Craig59 wrote:
CAPFlyer wrote:
I'm pretty sure the 3rd picture is post-war. Several sources show "Circle-R" as being 9th Bombardment Wing (Heavy) based out of Mountain Home AFB with B-29's and RB-29's from 1949 to 1954 before converting to the B-47 Stratojet. Additonal clues this is a post-war photo are the B-36 left wing on the far right of the picture (1 full engine pod and one blade of the #2), and the C-74 Globemaster I immediately behind the B-29 featured. Also visible is another B-29, a C-46, a C-47, an F-86, F-84, and a P-80/T-33. With all that, I suspect the picture was taken in 1951 or 1952. I'm pretty sure that Enola Gay was already preserved at this point, so this is another airframe.
Perhaps a B-29 used in the circa 1951 Tibbets biopic,
"Above and Beyond?"Possibly, but I suspect it's just a line B-29 that they took a "press pic" of at an airshow/open house somewhere in the United States judging by the varied types.
VaBeachEd wrote:
You could be right, and I don't disagree that it's post war. While I was absent the day they taught imagery interpretation in school, I don't see the jet pod on the outboard wingtip of the aircraft on the far right of the pic that does indeed look like a B-36 - at least from the engine nacelles, which is about all you can see. That may of course, make it a very early model before they added the jets to that underpowered beast.
First, the addition of the jet pods wasn't due to the plane being underpowered. It was to give it additional dash speed over the target as fighter and missile technology began to catch up with the B-36's extremely (for the time) high altitude capabilities. They were used on takeoff to allow for a bigger conventional bomb load to be carried from the existing runways, but for their original mission, the six R4630's provided more than enough power. Second, the pods were first added with the B-36D model in 1949, however they were delivered between 1949 and 1951. The already built B-36A and B-36B aircraft were then converted between mid-1951 and late 1952. So it's likely this aircraft is an early B-36A or B-36B that hadn't been sent through conversion yet or the date on the photo is slightly earlier than I suspected and is closer to the 1949/1950 timeframe when the F-86 had just been introduced instead of 1951/1952.
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
