Warbird Information Exchange

Ok just curious...who here has actually seen a B-36 fly? I will be very envious of you naturally but was just wondering. If yes, could you please share the experiances to those like me that will never get the chance to see one fly in person.

Thanks!

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Well it has been about a hundred years but it seemed you could hear them comeing for an hour before you saw the contrails, ( they did sound like the planes in Strategic Air Command ) and then the sound would last after they were gone. Most of the time you could only see the contrails, but occasionly you could see the plane.
Norm

I am close friends with the man who designed the trapeze for the ficon. He has some great stories!

Yes, I definatly recall the B-36 and its unmistakable sound that it made. Like the previous comment you could hear them coming for quite some time in advance. It was a very low frequency growl and very loud even though it was up 40,000 feet. Even at that altitude the shock wave reaching the ground was so intense that our house would shake and our front door,which was a bit loose in the jam, would resonante violently.
I grew up in Southern California and B-36's were quite common...several a week. This past August I was at Travis AFB to see the final flighjt of the C-133 and when it flew past the sound it made was most reminescent of a B-36.

all the above posts......... i can only imagine!!

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

I've recounted here before about seeing one fly over the house in West Seattle in the Summer of 1956 when I was 9, scared the poo out of my Mom as she thought it was an earthquake. Shook every window in the neighborhood and it had a wingspan of about 1/2 inch so they were plenty high. I was looking up at it and when Mom stuck her head out the backdoor I said very matter-of-factly 'look Mom, a B-36' They were based @ Larson AFB in Moses Lake and had a FICON squadron I believe, @ Geiger near Spokane for a very short time. Grant County airport still has a 15000 ft runway GOOGLE it for a look.
JAL just ended their 40 year affiliation with Moses Lake as their 777 and soon 787 training is moving to Northern Japan.

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

I saw a flight of 6, about 3-4000' over the New Jersey shore heading East
Probably 1952-53

I remember my Dad saying and pointing to a B-36, "There goes a B-36", but I don't remember seeing it. I must of been about three years old (1958). Funny how I remember that, and not remembering seeing it or hearing it....

I remember seeing them at Carswell AFB in Ft Worth in 1958. I was 13 at the time. A lot of them were coming home to be retired.

Walt

I would love to have seen and hear one

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

My grandparents lived in El Paso, Texas, and we would go there for vacations and in between my Dad's Navy duty stations. Biggs AFB there had B-36s so we would see them and hear them go over the house. Totally distinctive sound unlike any other aircraft -- although I have thought that the sound of a C-124 (four R-4360s) was slightly reminscent.

A friend of mine that works for Bell Helicopter says if you get 3 V-22's together, flying in airplane mode, coming right at you, that it is a close approximation,

The first time he heard them, he had a flash back....to the B-36

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Zane Adams
There I was at 20,000 ft, upside down and out of ammunition.
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I made post no. 4 above and after doing so I now recall one other aspect of the B-36 sound that made it so ominous. That being in addition to the very loud growl + shock wave the engine sound would UNDULATE as well (aka "motorboating"). I cannot imagine the psychological effect it might have had on an enemy with fleets of these A/C over flying one's homeland. Imagine Howard Hughes H-4 Hercules flying boat with eight R-4360's grinding away.

I recall back in the mid 50's that the sky over the San Fernando Valley was nearly always filled with the many contrails of B-47's (presumably flying from March AFB) with the B-36's every couple of days. They always flew in a westery direction.

At the end of the war my Grandparents had a house at the end of runway 7 that was NAS Akron. Growing up, my Grandma said between the Corsairs and the B-36's going over its a wonder they had any dishes to eat off of and the house just shook. My Grandfather was an airplane nut and knew they were 36's...even my dad said he would always run outside to watch the contrails rumble by. Would have been awesome to see.

jim

My dad told me stories of the times he was down on his grandfather's farm in Whitney, TX and the B-36's would fly over. Seems Whitney was in the flight path into Carswell AFB. He said that even before you could hear the sound of them you could feel the throbbing in your chest.

That same grandfather was a foreman on the B-24 production line at Consolidated in Ft. Worth and was told that he and his team would be laid off as they weren't able to read blueprints well enough to be allowed on the B-36 production teams. He went to the head foreman of the B-36 line, who was a friend of his, and told him he wanted his whole team put on the B-36 line. The B-36 line foreman unrolled a blueprint and said if he could read the blueprint his team could stay. Knowing that his friend (the B-36 foreman) couldn't read the blueprint either, turned the blueprint around and said "you read it and I'll tell you if you get it wrong" the foreman was silent for a minute and then said "tell you what, why don't you and your team go ahead and start on the line". By doing that, my Great Grandfather was able to save the jobs of his entire team. immediately after he was sure they would all be staying, he retired to the farm in Whitney, TX. His team was the group that would go over the aircraft and fix everything on the list that the test pilots had found during the initial flight.