Recent content by 11bwmech

A teenager trapped im an old man's body. Recently turned 90.

I watched its first takeoff in 1956, if memory serves. I was stationed at Carswell AFB and was in the picnic area on base near Lake Worth. I remember when it landed, wondering at the long, spindly-looking landing gear. It was a month or so later before I saw the plane rolled.out with a pod under...

I am definitely not an expert, although I lived through wwii. The high lapel pins say "US." The winged pins on the lapels I think just signified Air Corps. The wings above the ribbons appear to be bombardier wings. If I didn't get it right, someone will straighten it out.

I worked on B-36 from late 1951 to early 1957. Don't remember 3 pilots. No place to put him. Flight Engineers were enlisted early, but were officers later on. Don't remember when the change occurred, but they were usually 1st lieutenants, promoted from enlisted FEs. I was in the 11BW, but 7th...

Has the meaning of acronym changed? It used to mean a pronounceable abbreviation, like radar. Kinda hard to pronounce ATSC.

I came into the B-36 program in late 1951, so I have no info about pulling engines through by hand. I can say that the blades came close to the ground, within a few feet. When installing a prop, it was done with "long blade down," and one man held the blade and wiggled it to facilitate the...

The jets on the B-36 burned avgas to keep from having two fuel storage systems. As I understand it, 115/145 was hard on the jets and they didn't last long. I guess it wasn't a big problem, since they were only used on takeoff under normal circumstances. There were always a lot of deposits on...

The gooney bird (C-47) used the R1830, not the 1820.

I think it is amusing that everyone notices an extra inserted letter, but no one seems to care about the constant and repeated use of "it's" for "its." Possessive pronouns don't use apostrophes; only nouns do. "It's" is a contraction meaning "it is." So all of you who misuse it have just been...

Speaking of the P-82 (I remember seeing one at Shepherd AFB when I went to A&E school there), i was told it had counter-rotating props. Do you know how they did that? I'm curious whether they added gearing, reversed the engine, or modified the engine to run the opposite way.

Since you mentioned the B-36, which I worked on and flew in occasionally for over 5 years, I will repeat what I was told then: prior to air-to-air missiles but after the general use of jet fighters, the Peacemaker was presumed to be pretty safe at 40,000 ft. If the B-36 was flying at anything...

The only way I found to make instant palatable was to put it in a pan and bring it to a boil first, which sort of defeats the idea of "instant." I do remember what I believe was a British brand called "Michael's," or something like that, which was pretty good instant. I was exposed to it while...

I don't care even if it was totally worthless, to me it's the most beautiful aircraft ever built! A subjective viewpoint, to be sure, but them's my sentiments.

A lot depends on which model of the B-36 you're talking about. The H and J model "lightweights" could exceed 50000 ft. And with a load of 132 500 pound bombs, one aircraft could do a lot of damage, even if not too accurate bombing from altitude. Even jet fighters of the early 50s couldn' get...

I don't know anything about this particular antenna, but loops work well for determining direction, especially when compared with the signal from a non-directional antenna, like a whip. I once maintained a system that used a single loop and a whip for determining source direction of a received...