Hand Me That Wrench

For the 1946 Convair XB-36 prototype, the two main landing gear tires were the largest aircraft tires Goodyear ever made, weighing 1,320 pounds each. The tricycle landing gear setup was used for all larger aircraft at the time, but the immense weight of the largest bomber ever built restricted its landing to just three runways nationwide. That changed with the second pre-production bomber, the YB-36, with the invention of a 4-wheel bogey design with smaller tires, distributing the weight evenly, allowing the plane to land on any major runway. With a few exceptions, this became the new standard for all future large aircraft. Constant upgrades throughout its career were made to keep pace with the speed of the era's aeronautical advancements. The most visible change was the adoption of a new, raised canopy for better pilot visibility, first used on the YB-36. 

Note: The B-36 was the United States Air Force's first true intercontinental bomber, entering Air Force inventory in 1948 and remaining active through 1958. The final flight of the bomber was in the Spring of 1959, delivered to the United States Air Force Museum at Dayton, Ohio for permanent display. Three other B-36s remain in American museums. 

A Convair B-36 with Jet Engines

On this day in 1952, piloted by Chief Test Pilot Beryl A. Erickson, and Arthur S. Witchell, the prototype Convair YB-60 made its first takeoff at Carswell Air Force Base, Fort Worth, Texas. As a proposed competitor to Boeing’s XB-52 Stratofortress, the YB-60 was developed from a B-36F fuselage by adding swept wings and tail surfaces and powered by eight turbojet engines. Its bomb load was expected to be nearly double that of the B-52 and it would have been much cheaper to produce since it was based on an existing operational bomber.

“The YB-60 rode like a Cadillac with no noise like a B-36—no prop noise or vibration,” Witchell stated and Erickson concurred, “This is the Queen Mary coming in gracefully.” The plane was as big as the B-36, though the angled wings shortened the overall width twenty-four feet. Erickson said, “Most any B-36 pilot would feel right at home.” And that was the problem. Much of the YB-60 was still a B-36, not the innovation of Boeing's game-changer. It was markedly slower than the B-52, due to the YB-60's inferior aerodynamics.

Note: Two prototypes were built but only the YB-60 ever flew. The USAF favored the B-52 and Convair's "updated B-36" was canceled with both planes being scrapped. In the above photo, the B-36 is in the background at Edwards AFB, California.

16,000 Hours of Flight Time

 

Lieutenant Colonel Fitzhugh Lee "Fitz" Fulton, Jr. (1925-2015) stands next to fellow test pilot, Colonel Joseph Cotton, with the North American Aviation XB-70A Valkyrie in the background at Edwards AFB, California in the Sixties. Upon his retirement from NASA, Fulton had flown more than 16,000 hours in 235 aircraft types. But his flying days started much earlier during World War II. 

In 1946 Fulton participated in Operation Crossroads, the atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll. He made 225 sorties flying a Douglas C-54 Skymaster four-engine transport during the Berlin Airlift, and then the Douglas B-26 Invader light attack bomber during the Korean War. Fulton graduated from the Air Force Test Pilot School in 1952. He served as project test pilot for the Convair B-58 Hustler supersonic bomber and flew it to a World Record Altitude of 85,360.66 feet during 1962. He flew the B-52 “mother ships” for the X-15 Program from Edwards, AFB.

Fulton continued as a research test pilot for NASA, flying as project pilot for the YF-12A and YF-12C research program. He flew all the early test flights of the NASA/Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft that carried the space shuttle prototype, Enterprise.  

Last Jet Airliner From Convair

 

The Convair 990A is an American narrow-body four-engined jet airliner produced by the Convair division of General Dynamics in response to a request from American Airlines. The 990 began flight testing at the beginning of 1961 and was produced for only two years. The plane was a modified version of its earlier Convair 880. A major change was the large anti-shock bodies on the upper trailing edge of the wings to increase the critical Mach and reduce transonic drag. The larger inboard bodies also carried additional fuel. The anti-shock "speed capsules" and substantial streamlining of the engine pylon/wing interface increased the velocity at which the onset of transonic drag would occur by 0.09 Mach. As such, the 990A was capable of speeds slightly in excess of 700 miles per hour, the fastest airliner in the world until the Concorde.

Aside from its hot-rod good looks and balanced beauty, the aircraft was a total failure due to delays in delivery, high fuel consumption, and limited passenger capacity. The aircraft never lived up to its promise of coast-to-coast nonstop capability and American Airlines soon sold their fleet. The airliner was better suited for the short hops of European carriers. One of the more successful was Swissair, who bought eight of the speedsters and the only airline to call their fleet the "990 Coronado."

A Study to Harness Nuclear Power

 

On this day in 1955, at Carswell Air Force Base, Fort Worth, Texas, the single Convair NB-36H Nuclear Test Aircraft, serial number 51-5712, made its first flight. The NB-36 was built to test the shielding requirements of an airborne nuclear reactor and to determine the effects of radiation on aircraft systems. The reactor did not power the aircraft. The NB-36 made 47 flights with a total of 215 hours flight time. In the late 1940s engineers began working on an aircraft that could be powered by a nuclear reactor. The reactor would heat air to provide jet thrust, rather than burning fuel and air to do so. A 60-megawatt reactor was envisioned. Based on the test results, the entire project was canceled and the plane was scrapped at Fort Worth in 1958.