6 turning, 4 burning...

[dave]

hi,
     if you have trouble sleeping, this is the cure... you will dream all night.



regards,
              dave...

[graham]

What a superb film that is Dave, I must have watched it a dozen times over the years. It was a favourite of my dear old Dad as well.

[dave]

hi,
i remember reading that these films from the late 40's early 50's were well supported by the Airforce, as a good recruitment aid... so the sy-fi films then were really *rap, but the Airfoce content was very good. ie flying saucers being attacked by F.86/F.101/F.106's very good stock footage...

regards,
dave...

[chrisj]

Many thanks for another trip down memory lane . The film has been on tv some mega years ago BUT , as a nipper I was dragged one afternoon to the 'flicks' and sat through the whole magnificent film ! Chrisj

[graham]

I posted a link about this a couple of years ago but it's still interesting. What the brief editorial doesn't say is that the crew were apparently unfamiliar with the landing light set up at Boscombe Down and as such touched down several hundred yards short of the threshold. By all accounts the weather had been freezing for several days and the ground was as hard as rock. The story has it that she ploughed through a field, demolished a shepherd's hut and at least two hedges before crossing the A345 and coming to rest. Bulldozers dragged her into the base where an inspection found that the only damage was a fractured bolt on one of the main u/c which was quickly repaired and within a couple of days, she had departed.

www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/17688813.american-b36-atom-bomber-make-force-landing-outskirts-city-1952/

[billsamuels]

Great film, Dave.

Amazing story, Graham.

Bill

[graham]

I believe another one crashed somewhere between Chippenham and Devizes Bill. I've seen a story about it somewhere, and if I recall, the crew had baled out.

[graham]

Here it is, it crashed unmanned near to Lacock

aviation-safety.net/wikibase/152762

[chrisj]

I have seen an aerial photo of the aircraft at rest in a field near Boscombe . It may of been in Air Pictorial in the sixties but I can not remember . Sorry . Chrisj

[graham]

I posted it a couple of years back Chris, it's on here somewhere.

[davebasing]

Although regular visitors to the UK, I was sadly too late to see any fly and I’ve seen just 3 of them in the States, with one more on the bucket list yet to see in the SAC museum in Ashland, Nebraska.

Th final B36 built (out of a total of 383) 52-2827 is now preserved in the Pima Museum, having seen her earlier when preserved but deteriorating at Carswell, Texas where the earlier movie scenes were shot. First shot was one I took at Pima in 2008 shortly after it had arrived on several trucks and was being re-assembled. Later shots from 2011 and 2014 show her fully restored. A purpose-built hangar for her there is projected. RB36 51-13730 is preserved in the museum at Castle AFB, California where I took these graphs of her. The third is 52-2220 inside at the USAF Museum at Wright Patterson, Ohio which I took in 1989. Too much clutter for a full aircraft shot.
Unlikely as it may seem, an article in the MATS Flyer noted that the USAF actually managed to mislay a B36. Found to be “missing” on an annual inventory exercise it was only found a year later when an airman happened to stroll into a disused hangar at Edwards AFB to find it quietly sitting there! That article also mentioned crew reports that, with rearward facing props, they were sometimes surprised to be overtaken in flight by pieces of metal from failed engines being propelled forwards from the rear of the engines!

A transport development of the B36 was the massive C99. Built to take 400 troops it first flew in 1949 before the USAF decided it no longer needed such a large transport. The USAF used the single one built until 1957 when (with some 7,400 hours on the clock) it was passed to the control of the USAF Museum and flown to Kelly, Texas for preservation. Eventually found to be beyond their resources (and at $7,000, a move to Wright Patterson was considered too expensive) it was towed to a nearby field and effectively abandoned. I graphed her in that field in 1981. In 1993 she was towed back to Kelly at the request of the Museum. As restoration was beyond the Museum’s resources (“for the foreseeable future”) in 2012 she was dis-assembled and taken to AMARC where she resides in pieces (and in containers) in Area 20. No doubt a move which cost way more than the $7,000 in 1957. A civilian version of the C99 was proposed and Pan Am ordered 15 of them before that project was also abandoned.

US08 1161 by dave tompkins, on Flickr
IMG_0579 by dave tompkins, on Flickr
IMG_8369a by dave tompkins, on Flickr
IMG_7353 by dave tompkins, on Flickr
IMG_7358 by dave tompkins, on Flickr
89-iu by dave tompkins, on Flickr

ac 538 by dave tompkins, on Flickr
ac 539 by dave tompkins, on Flickr

[graham]

Thanks for the history there Dave, I admit to never having heard of the C-99, looks like she had two decks.

[filair]

The film Strategic Air Command is on Film4 tomorrow (21st) at 1515

[graham]

Thanks Bob, I know what I'll be doing then.