B36J

[henry crun]

I came across this in a book recently, of all the photos I have seen of B36's I have not seen one like this before.

Does anyone know what the two cylindrical attachments on each side of the fuselage at the wing root are ?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v712/crun9/b36j.jpg

[diddy1234]

could be air cooled nuclear reactors.

This aircraft was tested with a nuclear reactor.

I could be wrong though

[DeepestSouth]

There are a few ex-B36 crew and engineers contact details at:

Convair B-36 - visitors' comments (http://www.aviastar.org/comments/comments.php?order=2)

You could always see if they can help.

[blue up]

Appears to be minus the guns and J47(?) jet engines.

The 'Nuc' version had the reactor in the tail end behind 4 tons of lead shielding. Likewise, recon equipment was most likely behind the centre of lift so I'd guess at something lightweight in those pods. Silly suggestion.....spare engines in pods? after all, they seemed to have lost an engine once every four flights on average.

[blue up]

Found it!!!!!!



B36b-1-CF 44-92036.

http://www.air-and-space.com/peacemkr/22854a.jpg

http://www.air-and-space.com/peacemkr/22774a.jpg

Goleta Air and Space Museum: Convair B-36 Variants (http://www.air-and-space.com/b-36%20variants.htm)

[Fareastdriver]

That's not the nuclear one. The nuclear trail aircraft had a different cabin with an airliner type windscreen arrangement. It weighed about 11 tons and was so heavily insulated that it was reported as like flying a glider.
The concept of nuclear power did have the concept of having four turbojets under the wing/fuselage joint though it was never constructed.
I'm surprised it is captioned as a 'J'. They were the last production examples and had the B47's inner engine pods under the wings from new wherears that one has only 'six turning.'
To my eyes the attachments do not look symetric under the fuselage and there would be severe difficulties with ground clearance as the B36 did not have the longest nose oleo in the world.
Whatever they are I think that they have been superimposed on.

Having seen a couple of posts that were inserted whilst I was writing mine I will replace my last sentence with; haven't a clue.

[nacluv]

Hang on - you've missed it! Blue up got it with the Goleta ASM page link above:

The pods were used to carry extra built-up R-4360 radial engines to deployment bases.

[henry crun]

Thank you blue up, I felt sure someone would come up with the right answer.

[DB6]

Can't get Madonna's pointy bra out of my mind :eek:.