Day 2

B-58 Hustler. Sexy! See the movie Fail-Safe for more...

Woke up in my little piece of heaven at the Motel 6 in Fairborn and packed and checked out. I was in a major hankering for a coffee but the nearest Starbucks was on base at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and me not having the requisite credentials to enter the base decided to head on south to the National Museum of the United States Air Force.

I must comment that the area around Dayton is very nice and the drive from the area I was at which is by the new Air Force base and the original one is very picturesque. The fall colours were at an early stage with yellow leaves figuring most predominantly.

For those of you that do not get WHY the U.S.A.F. has the worlds largest aviation museum located in Dayton here is a thumbnail history for you...

1. The Wright brothers (heard of them?) developed their Wright Flyer in Dayton and from that nascent discovery grew an industry that has revolutionized communications and travel for all of us.
2. This area became a major center for military and general aviation technical developments and its growth was spurred on by the Second World War.

This area was a mecca for technical developments that led to some of the features of today's aircraft that help make air travel so safe and reliable.

I cannot say enough of the museum. I was told that it would take 2 days to see the entire complex and that is correct. I toured the main facility and the aircraft collection is simply outstanding. If one had no knowledge of aviation and general history relating to world events reading all the exhibits and viewing all the airplanes would take 2 days in the main complex alone. Seriously! The written exhibits are well done and directed to the general population and not just us aviation aficionados. I banged through the exhibit halls at the main facility in about 6 hours and then realized there was a whole other section located about a mile away (you get there by shuttle bus) focusing on experimental military and the Presidential aircraft.

Damn! WTF! Oh well, I will be coming back for sure. I had only planned to stay one day so let's call it a recon in force and a trip to return is in the offing in the future.

Of note is an amazing gift shop with one of the most varied and interesting selections of books on U.S. Military and foreign military aircraft development, personalities and histories available in one place. I had budgeted a Benjamin ($100) for books and had to select only two of the twenty of so I would have picked if I could.

My tastes in aviation books tend to be technical and not literary and I picked up:

Magnesium Overcast and  Test Flying at old Wright Field. Not exactly Giller Prize material but definitely FTW for aviation enthusiasts like me.

But do you know why I went to the museum in the first place? To see one plane, and one plane only.

The B-36 Peacemaker...

Years ago I saw a movie titled Strategic Air Command with Jimmy Stewart in it. Sure, it was a SAC puff piece leaking with propaganda about apple pie and the American Way but if you lived in the '50s with the threat of Russia and the A-bomb you probably would have eaten this up for breakfast. The movie follows the experiences of Stewart (a real live WWII bomber pilot) as a baseball player reactivated into the active military from Reserve status. He goes in the U.S.A.F. grudgingly and then becomes enthralled with the process of being part of SAC.

This clip illustrates the logistics of getting one bloody bomber started and flying. It does not illustrate the people hours needed to maintain and fix the damn thing. You might recognize Harry Morgan who was Colonel Potter in M.A.S.H. playing the flight engineer. That would be me btw... Let someone else fly MY airplane as I fix and monitor its systems.






 Something that massive just can't fly but it did! BTW, I got one of my questions answered that have been bothering me about this aircraft for some time. You will note in the video a pair of jet engines slung underneath the wing. These were added later in the production run to improve take-off performance and bombing penetration speed (i.e. make the bomber less susceptible to interception). The technical issue is that piston engines (the six pusher props) use av-gas (gasoline) and jets use JP-4 (really refined diesel fuel) so having two fuel systems and tanks is pretty complex and a bit dumb. BUT turbine engines (jets) can use av-gas. It affects their power output and maintenance but they work just fine. So Convair simply piped av-gas to those suckers and they turned and burned just fine, thank you.

I also took in the IMAX film Fighter Pilot:  Operation Red Flag and it was amazing with its 6 channel sound. BTW, my father Russ was instrumental and helping IMAX get off the ground. If you ever see him ask him about it. Watch some of it here and do it in 720P.

Some of my pics from that day:

B-36: Hard to get the scale of the size of this A/C in the photo

 

Landing gear and wing of B-36. This man is about 6 feet tall so you get an idea how big this A/C is.

Bomb bay detail of B-36. The bomber had pressurized crew compartments in the cockpit and aft of the bomb bay so if someone wanted to travel between these compartments they got on a trolly and slid down this tunnel to where they wanted to go. The windows probably served as a means for the crew to inspect the bomb bay for any ordinance hung up in the bay.

Original landing gear tire of B-36. At that time it was the largest tire ever made or an airplane. To give you an idea just how big this was it is taller than my 5 feet 8 inches. It weighs more than most cars.

Wing span:  230 feet. A current Boeing 747 has a wing span of 224 feet. At the time this plane was in service there was NO hangar in the US that could accommodate it entirely. They could put the plane in the hangar but leave the tail outside. Initial production models had almost all their maintenance done outside!

It was closing time and time for me to go. I headed south on I-75 and drove to Lexington, Kentucky.

KMs:  353

No cars of note.