B-36 Interior - please post images

[Ken]

A WIX search didn't turn up anything. I remember an earlier thread with some excellent interior shots - possibly of the Pima B-36. (If so, was this the result of preservation or restoration??)

Is anybody up for a thread on the B-36 interior, crew stories, restoration tales, posting images, etc?

All I know about the interior of that beast comes from the Jimmy Stewart film.

Ken

[bryang]

I took many pictures of the restored interior of our b-36 at sac museum----It had just been restored--I'll see if I can find them

[Holedigger]

The search engine seems to have issues with things that have a - in them. If you search Peacemaker, it finds the B-36 threads......go figure! Computers can drive one to drink......good as excuse as any!

Last edited by Holedigger on Mon Feb 08, 2010 12:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Ken]

Except Peacekeeper is a missile system.

[Greg_in_Ohio]

Would you like line drawings of the different B-36 crew positions from the flight manuals? I have a ton of that stuff covering XB-36, B-36A, B-36B, B-36D, B-36F, etc.

[mustangdriver]

There are some on the NMUSAF website, and I have some from a day that had it open from veteran who flew the very one on display. I have those on a disc at home.

[Chris]

I posted a ton of them a while back when Pimas B-36 was in its very early stages of re assembly. The head man Scott was extremely generous about letting a group of us climb inside and take a look around. Give me an hour or so. I have to reload them on photobucket.

[Chris]

Here you go in no specific order. These were taken quite a while ago when the B-36 was in the early stages of reassembly. The head man Scott was very gracious in allowing us to crawl around inside the plane.

[Ken]

Thanks for taking the time to post these! Can anyone speak to the various crew positions - maybe those flight manual diagrams would give perspective to the various shots. What a gem at Pima!

[Greg_in_Ohio]

I'll make an effort to scan the flight manual drawings and post them here in the next week or so. All of the photos that Chris posted are from the forward fuselage of the plane, so on the upper deck you have the two pilots and two flight engineers. In the extreme nose of the aircraft, there is a seat for the navigator/nose gunner. Just to the rear of the navigator is the radar navigator's seat, where the big radar scope and hemispherical bombsight are located. At the aft end of the forward cabin is a seat occupied by the radio operator/electronic countermeasures operator. There's a small toilet facility nestled under the flight deck on the right side with a little window. If I get sent home early from work today due to the snow, I'll get to scanning the drawings!

[Greg_in_Ohio]

General arrangement

Crew comfort provisions

Forward sighting station

Radio operator's station

ECM equipment

Area aft of the navigator's station

Navigator's station

Radar navigator's station

Flight engineers' station

Astrodome

[Greg_in_Ohio]

Couldn't resist this image of the XB-36 forward fuselage:

[Pat Carry]

Very nice set of photos of the interior.

[mustangdriver]

Wow those are awesome. I wish that a museum would get a hold of Walter's B-36 and make it a walk through display.

[Larry Kraus]

Ken,

Here are some B-36 interior shots that were in a photo feature on the Stategic Air Command in Life Magazine via Google Life and a general arrangement diagram from an RB-36F flight manual...LK