Best "Western World" post WWII Bomber

[cheddar cheese]

Cool! 8)

 

[lesofprimus]

And I have flown in a bunch of CH-47's, some of which planD's Dad probably had worked on.. I did some Joint Ops with some of the Brits, and that was the main transport for us.... And I was in when his Dad was in the service as well...

We talked about this before, planD and I....

 

[HealzDevo]

The B-36 was a good bomber and very capable. It was also a very large bomber as the photos I have posted elsewhere show. I can remember hearing the quote 'They maketh a desert and they call it peace' in relation to this bomber.

 

[DaveB.inVa]

For post war piston powered aircraft the B-36 is definately king in my book. A close second would go to the B-50D, it was marginally faster and was equipped with inflight refuelling.

For jet aircraft the B-52 has range and the payload to go with it. Another favorite is the B-58 Hustler.

 

[evangilder]

The B-58 was cool! I loved that bird. Shame about the landing gear on it though. It was pretty problematic. Like I always say, plane no take off, bad. Plane no land, REAL bad!

 

[cheddar cheese]

For post war piston powered aircraft the B-36 is definately king in my book. A close second would go to the B-50D, it was marginally faster and was equipped with inflight refuelling.

Ah but did the B-36 not have have jet engines as well? Can you call it a Jet or a prop plane?

 

[DaveB.inVa]

Not all of the B-36's had jets. Jets were first added to the D models although they were only used during takeoff and for extra speed over target. They also allowed a higher ceiling. They were General Electric J47's converted to run on regular 145 octane avgas.

My truly favorite B-36 is the Featherweight III J model. It was stripped of basically everything, no turrets (except tail guns) no crew comfort and such. They carried more fuel and had stronger landing gear as well. All reduction in weight allowed a much greater range and a huge ceiling. They had the jets too, but just the same it was only used for extra power when needed. Id just as soon call it a piston engined aircraft. I got tons of info on these suckers if ya need it too

 

[Nonskimmer]

Any decent pics?

 

[DaveB.inVa]

Unfortunately not on the internet, all mine are in books. I do have a few scans of flight engineer operations though, specifically on single turbo operation.

 

[mosquitoman]

My favourite post war bomber has to be either the Vulcan or the Canberra, it fulfilled the essential role of light, tactical bomber for the RAF and the Americans actually made some of their own. They named it the B-57

 

[cheddar cheese]

The Vulcan is a kick-ass plane...why is it so much more well known than the other V-Bombers? (I think its the Vickers Valiant and Handley-Page Victor)

 

[mosquitoman]

The Vulcan was the only V-bomber still operational as a bomber in the Falklands, also it had the most radical design IMO

 

[plan_D]

It was a different kind of V bomber too, and the other two got made into air-to-air re-fuellers.

 

[MikeMan]

If I limit it to Post-WW2 -> Vietnam then I would say the XB-70.

Post Vietnam probably either FB-111 or B-1B

 

[evangilder]

XB-70s were really cool!

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

but for a post war piston plane (up to medern day) why not the russian bear??

 

[plan_D]

Because the Tu-95 'Bear' is not a piston plane. The reference to PISTON is refering to Piston ENGINE. The Bear is a Turbo-SHAFT plane. It has props, but it is not a piston aircraft.

 

[cheddar cheese]

Whats the difference?

 

[plan_D]

A JET ENGINE DOESN'T HAVE PISTONS IN IT!!!

 

[cheddar cheese]

You dont say...

How do jet engines work the props on the Tu-95 is what I was trying to say...