This could be a long blog read or a short one. It’s your call. I have two YouTube videos today that are pretty amazing, in my opinion. One is short and one is long.
By way of background, my first job as an engineer was on the F-16 program at General Dynamics in Fort Worth, Texas. The reason I guess that’s significant is a few years ago I came across this video, Six Turning Four Burning, and as I watched it, I recognized the General Dynamics plant where I worked in the background. The video is an excerpt from Strategic Air Command, a 1950s movie starring Jimmy Stewart. It features the Convair B-36 bomber, an airplane with six radial piston engines and four jet engines (hence the six turning, four burning title). I think you’ll enjoy it.
Yesterday, I was channel surfing on Netflix and I found a documentary about the B-36. That had my attention, because when I worked at General Dynamics 40 years ago, there were still guys there who had worked on the B-36 engineering development program. They spoke about the B-36 in reverential tones, and to them, it was perhaps mankind’s greatest accomplishment.
Everything about the B-36 was Texas sized. It had a wingspan larger than a 747. The tail was so tall they had to raise the aircraft nose 18 feet to get the tail to clear the Convair plant exit as these giants came off the assembly line. I don’t know what impressed me more…the aircraft itself, or the way those oldtimers talked about it.
The B-36 documentary I found on Netflix is also on YouTube. This video is about an hour long, but it’s a good one, and if you like the kinds of things you see here on the ExhaustNotes blog I think you’ll enjoy it. I sure did.
Even though I lived in Fort Worth and spent a ton of time on the Carswell AFB runway working F-16 issues, I had no idea how prominently Fort Worth and a man named Amon Carter figured into the B-36 story. The B-36 movie above educated me on that topic. When I lived in Fort Worth, I visited the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, which has perhaps the world’s greatest collection of Frederic Remington paintings and sculptures. One that really spoke to me was Remington’s Old Stagecoach of the Plains. It was a huge painting, so realistic I could almost see the stagecoach moving and hear it creaking and rattling. It was awesome.
If you are ever in the Fort Worth area, I think the Amon Carter museum on Camp Bowie Boulevard is a “must see” destination.
Want some cool B-36 stuff? How about the Hayne’s owner’s workshop B-36 manual
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I never saw a B-36 in flight, but watching loaded B-52s take off from Okinawa in 1969 was pretty scary. And the SR-71s were something else.
We’d get to see B-52s taking off every morning from Carswell AFB when I worked at GD. They were impressive airplanes. Always amazed me how much the wings deflected when they were on the ground versus when they were in flight.
I learned of the B’36 back in the early 90’s when I was riding from Illinois to California and stopped at the SAC Museum near Omaha. I was a Warbird enthusiast but hadn’t heard of this bomber that was positioned between the Prop and Jet era’s.
I seem to remember that it is the only bomber that never dropped ordinance on an enemy. I plan to go to Wright Patterson to see the one they have on display there next year, if things open up….
I saw these flying overhead back in the 50’s as a kid Cape Girardeau, Missouri. B’ville Arkansas had a SAC base and we were on their flight plan “block”. Remember in the the 50’s a third of the SAC Fleet was in the air or on alert all the time. The B-36 sort of hummed a low bass as they would fly around Cape. Later we saw B-47’s and and B-52’s, even saw KC-97’s refuel these beasts at times. A couple of times the B-47’s would buzz the baseball fields as were playing… the world stopped at those times as all of us just stood and watched in awe!