MovieChat Forums > Strategic Air Command (1955) Discussion > B-36!!!

B-36!!!

posted 15 years ago by iridium6598146
8 replies | jump to latest

when I was a kid in the early '50's, if we were outside and heard that unmistakeable engine sound, one of us would holler B-36! We would all flop on the ground and scan the sky. Contrails weren't always visible, so you had to look for a tiny silver speck. If someone spotted it they kept pointing until everyone saw it. Then we would all jabber about how we were all going to be bomber pilots. Never happened. One guy, however, did become a navigator for MAC.
My high school teams were the "bombers". our school mascot was for a while a 250 lb. bomb casing with a model of the "Enola Gay" sitting on top
Nuke 'em till they glow, then shoot 'em in the dark!

[–] jglapin 14 years ago

That was one hell of an airplane. Six Wasp radials and four J-47 jets. If you ever saw one pass overhead, low and slow, for a landing or take off, that memory is never forgotten.

You have to love an airplane that requires climbing a ladder to get from inside the fuselage to the flight deck- a real flight deck, a cockpit with more levers, dials and switches than a nuclear power plant, and requires riding a rail car to get from the front to the back over the bomb bay.

This plane might have had the most wingspan of any airplane built since. Lots of lift, lots of drag. I wonder what the glide ratio was during power off landings?

[–] vonmazur 14 years ago

jglapin: Wasp Major Engines R 4360-51, and 4 J 47 jets...The 36's equipped with the gun turrets and extra crew comfort gear were heavy, and did not glide very well. The last models, the Featherweight III (B-36J) was much faster and lighter and actually could climb to quite a high altitude. When they landed, the jets were at flight idle, and the recips were on the flight idle stops usually. When they were just coming over the fence and had the runway made, they chopped the throttles back, upon touchdown, they hit the reverse pitch of the props and used that to stop rather than the disc brakes...Watch the landing scene in the movie....."Stand by to arm reverse...."

Dale in AL

"If those sweethearts won't face German bullets--They'll face french ones!"

[–] choatelodge 12 years ago

That's what I get out of this movie, not that I mind the retro mom n' apple pie 40's story filler, nor do I tire of Jimmy Stewart.
It's the B-36 footage! The big warbird grabbing air and half a dozen corn cobs throbbing with power.
Even when a jet engine develops more power, the whistling and shrieking just doesn't thrill the soul anything like the way a big piston engine can do when throttled up, and the 28 cylinder Wasp Majors are big.
The Peacemakers make this movie, for me.

[–] jglapin 11 years ago

Yes Sir. the B-36 is the star of this picture.

[–] bd18packer 10 years ago

I am surprised that no one here mentions the old adage about the B-36, "...with six turning and four burning.." in reference to the six prop engines turning and the four jet engines burning, upon takeoff. Although I am old enough to remember the B-36 and the B-47, I can't recall ever seeing one in flight. Too bad, they were magnificent airplanes.

BTW, there is a B-47 on static display in a public park in Altus, OK near Altus AFB, OK. Everytime I see it when visiting my father in law near Altus, I am reminded of the film "Strategic Air Command". And for an USAF vet like myself, it is a great sight to see.

BD
USAF 1982-86, USAF Reserve 1986-88

[–] phantomsever 8 years ago

One thing about the B-36......you could hear it from about 40 miles away before it actually came into view, at low to medium altitudes (say 15,000 AGL or so). It had an unmistakable drone that grew incessantly louder as the ship drew closer. You can hear some of that in the film's opening sequence, during the flyover at the ballpark. I was fortunate enough to see (and hear) the last B-36 to ever fly as it made a stopover at McClellan AFB in California on its way to retirement. I've heard that it may have been the aircraft that eventually found its way to the AFM display in Dayton.

Six Actual......OUT!

[–] joegerardi (376) 6 years ago

With the mechanical issues, that saying was changed (by the mechanics) to: " "two turning, two burning, two smoking, two choking, and two more unaccounted for."

..Joe

[–] 8 years ago

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