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From: wb9omc@ee.ecn.purdue.edu (Duane P Mantick)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: B49 vs. B36
Message-ID: <1991Jun1.012701.27684@amd.com>
Date: 29 May 91 20:22:02 GMT
References: <1991May29.010413.4754@amd.com>
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From: wb9omc@ee.ecn.purdue.edu (Duane P Mantick)


anderson@osl475a.erim.org (Rod Anderson) writes:
>had the eight B-49's on the line broken up for scrap and the tooling 
>destroyed.  (This is why there is no B-49 in the AF Museum.)  

	And a darn shame, too.  It would have fit right in with birds
like the SR71, the B58 and the XB70.

>Incidentally, the B-36 display at the AF Museum says a lot about how 
>the AF really felt about the B-36.  Next to it is a Goblin parasitic
>interceptor, which was launched from the B36's bombbay when enemy planes
>appeared, presumably shot them down, and then was recovered with a
>trapeze-type gadget.  That the AF was reduced to this sort of Rube
>Goldberg approach indicates they had real concerns about the B-36's 
>survivability and mission effectiveness.  

	In fact, the Goblin (XF85??) was not the only attempt to mate a
fighter with the B36.  One program used various F84's, both the
straight wing flavor (Thunderjet) and the swept wing variant
(Thunderstreak) in configurations under the bomb-bay and connecting at
the wing tips (!) to do the same thing but with a more orthodox
fighter.  Neither was particularly successful OR acceptable.  Another
idea was to mate the RF84 Thunderflash to the RB36 (or is it GRB36....)
for a two part recon platform.  The idea was for the mothership to fly
high and stable taking routine pictures, while the RF84 could be
deployed to take the "closer look" and things of interest.  With the
Thunderflash retaining some defensive capabilities, it could also
defend the mothership, or so was the concept.

	In all of the F84 cases, the operational aspect was for the
B36 to take off and mate with the "little fellow" in flight.

	Obviously, this didn't contribute a lot to current USAF
operations with one exception - knowledge of nasty turbulence generated
by the big planes.  This has been given as a justification for using
the flying boom to refuel fighters from something BIG like a KC135
or a KC10 Extender.  It gets the fighter (or whatever) down BELOW
into some supposedly clear air rather than directly behind in the wake.

	Some of the film of the F84's trying to link with the B36's
is very educational in this respect.  It does indeed appear difficult,
as one can see the smaller plane rocking and swaying in the B36's
turbulence.

	Of course, some of the film I've seen of boom refueling doesn't
always look too stable, either.  :-)

	OK, in all fairness to the B36, if nothing else it was probably
the most crew *comfortable* bomber ever built.  It had a full galley
that could be used to prepare hot food and coffee for the crews 
IN FLIGHT, and in fact, appears to have been the equivalent or
better of commercial airliners....

Duane