B-36
Page 3
Official controversy suddenly exploded into the open with a congressional investigation of charges that political favoritism had influenced procurement of a costly sitting duck. Secretary of Defense Louis A. Johnson (a former Convair director) was blamed. More serious were the technical issues raised by the Navy, which resented Johnson’s cancellation, on April 23, 1949, of the supercarrier ordered by his predecessor, James V. Forrestal. That ship had been seen as a way of giving the Navy a strategic bombing capability, but the Air Force leaders insisted that strategic bombing was an Air Force function. Available defense budget funds could provide new strategic bombers or a new carrier force, but not both.
The B-36 was expensive, for the prototypes had cost $39 million, and the first 95 $6,248,686 each. Average price would drop below four million as production flowed. Investigations held in August and October 1949, however, found the Air Force defending its bomber’s capabilities against both political and Navy critics. Despite the so-called “Revolt of the Admirals,” the B-36 program survived that investigation. War in Korea would make funds available for both strategic bombers and big carriers. When that war began, SAC had two Wings, the 7th and 11th with B-36Bs, but the 28th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing had received its first jet- boosted RB-36D on June 3, 1950.
Penetration capabilities of the B-36D were increased by the added boost of J47 jet pods, but the 444 mph estimated earlier by the company became 406 mph. Yet the real measure of B-36 success was an ability to attack in night and bad weather, the tactic most difficult for an enemy to block. The elaborate 1,700-pound K-1, and later the K-3A, bombing-navigation system could find targets in the worst weather conditions, and combined the tasks of bombardier and radar operator in one man. Bomb racks were modified to hold the differences in shape among the nuclear Mk 4, 5, 6, or 8 models, and new bomb doors could snap open or shut in two seconds. An APG-32 radar aimed the tail guns.
Convair provided 26 B-36Ds accepted from August 1950 to August 1951. Fifty-nine of the 62 B-36Bs accepted earlier were returned to the company for conversion to B-36Ds, and were redelivered with jets from November 1950 to February 1952. The RB-36D reconnaissance model was first flown December 18, 1949, and 24 were accepted from June 1950 to May 1951.
The RB-36D and RB-36E reconnaissance versions increased the crew from 15 to 22, had 14 cameras in the pressurized front bomb bay and 80 flash bombs in the second bay. Behind them the bays could hold an auxiliary fuel tank or bombs, followed by three protruding ECM (electronic countermeasure) antennas. All 16 guns were retained. Twenty-one B-36As and the YB-36 were converted to RB-36E jets, and delivered from July 1950 to July 1951.
On November 18, 1950, the first B-36F was flown with the 3,800-hp R-4360-53 engines and K-3A radar. From March to December 1951, 34 B-36Fs and 24 RB-36Fs were delivered. The B-36H, first flown April 5, 1952, had an APG-41A twin-radar tail defense, allowing search and gun aiming at separate attackers, while 1,400 pounds of chaff were carried to jam enemy radar. The flight deck was modified to include a second engineer. From December 1951 to July 1953, 83 B-36Hs and 73 RB-36Hs were delivered.
A B-36H made a live drop of the largest pure-fission bomb on November 16, 1952, when an 8,600-pound Mk 18, released from 40,000 feet, exploded at 8,000 feet with a 500-kiloton blast. Only the B-36 could carry the largest thermonuclear bomb, the 41,400-pound Mk 17, which yielded 13.5 megatons when tested in 1954. A large parachute was installed on the bomb to slow the fall enough to allow the aircraft to escape the blast.
Two hundred Mk 17 and 105 similar Mk 24 bombs were made by November 1955, and the last retired by August 1957. One was accidentally dropped on New Mexico when a B-36 crewman leaned against a release, but since the nuclear element was not then installed, here was no catastrophe. No live H-bomb drop was ever made from a B-36, as the B-52’s speed allowed a safer distance from the blast. Readers can find a very detailed study of
B-36 weaponry by Chuck Hansen in the Jacobsen anthology cited in the chapter notes.
Last was the B-36J model, first flown September 3, 1953, with an additional 2,770 gallons of fuel, and 19 were accepted by March 1954. The last 14, however, were completed in the B-36J (III) Featherweight configuration from May to August. All turrets but the tail turret removed, just 13 crewmen retained, and flush windows replaced sighting blisters.
Project Featherweight was a program to reduce airframe weight to balance this extra fuel. Class II Featherweights kept their guns, but some of the older B-36D, B-36F, B-36H, and B-36J aircraft adopted the Featherweight (III) configuration when overhauled in 1954. Abandonment of the multi-turret system was the end of the World War II concept of the heavy bomber formation shooting its way to the target. Protection was the task of the single gunner using his APG-41 tail radar to search backwards, shifting to the gun-laying mode when a target enters the 90-degree horizontal and 74-degree vertical cone of fire.
Delivery of the final B-36J (III) on August 14, 1954, brought the Convair total to 382, not including two B-36Gs redesignated YB-60 or the unarmed NB-36H, flown September 17, 1955, with the world’s only airborne nuclear reactor. There was also the single transport version, the XC-99 flown from San Diego in 1947, that never was sold to the commercial airlines.
Ten SAC Wings used B-36s from 1953 to 1955, until replacement by B-52s was finally completed with the retirement of the last B-36J from SAC on February 12, 1959. Considered as a strategic deterrent, the B-36 never had to fight.
FICON (FIghter-CONveyor) was a plan intended to carry a fighter aircraft on the B-36. The first such project was the XF-85 (see Chapter 27). All of its tests were made from a B-29B. On January 19, 1951, Convair was ordered to modify an RB-36F to carry and recover an F-84E, and redesignated GRB-36F, it began its first retrieval and launch tests January 9, 1952. In May 1953, a swept-wing YF-84F modified to fit the cradle below the GRB was successfully tested. Ten GRB-36Ds (III) with cradles for RF-84K reconnaissance jets were delivered to SAC in February/March 1955. They could carry the RF-84K out to a 2,810-mile radius, launching the 29,500-pound parasite at 25,000 feet for its dash over the target area. The partnership lasted less than a year’s service with the 99th Reconnaissance Wing.
Another range-extension program was Project Tom-Tom, which attempted to have the jets attach themselves to each wing tip. In 1953 the same GRB-36F previously mentioned was fitted with wing tip mechanisms to mate with two RB-84Fs. But a similar system tried with a B-29A and two F-84Bs resulted in a fatal crash of all three aircraft on April 24, 1953, and dangerous test experiments with the GRB-36F soon led to the program’s termination.
Three B-36Hs became DB-36H models when modified to carry the Bell GAM-63 “Rascal,” a 32-foot, 18,200-pound air-to-ground missile launched at a target up to 75 miles away. These conversions were begun in March 1953, but the system was deleted from B-36 plans by the time the last was completed in July 1955.
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