Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The Convair B-36 "Peacemaker" [N 1] is a strategic bomber built by Convair and operated by the United States Air Force (USAF) from 1949 to 1959. The B-36 is the largest mass-produced piston-engined aircraft ever built, although it was exceeded in span and weight by the one-off Hughes H-4 Hercules.
A B-36J Peacemaker in flight. The development of the Convair B-36 strategic bomber began in 1941 with the XB-36, which was intended to meet the strategic needs of the US Army Air Forces, and later of the United States Air Force with its Strategic Air Command. In 1948, the B-36 become a mainstay of the American nuclear deterrent. It underwent a ...
This in turn led to the specification itself, e.g. a two-engined fighter with four machine guns. So for example, OR.40 for a heavy bomber led to Specification B.12/36. Aircraft manufacturers would be invited to present design proposals to the ministry, following which prototypes of one or more of the proposals might be ordered for evaluation.
The Air Force was sufficiently interested that on 15 March 1951, it authorized Convair to convert two B-36Fs (49-2676 and 49-2684) as the B-36G. Since the aircraft was so radically different from the existing B-36, the designation was soon changed to YB-60. The YB-60 had 72% parts commonality with its piston-engined predecessor.
The Douglas XB-19 was a four-engined, piston-driven heavy bomber produced by the Douglas Aircraft Company for the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) during the early 1940s. The design was originally given the designation XBLR-2 ( XBLR denoting "Experimental Bomber, Long Range").
CB-26B—12 B-26Bs were converted into transport aircraft (all were delivered to the US Marine Corps for use in the Philippines). [44] B-26C—This designation was assigned to those B-26Bs built in Omaha, Nebraska, instead of Baltimore, Maryland. Although nominally the B-26B-10 was the first variant to receive the longer wing, it was actually ...
The YB-49 never entered production, being passed over in favor of the more conventional Convair B-36 piston-driven design. Design work performed in the development of the YB-35 and YB-49 nonetheless proved to be valuable to Northrop decades later in the eventual development of the B-2 stealth bomber, which entered service in the early 1990s.
In 1952, Carswell Air Force Base in Texas was hit by a tornado, severely damaging a number of aircraft. [7] One of the damaged airplanes was a B-36 bomber, and Convair suggested to the Air Force that it should be converted into an early prototype for the X-6, instead of being repaired. [7]