Convair B.36 forced landing.
 

Hi. Have just been staying with a friend, and I recounted how a B.36 had force landed on Salisbuty plain many years ago. I know the bit about building a road and towing it to Boscombe Down, but can anyone furnish me with a detailed report, dates etc. Many thanks in advance. Cheers.

Hello JEM
It's been on Pprune before:
Photo:
http://forum.keypublishing.com/attac...9&d=1243341612
It landed short of Boscombe Down in Jan 52 apparently.

B-36 Cockpit Gauge Maze




The B-36 was a state of the art airplane in its day. The Air Engineer was responsible for starting, maintaining and shutting down the 6 Radial Engines and 4 Jet Engines required to make it fly and mission completed. No modern "Fly by Wire" or "Computer controlled Aircraft" involved here. Just straight old manpower, brainpower and the guts to get it done. This is absolutely mind boggling to think about. The 360 degree viewing movement by moving your mouse is amazing.

This is a 360 degree panorama of the flight engineers station on a B-36: Six propeller-driven R-4360s and four J-47 jets to keep an eye on, plus fuel, pressurization, hydraulics, electrical, and other systems. ..

Use your mouse to navigate the cockpit……

NMUSAF - B-36J Engineer

Proper aeroplane that one. Not like those girly things with two joysticks and three tellys that won't let you screw up.

....and there was one equipped with a nuclear reactor, even.

How many Flight Engineers ? One or two ?

WHBM, just the one at the panel. Changed weekly.

I think it also retains the distinction of being the only aircraft to have dropped an H-bomb on the mainland USA. Accidentally.

Great video of the cockpit. Reminds me of my Reliant Robin! Not sure some of today's pilots would cope too well.

Fascinating picture of the cockpit, I wonder where the throttles are for the jet engines ?

I think they were on the overhead panel, controlled by the pilots.

Yes, whoops- gotta make sure that pin is in properly. Others were lost over the USA from a B-47 and the the B-52- the B-52 was due to a inflight breakup and a B-47 jettisoned one, please let the folks in South Carolina know if you hook one on your fishing line.

Some versions of the B-36 had one flight engineer, some two. Gets rather complicated between the versions, modifications, weight reduction programs....

Just watch "Strategic Air Command" with Jimmy Stewart.
Great movie
Six Turnin and Four Burnin - YouTube

The ones that my father flew had three, two in the cockpit at their stations and one that roamed the aircraft while it was in flight. My father said he never really knew what the third FE really did, except bring coffee to him.

And yes, the throttles for the four jet engines are/were above the left seat. The reason they were there was because the early B-36's did not have the jet engines and that was the only place they could mount the throttles for the jet engines after they were added.

By the way, at the time there was a big fight in the Air Force command structure over whether the Flight Engineers should be commissioned officers rather than enlisted men.

It was rumored that senior NCOs claimed that officers would be too dumb to handle the FE duties and the FE panel on the B-36. :p

Hello Con Pilot, I do believe that there were a number of "rifted" Commissioned Officer's initially as the Air Force was long on pilots and had someplace to put them. Maybe not all crews had that but a significant amount showed up in the ranks.

Yes, before the Viet Nam war there were thousands of officers riffed in the Air Force. A lot did stay in as enlisted men for retirement reasons, as after they retired, they would retire at the highest commissioned rank they had held.

Stanwell
 

The Nuclear equipped B-36 NB-36H nicknamed the "Convair Crusader" made a total of 47 test flights From Sept.1955 to March 1957.

Operated over remote areas of New Mexico and Texas, the reactor never actually powered the aircraft during any of its test flights.
A CCTV system was used to monitor the reactor and the 10 engines in flight.

As an aside, I was fortunate as a boy, early 50s, to witness 6 x B-36 in flight.
They were on a return trip from the UK to the USA.
Overflew Bath, my home town, at different heights.
First one was quite high then the others flew over at decreasing heights until the 6th one was quite low, I can remember the sounds as well.
A never to be forgotten experience.

OPF

Thanks for that, OPF.
I imagine the sound of 6 x 4360s low overhead would have rattled the crockery in your cupboards.

These ones?