What kind of plane is this???

[alanduggan]

Hello. I was wondering if you could help me? My grandfather took a picture of a plane while he was in the Air Force in WWII. I remember my grandmother telling me that there was something special about that airplane. Do you have any information about what type of plane it is, or maybe what it would have been used for? Any information would be appreciated. Thanks.

Click on this link for the picture...Thanks.

http://members.lycos.co.uk/alanduggan/Plane.jpg

[simon]

I don't think it was actually used in World War two, it looks to me like a Convair B-36 Peacemaker. In fact according to one of my books the B-36 first flew on 8th August 1946, it could be that your Grandad was there for the first flight of the prototype, although from the picture it has the modified canopy of the slightly later pre-production YP-36A which flew in 1947, and which became standard throughout the rest of the series.

Sorry if this seems a bit disjointed but I'm mainly typing as I'm thinking. I've just had another look at the picture and if you look outboard of the last propeller engine you can seen an attachment hanging down from the wing, if you then look closely at the end of the attachment you can just make out where the Jet engines that were attached there have been airbrushed from the picture, presumably by an official censor. It's quite good because at first I didn't notice it, but in airbrushing the jets out they've cut the tip off one of the propellers. That would place this picture at around 1948 at the earliest, could be the first flight of the B-36 with Jets.

It had an unusual engine arrangement as you can see from the picture in that the propellers point rearwards (known as a "Pusher" rather than the more conventional "Puller" arrangement), the undercarriage was what is referred to as a Bogie type assembly, then unconventional, but still in use on most modern airliners.

Eventually Convair added two pairs of Jet engines in the outer wings to boost the capabilities of the B-36, like in the picture, although you can't see them!

According to the book I've got, it was the first bomber with a truly global strategic capability to serve with any airforce, which at a time when the Cold War was just about to start was very significant.

To give the statistics I've got here for the B-36H (The main production version, with the extra jets):
Crew - 15
Max Speed - 441 mph at 36,400ft
Ceiling - 39,900ft
Range - 6,800 miles
Wing span - 230ft
Length - 162ft 1in
Height - 46ft 8in
Weight - 410,000lb loaded
Armament - either 1 10,000lb Mk7 Nuclear Store, or up to 38,052kg of conventional bombs.

The type was a heavy bomber although versions were also used as reconnaissance planes. About 200 were built in total, I'm unaware if any have survived, but given the maintenance requirements of up to 10 engines I seriously doubt any are flying anymore.

Hope this is of some help to you.

[alanduggan]

Thank you. That was just what I wanted and even more! Thanks again.

[GregP]

Laye model B-36 (two jet engines udner the wings near the tips). Never fought, but was a significant force during the cold war. VERY long range strategic bomber.

Could get to very high altitudes and was hard for the fighters to intercept due to altitude. It flew near the service ceiling of the F-86 ... but, then again, the MiG-15 could loop at the service ceiling of the F-86 ...

[Corsarius]

These were the suckers they set up the XF-85 to fly as a parasite escort fighter from. Now THERE was a whacky concept. And you guys think I'm wierd for liking the Me-163...

Here's a link http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/air_power/ap38.htm

Enjoy and be wierded out. Of course the Soviets, no strangers to wierd thinking, had parasite fighters (I-15 and I-16s, as well as I-5s, I think) attatched to their early tupolev bombers. I have a video at home of separation of all 5 fighters from the bomber to escort it.. very impressive, if a little dangerous!

[simon]

Going Off Topic a bit here, but I've also seen a picture of P-51s parasited to the wing tips of B-29s with their engines running and linked to the outer fuel tanks of the Superfortresses, so the concept was not unique, and who knows it may have come to fruition if air-to-air refuelling had not proved a practical alternative, wouldn't have liked to see it tried in the middle of a formation of combat boxes though...

[Corsarius]

Do you mean similar to tip-to-tip refuelling, as favoured by Tupolev?

Cripes.. this from the people who bought you the Twin Mustang, so one pilot can doze while the other fights...

You don't have a link for that pic by any chance?

[simon]

Unfortunately not, it was in a book that I've long since either lost or actually returned to the library, if I come across it again I'll point you in the right direction ;)

[simon]

Just as a further update for the B-36, according to the Warbirds Resource Group, there are four survivng airframes in Static display condition:

http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/registry/b36registry/b36registry.html

For those who are interested...

[Johnny .45]

Going Off Topic a bit here, but I've also seen a picture of P-51s parasited to the wing tips of B-29s with their engines running and linked to the outer fuel tanks of the Superfortresses, so the concept was not unique, and who knows it may have come to fruition if air-to-air refuelling had not proved a practical alternative, wouldn't have liked to see it tried in the middle of a formation of combat boxes though...

I've never seen the picture you're talking about, but I've heard of similar ideas referred to before...they experimented with towing P-51's aloft behind B-29's like gliders, to be hauled along until thy were needed. I think there were even earlier attempts with other types to bring escorts along to Berlin, but none of them were ever used operationally.
What you describe is obviously different, and interesting...perhaps they used the extra pair of engines to help the bomber take off with the added load, kind of like how the old B-52's could fire up the turojets on their Houndog cruise missiles to assist in takeoff.
I don't see why they'd keep the engines running the whole way there though, even if they are using the bomber as a giant fuel tank. Perhaps it was that the mother ship would be to heavy and "draggy" to keep up with the rest of the box? Especially if it was carrying a bomb load. Or the opposite, like the YB-40 "escort fighter" concept...got along fine when in a formation of loaded bombers, but was too heavy to keep up with all it's guns after the others had dropped their bombs and were flying empty.
Take a dedicated B-29, strap a pair of escorts under the wings, let them hang there the whole "ingress" leg, and then use their engines to keep up with the rest on the return flight?
In any case, I don't think it was ever used operationally...but it is a cool concept. I wonder if the wings needed reinforcement to cope with all that weight at the wing tips?

Johnny .45

[Ricky]

It might just be so they could be detatched at a moment's notice, rather than having to fire up the engine before they could launch.

[Johnny .45]

It might just be so they could be detatched at a moment's notice, rather than having to fire up the engine before they could launch.

I suppose...but they were pretty much safe until they got over the home islands, in general. The B-29's flew too high for most Japanese types to even reach them, and it takes a long time to climb to 30,000ft. But for the reasons I said before, they may well have had to keep 'em turning they whole way. No reason not to, as long as there's fuel to go around. And I suppose the engines would get pretty cold sitting shut down for that long at those temperatures. If not for that, it doesn't take long to fire up an engine, especially when you can use the prop and the slipstream to turn it over.
I wonder if they could re-attach once they were deployed? Sounds even riskier than launching, what with those huge props spinning not more than a few feet away and all.
Does Simon recall whether the fighters had drop tanks installed as well? Well...no, since they'd have to drop them as soon as they launched, if they planned on doing any fighting. I wonder if the P-51 had range enough to fly a one-way trip back from Japan on internal fuel alone? I guess getting to start already at altitude would save an awful lot of fuel compared to the long climb a fighter has to make as part of it's "operational range".
But there was obviously some flaws with the idea, or they would have used it operationally. I can't picture them deciding that "disposable fighters" a la CAM-ship/Hurricane combo were worth the cost...the B-29 never faced a serious fighter threat as far as I know, not like the offensive over Europe where fighters slaughtered the bombers routinely.
Even once the Japanese developed a few types that could reach them, there weren't many to go around. The CAM-ship idea (Catapult Armed Merchant Ship) was developed as convoy protection during the Battle of the Atlantic, to defend against Fw 200 Condors or drive them beyond tracking range.
It involved launching a Hurricane off of a specially-equipped merchant ship to drive the shadower away...but then the pilot had to ditch or bail out and hope the convoy managed to pick him up. Recovering the fighter was not possible, yet surprisingly, the plan was a success. Saving a convoy was well worth the loss of a single fighter, or more most likely.
I don't see that applying to fighter escorts over Japan. I suppose they could fly quite a long way home before ditching, but the risks would be too great and the cost too high for what the fighter accomplished. It would have been a steep price indeed to be more than a convoy was worth, especially during the "darkest hours" of the U-boat campaign.
Boy I would love to see that picture of this attempt...do you recall any details of how the fighters were attached? Was there a special frame installed on the Mustangs? I don't see how they could hang under the wing without some kind of device...there's no where to attach a hook on a Mustang, except ahead or behind the cockpit, unless you "straddled" the canopy itself and installed anchors on the wings.
Of well, I suppose it's not worth worrying about too much. I'm sure they found that it wasn't as effective nor as necessary as they had thought, since it never caught on. Funny how every few years they tried something like that again, and yet it was never been made to work very well. They had the US airships with the little trapeze-launched biplanes, and the Tupolev experiments with Polikarpov fighters (I've only ever seen I-16's, myself), and the XF-85 Goblin/B-36 experiment, and B-36 FICON (FIghter CONveyer) tests.
I just discovered that there is a photo on the Wikipedia FICON page of a B-29 with a pair of EF-85 Thunderjets attached to the wingtips. I wonder if that's similar to what you were describing?


Cripes.. this from the people who bought you the Twin Mustang, so one pilot can doze while the other fights...


You make it sound as if the Twin Mustang was a bad idea or something. I always thought it was quite effective, and a bright idea. Two planes, two pilots, two engines. It had long range, and one pilot could rest while the other flew on the long, long flight in. Plus, all six .50's were grouped in the center of the middle wing panel...I always wondered how that effected the pilots aim. It's not exactly "convergence", but having the guns all offset to one side of you like that has got to make aiming a bit tricky at times. One thing I never really understood is why they only put full controls in one cockpit? I mean, I guess you don't need all the instruments to cruise at altitude, but what if the guy in the cockpit with all the gauges gets hit, and you have to fly home in the cockpit without gauges?

[Pete57]

Laye model B-36 (two jet engines udner the wings near the tips). Never fought, but was a significant force during the cold war. VERY long range strategic bomber....

According to wikipedia
"In late 1952 during the Korean War six 5th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing RB-36Ds were deployed to the 91st Strategic Reconnaissance Group. at Yokota AB, Japan. This was the first introduction of RB-36 to the Korean theater. While not employed in any combat missions over North Korea, these RB-36s conducted high altitude aerial reconnaissance over Chinese Manchurian and Soviet east Asian targets while attached to the 91st SRG."

So even though the B-36 never flew combat missions as a bomber, it did as a reconnaissance platform.

It is true that its ceiling was not beyond the MiG-15's, and the RB's relatively slow speed (when compared th the Soviet interceptor) put it also at a disadvantage, but on the other hand, the 8 remote-controlled turrets, each armed with a pair of 20mm M24A1 cannons where a threat to be rekoned with even by the most enterprising MiG pilot.

I have read that the B-29's firing system could not track and shoot down targets flying at the MiG-15's speed (hence B-29 gunners' claim in Korea should all be considered overclaims), but does anyone know if the RB-36's could do it?

Regards,

[Johnny .45]

I was going to mention this before, but I forgot that I hadn't...
When I try to click on the link to the photo of the B-36, my computers' anti-virus program says that it's "blocked access to a potentially malicious program", or some such thing. I'm no tech expert, so for all I know it's just my computer being paranoid, but I figured maybe I should mention it, since for all I know it's a tainted file or something and is infecting everyone who opens it.
I am curious to see the photo, but I'm not going to push my luck...I had a computer that was ruined by viruses, and I'd rather not do it again. I can't afford yet another computer!
Just a word of warning...if you know better, then have no fear. But beware that my computer seems to think that there's something fishy about that link.

Johnny .45

[GregP]

It's a tracking cookie.

[Johnny .45]

It's a tracking cookie.

Whatever that is....
LOL.

[GregP]

The site puts a cookie on your PC, and it tells them when you log back onto the internet. End of story.

What they DO with that information may activate your antivirus and might not.

[Johnny .45]

Ah, I see. I'm not really a computer expert, but I've got an idea what a "cookie" is. I'll have to ask my sisters boyfriend how I can change the settings to allow me to open the file. He's like a computer pro, or something. So he's not totally good-for-nothing! ;)