Which aircraft looks most like a warplane?
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SASless
This had to have been an impressive sight to see....
This had to have been an impressive sight to see....
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
Then there was the nuclear version - thankfully never commissioned.
A big slab of lead behind the crew, and after their war mission they were supposed to land on a glacier runway, be pushed back into a hole and entombed forever....
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_NB-36H
http://www.megazone.org/ANP/atomair.shtml
"And that was that. Neither the United States, nor the Soviet Union, nor any other country was ever able to develop a true atomic-powered aircraft. But a nuclear plane of sorts did manage to fly This was the NB-36H test airplane, authorized along with the X-6 design back in 1951. Its original B-36H airframe had been extensively modified, most notably with a 12-ton shielded crew capsule in the nose, a 4-ton lead disc shield in the middle and a number of large air intake and exhaust holes to cool the reactor in the aft section. The reactor was a 1000-kilowatt design weighing 35,000 pounds and situated in a removable mounting in the aft bomb bay Its operation was observed from the crew capsule by closed circuit television. When the plane was not being flown, the reactor was kept in a specially prepared pit near the runway at Convair's Fort Worth, Texas, facility.
NB-36H flew with its radioactive cargo 47 times between 1955 and 1957, and, although it did not power the airplane, the reactor provided considerable data on the effects of radiation emitted during night. Flying alongside NB-36H on every one of its flights was a Boeing C-97 Stratocruiser transport carrying a platoon of armed Marines ready to parachute down and surround the test airplane in case it crashed. This certainly deserved hazardous duty pay. Pity the poor troops assigned to this outfit, jocularly dubbed the "glow-in-the-dark platoon." Fortunately there never was a crash, and the test plane was eventually decommissioned at Fort Worth in late 1957. After languishing as a hulk for many months, it was scrapped."
A big slab of lead behind the crew, and after their war mission they were supposed to land on a glacier runway, be pushed back into a hole and entombed forever....
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_NB-36H
http://www.megazone.org/ANP/atomair.shtml
"And that was that. Neither the United States, nor the Soviet Union, nor any other country was ever able to develop a true atomic-powered aircraft. But a nuclear plane of sorts did manage to fly This was the NB-36H test airplane, authorized along with the X-6 design back in 1951. Its original B-36H airframe had been extensively modified, most notably with a 12-ton shielded crew capsule in the nose, a 4-ton lead disc shield in the middle and a number of large air intake and exhaust holes to cool the reactor in the aft section. The reactor was a 1000-kilowatt design weighing 35,000 pounds and situated in a removable mounting in the aft bomb bay Its operation was observed from the crew capsule by closed circuit television. When the plane was not being flown, the reactor was kept in a specially prepared pit near the runway at Convair's Fort Worth, Texas, facility.
NB-36H flew with its radioactive cargo 47 times between 1955 and 1957, and, although it did not power the airplane, the reactor provided considerable data on the effects of radiation emitted during night. Flying alongside NB-36H on every one of its flights was a Boeing C-97 Stratocruiser transport carrying a platoon of armed Marines ready to parachute down and surround the test airplane in case it crashed. This certainly deserved hazardous duty pay. Pity the poor troops assigned to this outfit, jocularly dubbed the "glow-in-the-dark platoon." Fortunately there never was a crash, and the test plane was eventually decommissioned at Fort Worth in late 1957. After languishing as a hulk for many months, it was scrapped."
Last edited by ORAC; 3rd Dec 2016 at 18:16.
The Russians experimented with Nuclear Powered aircraft as well.
Russian projects atomoletov | Encyclopedia of safety
Russian projects atomoletov | Encyclopedia of safety
I believe the B-36 was even bigger than the B-52?
A gent I used to know who flew early jets for the RAF once told me a story of when he was flying a Vampire one day somewhere over the UK and happened to notice a silver glint in the distance. He went to take a look and came up alongside a B-36, which he described as the most impressive thing he'd ever seen in the air. After waving to the crew he was very perturbed when all the gun turrets suddenly swung round to point at him, and automatically pulled back on the stick to put some distance between him and them. Only afterwards did he tell himself that they probably weren't armed. Probably.
A gent I used to know who flew early jets for the RAF once told me a story of when he was flying a Vampire one day somewhere over the UK and happened to notice a silver glint in the distance. He went to take a look and came up alongside a B-36, which he described as the most impressive thing he'd ever seen in the air. After waving to the crew he was very perturbed when all the gun turrets suddenly swung round to point at him, and automatically pulled back on the stick to put some distance between him and them. Only afterwards did he tell himself that they probably weren't armed. Probably.
I always liked the looks of the Douglas A-26 Invader.....especially the Gun Ship Version with lots of .50 Cal's in the nose.
Add in those Big Pistons in the Radial Engines....and that is pure Sex!
Add in those Big Pistons in the Radial Engines....and that is pure Sex!
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There's one of those B-26's sitting in a park in Surabaya, Indonesia. Looks in remarkably good nick considering it's been sitting in the open for decades. Apparently it saw action in the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975..
'Some more comparisons...(the Hustler is probably one to add to the list too)!'
It has been! See my post #54.
It has been! See my post #54.
Last edited by Captain Dart; 5th Dec 2016 at 07:34.
Wonder what drag index they used for the toilet when crunching the numbers.
Crusader The F-8 Crusader, a single engine, single seat, U.S. Navy fighter had the highest kill ratio of any American type in Vietnam, 19:3. It also had a kill-rate-per-engagement 7 times better than the F-4 Phantom. The unique variable incidence wing allowed good visability over the nose during carrier landings as well as short landing gear.
Last edited by Mozella; 6th Dec 2016 at 13:55.
