. the lady I was talking to, did not know where. I remember seeing the B-36 come into Chanute, (late 56 or middle 1957) and also remember watching it being moved and mounted as an outside static display. THAT was a true eyeopener due to its size.
@@summerrosesutton3073 friend of mine's Dad, Col. Bill Lafferty flew that 36 into Chanute that day.
The Chanute aircraft (a featherweight II RB-36H, the 51-13730) was disassembled when Chanute closed and transported via railroad to the Castle AFB museum, where it was reassembled. It can be still seen today there.
@555bladerunner Can you provide the optimization function? By my pin headed understanding it will be a function that will have a local first derivative of zero when you take the derivative of concrete load vs number of wheels. See by my pin headed understanding pressure is force divided by area. So a 200,000 lb airplane whos tires constitute a rest area of 16 ft^2 the concrete would have to be rated for 12,500 lb/in^2. But you see in that there is no optimum at 4 wheels/truck. Please explain.
The original airplane had a 2 wheel main landing gear but only one airport in the world, at the time, could handle the weight so they had to change the design to a 4 wheel main landing gear. In my world of the Boring 747, with all 18 of those wheels we actually put less stress on the runway than the 10 wheels of the far lighter Boeing 707.
Mig 17 had the altitude !
It's "featherweight". :D
If you remove all the armament to reach that altitude, then it isn't really worthy of the arsenal, now is it? The B-36 represents the peak of technology in 1940 with a jet grafted on. It was obsolete when it was put into service. Only the Texas congressional lobby got it off the runway.
Nope. No 36 no intercontinental bomber, no MAD.
Was the B36 bigger than the Howard Hugh's spruce goose?
Have seen them both. The goose has a much bigger fusalage as it was a troop carrier. It would have been slow. The 36 in Omaha dwarfs a 52 and a 747 in the same hanger. Its incredible. The pusher props are great. 230 ft. wingspan is most of a pro football field.
sopwith camel b-plane?
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