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The D model (flying) was the first B-36 to add jet engines to its radials.


Fort Worth, a B-36J, basks in restored glory.


Pima’s B-36 served with the 95th Bomb Wing at Biggs Air Force Base in El Paso. Here it awaits takeoff from Biggs on its final flight: to Fort Worth.


A jet engine pod, a chunk of fuselage — to be shipped, the bomber had to be broken down into pieces that filled 11 trucks.


B-36s were unusual in that much of their skin was made of dull magnesium, rather than shiny aluminum. The material is plentiful and has a high strength-to-weight ratio, but it corrodes easily. When Fort Worth arrived in Arizona, parts of its skin were in bad shape; right: a section of the tail.


A restorer sands one of the six flaps (two are shown). The flaps had a total surface area of 519 square feet — 48 percent more than the flaps of the B-29 bomber.


The interior of Fort Worth’s wing, pre-restoration. At its root, a B-36 wing is more than seven feet thick. Crewmen could enter the interiors in flight and get to the engines or landing gear. The B-36’s wings were the longest of any combat aircraft in history.


Each turbojet nacelle had a streamlined air plug (the cone-shaped object), to minimize drag when the jets were not used, and shutters that prevented excessive blade windmilling during cruise.


Inlets to feed air to the radial engines were incised in the wings’ leading edges, minimizing drag.


In the nose, the large round panel marks the former location of a window for the optical bombsight, replaced with a sight that used radar.


Looking out of the nose of a B-36J bombsight.


The instrument panel for the two flight engineers.


The 19-foot-diameter propellers were aft-facing, so the prop wash would not disturb airflow over the wings and increase drag. The pusher arrangement helped give the bomber intercontinental range.


Purists point out that the present incarnation of B-36J no. 52-2827 isn’t 100 percent accurate: To help increase speed and cruise altitude, the Air Force had the last Peacemakers made without drag-inducing sighting blisters (the raised dome near the cockpit, installed during an earlier restoration, in Fort Worth).

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Development of a long range bomber was spurred by Nazi Germany's spectacular campaigns at the outset of World War II. It took Hitler just 20 days to crush the Polish army in September 1939 and but a few weeks for the German forces to speed across the Low Countries and France in 1940. (The western campaign started on 10 May; the French surrendered on 22 June). Even though the scheduled invasion of the British Isles had been postponed, they seemed far from secure in the fall of 1940. The loss of Britain would leave the United States without European allies and with no bases outside the Western Hemisphere. The Air Corps (The Army Air Forces was not formally established until 20 June 1941) therefore needed a long range bomber that could carry the war to any enemy from this continent. The early successes of the German offensive against Russia in June 1941 further deepened America's concern.

The Air Corps opened a design competition for a truly intercontinental bomber a fast, high altitude airplane with a heavy bombload and unprecedented range. Invitations for preliminary design studies were sent to the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation and to the Boeing Aircraft Company on 11 April. The Consolidated Aircraft Corporation and Vultee Aircraft, Inc., merged on 17 March 1943. The new Consolidated Vultee Aircraft (Convair) Corporation became the Convair Division of the General Dynamics Corporation on 29 April 1954. Northrop Aircraft, Incorporated was contacted on 27 May, when it was also asked for further design studies on a "flying wing" bomber having a range of 8,000 miles at 25,000 feet, with 1 ton of bombs. Until the early 1950s, the range and speed of aircraft were usually shown in statute miles. Afterwards, the Air Force began to measure speed in knots and range in nautical miles. Speed records, however, continued to be in miles per hour and distances were expressed in kilometers. (A knot nautical mile per hour is 1.1516 times swifter than a statute mile per hour. A nautical mile represents around 6,080 feet and is 800 feet more than the statute mile.) Not long afterwards the Douglas Aircraft Company took part in the long range bomber competitions. Douglas Aircraft had been given a contract on 19 April 1941 to check if the Allison 3420 engine could be used in bombardment type aircraft-clearly a closely related project. Douglas had also been working for several years on the XB-19 just recently flown and the largest aircraft ever built in the United States. The Air Corps planned to use the XB-19 as a flying laboratory to gather information that would help the design and construction of future giant aircraft. Solicited much later, the Glenn L. Martin Company declined the invitation due to a shortage of engineering personnel. The Glenn Martin Company had been engaged in a new bomber (the XB 33, under contract since June 1941), before becoming involved in the Northrop "flying wing" program. In addition, by 1943 the company had been approached by the Navy for participation in a new production project.

The preliminary characteristics set forth in the Air Corps requests for proposals of April 1941 called for a bomber with a 450 mile per hour top speed at 25,000 feet, a 275 mile per hour cruising speed, a service ceiling of 45,000 feet, and an overall range of 12,000 miles at 25,000 feet. These characteristics were revised during a conference on 19 August attended by Robert A. Lovett, Assistant Secretary of War for Air, Maj. Gen. George H. Brett, Chief of the Air Corps, and ranking officers of the Air Staff. Since the conference's main purpose was to accelerate the bomber project, the conferees decided to scale down their requirements. But their revision was still a tall order- a minimum overall range of 10,000 miles, and an effective combat radius of 4,000 miles with a 10,000-pound bombload. This was about 4 times the combat radius of the Boeing B-17, the AAF's newest and best bomber. Although the word "range" is often qualified, in this context it indicates how far an aircraft can fly under given operating conditions from the moment of takeoff to the time when its fuel supply is exhausted, as in "the aircraft's range was 7,000 miles, enough to fly nonstop from San Francisco to London." The "combat radius" is the radius of action for any given airplane on a combat mission with a specified load and flight plan. The "radius of action" differs from "range" in that the aircraft is always considered to return to the point at which it takes off. It is like the radius of a circle, and represents the maximum distance at which a given airplane can operate, under given conditions, from the center of the circle and still return to the center. This distance, under combat conditions, is considerably less than one half the distance that the aircraft can fly under noncombat conditions. The conferees further specified that the future intercontinental bomber should have a cruising speed between 240 and 300 miles per hour, and a 40,000 foot service ceiling (5,000 feet less than originally requested).

After a review of preliminary data from Boeing, Consolidated, and Douglas, the Materiel Division of the Air Corps suggested prompt action on the Consolidated study, which covered several long range bomber designs, both 4 and 6 engine pusher and pusher tractor types. Consolidated, after specializing for many years in seagoing aircraft, reentered the landplane field early in 1940, with development of the B-24 Liberator. Keenly aware of the Air Corps's interest in large bombers with extended ranges, the company at this time had begun work on a number of design possibilities. This endorsement of Consolidated was in no way a rejection of either Boeing or Douglas services. Yet, it proved to be a turning point in the intercontinental bomber program. Douglas Aircraft stated in late 1941 that it did not desire to undertake an "out and out 10,000 mile airplane project." It proposed instead the development of Model 423, a 6,000 mile bomber, which was rejected. As for Boeing, the AAF believed as late as April 1942 that the company was "overly conservative" and had not yet "really tackled the (long range) airplane design with the necessary degree of enthusiasm." Two Boeing bomber designs (Models 384 and 385) submitted in September were never developed.

The development decision was made by Maj. Gen. Henry H. Arnold, Chief of the new Army Air Forces, on the recommendation of Brig. Gen. George C. Kenney, Commanding Officer of the Air Corps Experimental Division and Engineering School at Wright Field, Ohio. This decision came on 16 October 1941. General Kenney's recommendation rested on a detailed proposal (drawings and bid were submitted by Consolidated on 6 October), which asked for $15 million plus a fixed fee of $800,000 for research and development; mockup, tooling, and production of 2 experimental long range bombers (Model 35). Delivery of the first airplane would be 30 months after approval of the contract; that of the second, 6 months later. Consolidated also stipulated that the project could not be "entangled with red tape" and constantly changing directives.





General characteristics

* Crew: 9
* Length: 161 ft 1 in [59] (49.40 m)
* Wingspan: 230 ft 0 in (70.20 m [59])
* Height: 46 ft 9 in (14.25 m)
* Wing area: 4,772 ft² (443.3 m²)
* Airfoil: NACA 63(420)-422 root, NACA 63(420)-517 tip
* Empty weight: 171,035 lb (77,580 kg)
* Loaded weight: 266,100 lb (120,700 kg)
* Max takeoff weight: 410,000 lb (190,000 kg)
* Powerplant:
o 4× General Electric J47 turbojets, 5,200 lbf (23 kN) each
o 6× Pratt & Whitney R-4360-53 "Wasp Major" radials, 3,800 hp (2,500 kW) each

Performance

* Maximum speed: 411 mph [59] (365 knots, 681 km/h [59]) with jets on
* Cruise speed: 230 mph (200 kn, 380 km/h) with jets off
* Range: 6,795 mi (5,905 nmi, 10,945 km) with 10,000 lb (4,535 kg) payload
* Ferry range: 10,000 mi (8,700 nmi, 16,000 km)
* Service ceiling: 48,000 ft (15,000 m)
* Rate of climb: 1,920 ft/min (9.75 m/s)
* Wing loading: 55.76 lb/ft² (272.3 kg/m²)
* Power/mass (prop): 0.086 hp/lb (120 W/kg)
* Thrust/weight (jet): 0.078

Armament

* Guns: 8 remotely operated turrets of 2× 20 mm (0.787 in) M24A1 autocannons
* Bombs: 86,000 lb (39,000 kg) with weight restrictions, 72,000 lb (32,700 kg) normal

Absolutely love the movie "Strategic Air Command" that one the the videos is from. Wing commander Jimmy Stewart and flight engineer Harry Morgan...doesn't get much better.

Regarding the Peacemaker...they sure don't make 'em like they used to. What an awesome machine!

B-36 Flight Engineer's Station Virtual Tour

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What an absolute beast!

miamiair wrote:B-36 Flight Engineer's Station Virtual Tour

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TWO flight engineers?!

AndesSMF wrote:

miamiair wrote:B-36 Flight Engineer's Station Virtual Tour

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TWO flight engineers?!

I've never seen an octopus wearing an Air Force uniform...

miamiair wrote:I've never seen an octopus wearing an Air Force uniform...

They don't leave Area 51.