"Size 36" The first public movie film with details of the B-36 "PEACEMAKER"

They started flying above 30,000 but as I remember, Lemay was so unhappy with results that he ordered them to fly at minimum altitude to get the results that he wanted. The real results came when he decided on fire bombing. When the B-29's began their raids , the Japanese fighters were struggling to reach them but it didn't take long before they were making effective attacks. I don't think that I would have enjoyed those B-29 missions because if the fighters and anti-aircraft fire didn't get you, the R-3350 would. Over a big pond and a loong ride home and longer if there was damage or a dead engine. The overheating problems on the R-3350 were mostly caused by the small diameter cowl opening . The B-17 had something like 1460 square inches for the R-1820 but the B-29 opening had something like 1100 but it was cooling an engine that was twice as big in displacement. Boeing did everything they could to lower drag and the cowling did not work well to keep the engine cool. Another problem was the valve heads that burned off the stem and got swallowed and started fires in a 300 pound magnesium crankcase that could and did get into the wing. I remember that the B-50's had magnesium links in the engine mount so that a burning engine would drop from the airplane.

 

Bob- One reason Iwo Jima was worth all the losses we suffered taking it. Allowed the P-51Ds and P-38Ls to escort the B-29s all the way to Japan and provided an emergency landing site for damaged B-29s. LeMay's later night, low level fire bomb raids were devastating to wood and paper houses.

Prior to the build up for the invasion of Japan, most of the air combat had been at low to medium altitude over islands or water. Very few Japanese fighters could even reach the B-29s at altitude. But the B-29s could not hit anything from there, so...

Not much changed with the BUFF dropping conventional, dumb bimbs at FL450. Leaving a string of explosions 1/4 mile long, though, had a very distinct psychological affect and the Iraqis in Kuwait were terrified by them. Probably not much different for the B-29s in Japan except for a much smaller bomb load, but a whole lot more aircraft.

 

Thanks for sharing all the experiences and details here guys.. loving the insights into all the issues and other considerations.. real eye opener into how things are done and made and stuff that happens.

 

Yes, I think Iwo Jima was worth it.

Never understood Peleliu, though... huge loss of life to no advantage, it seems.

But... that's a different story that we don't need to do here.

 

Two of my high school classmates joined the Marines . One was in Tarawa, one went in on the first wave at Iwo. I happened to bump into them when I was on furlough and they weren't the same guys with whom I played on the football team. I went to college with an ex Marine who went in at Iwo and Okinawa. Didn't seem to bother him.

 

I think this is from "Strategic Air Command" movie.
With Jimmy and June.

About 3 minutes... excellent. in color with movie music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3QX2oIT6WM

If you get an opportunity to watch the movie, do it.

 

YouTube of the saving and restoration in Ft. Worth of the last B-36 off the line, "The City of Fort Worth".

About 15 minutes long.

Great footage of the restore, move and the final product.

Sadly, Ft. Worth lost out and the AF sent the plane to Pima in AZ once it was done.
Lockheed Martin needed the hangar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Thu_qsJStNI

 

Especially when you consider whoever took this film made a formation take-off with the B-36. Lots of funny airflow around an aircraft that large. Makes me wonder what aircraft they used for the filming. Results were really outstanding and gives you an appreciation of how huge the B-36 was. That and the city killers she carried must have scared the Soviets spitless.

 

The compounding of huge prop wash, jet exhaust, and form turbulence would have left a frightening wake. The B-29 had a bad wake, especially when dirty, and I cannot imagine what the B-36 left. At the first Abottsford show in 1966 a flight of three F-101's on afterburner came in on a low pass over the crowd at or near supersonic speed. The initial blast was quite a shock but the" filling in" of the air after the pass was an eerie sound of "Whee-you Whee-you" for a good 10-20 seconds. Great incident! Scared the hell out of the unsuspecting crowd and it never happened again. Two years later they performed a high speed pass over the show line but at a little more altitude and pulled into a steep climb on the way out. The pilot of the last one decided to do some rolls on the way up and the airplane began to go into an oscillating yaw and disintegrated on the way up. The crew bailed out and survived but they sustained some burns.The previous act of two Canadian air Force helicopters didn't have their engines shut down yet and they effected an immediate rescue and flew the injured crew to Vancouver hospital.

 

Bob- Sounds like roll-yaw coupling, which can really surprise you if you have not seen it before. Forces generated can throw the crew all over the cockpit, and, eventually, if corrective action is not taken, tear an airplane apart. Why it pays to always be strapped down really tightly in a fighter. Helps on ejection, too. Nothing like having an ejection seat come up to meet your rear-end. Newer ones tighten the straps and lock the harnesses automatically.

 

Another Abbotsford accident that relates to the start of your reply, about large aircraft wakes, taken from Wikipedia:

"August 8, 1969 At noon a Boeing 747 airliner flew the 75 miles from Paine Field in Everett, Washington to make its first public airshow appearance completing three left to right flybys including a final low level slow pass to open the first day of the three day airshow. Immediately after a Mini Mustang entered the flight line from the left for a low inverted pass. Near midfield the Mini Mustang gyrated violently and dove into the ground killing the pilot, 20-year-old flight instructor Scott Nelskog from Washington State. The determination was that the residual wake vortex from the 747 pass rolled the Mini Mustang resulting in the fatal crash."

 

Yes, Jim, I was there when that Happened. We were in the opened hangar at the south end of the field getting the Clown Plane ready for our act and I saw a flash of black come down and hit with a loud "splat". He was caught in the standing vortex left from the point where the 747 made a power on pull up some three or for minutes before. Scotty was doing a tandem act with John Spronk in another red mustang. Spronk was coming in from the south and Scotty came in from the north and they were to make a simulated crossing in the middle of their pull up . It was a 90 deg. day and the vortex was fed by thermals and the right type of breeze. John somehow missed the vortex but Scotty hit it when he was inverted in a roll and came straight down, engine full bore. Not much left of anything.

 

Bob- On calm days, those vortexes can last for several minutes. Friend of mine got caught in one in a T-38 and did two uncommanded aileron rolls before recovering. One reason we approached tankers from well below. Kept you out of most of the vortex. Same when we went to observation position off one of the wings.

Something as light as one of those Mini-Mustangs had no chance once caught at low altitude. Could just as easily have spit him up, but very unlucky that day and it spit him down.

 

Thanks, Terry. I was conservative in my estimate in the time between the 747 pass and Scotty's flight. it was probably closer to ten minutes between acts and and there was nothing to dissipate the vortex. I know how bad wake turbulence can be because I found out when I crossed behind a B-29 too close and not far enough below. I got the crap scared out of me when the airplane was being kicked around like the inside of a washing machine. What frightened me the most were the sounds of popping and snapping in the structure above my head. There was no obvious damage to the airplane so it was probably the material in skylite that I was hearing. I know that with the gear and flaps down, the drag more than doubles on a B-29 so it's chopping up the air pretty well.

 

nothing new, just a 'bump'







.

 

Before Lemay's edict the first of the raids were at altitude, about 30,000ft. Due to jet stream the accuracy was all over the place so Lemay ordered the low altitude bombing height.

 

Size 36 must have been produced in the early to mid 50's. No SAC badge and stars, by the canopy.

Produced at Carswell. Flight suits are kewl.





The USA must procure a lot of the B-21's, to keep the CCP in-check.