Pima's Convair B-36 Peacemaker 'City of Fort Worth' with Scott Marchand
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- Опубликовано: 8 фев 2025
- Convair's B-36 Peacemaker was intended as an intercontinental bomber and was the size of a small continent. Join @PimaAirSpaceMuseum's CEO, Scott Marchand, as he tells us the tale behind the museum's monstrous B-36J 52-2827 “City of Fort Worth”.
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The first model I ever attempted t glue and put together as a kit was the 1/72 scale B-36 Bomber from revell. Monster of a model. Between that model and Jimmy Stewart's SAC movie I have a special place in my heart for the B-36 Peacemaker. I've seen the one at the USAF Museum. I got to get out to Pima one of these days and see their's. Thank you for this video.
I was scared off by the size of the 1/72's box... :)
@@damcasterspod I have a tendency to go big or go home on things like that. My first Lego set, at the time I purchased it, had the most pieces of any Lego set. The B-36 was the pride of my collection. Had to dump it since brother didn’t want it when I joined the Navy
You’re first model!!!!!! What did you upgrade too…….just jealous, ( Airfix Auster, AOP9) was mine lol😅
You mean monogram
My first kit was a Bell P-39 in 1970. The kit had about ten bits in it.
I visited this museum in the early 80’s. It has grown a lot since then.
Visited the plane in Fort Worth in the early Sixties.
A very memorable experience for a pre-teen obsessed with military aircaft.
My father nearly fell out of the blister opening on the port side of the nose, I was able to travel through the tunnel, and I received a nasty cut on my hand while sitting at the Flight Engineer's position, when another visitor, seated in the pilot's seat, slammed the engine control levers forward and back while my hand was on the Engineer's set.
I followed the aircrafts history after it was disassembled, and always feared it was just too large and that it would ultimately be lost. Thankfully, the efforts of the volunteers in Texas and the visionaries in Pima have had a very happy outcome!
The first time I saw a B36 was the late 50’s. It was landing at McClellan AFB. The size of the aircraft made it look like it was suspended in midair.
Thanks, Scott, for giving credit to the many dedicated volunteers in Ft Worth over the years who preserved the old girl. I was part of the crew that initially disassembled 2827 in Ft Worth in the late 70s for its first move. I remember removing the engines from the nacelles, piece by piece. The wing center section was our biggest challenge, too. I hope to get out to visit someday.
Visited Pima in 2014 mainly to see the B-36. The whole museum is very impressive with a large collection of aircraft. I'm due for another visit. A big thank you to Scott and his staff for an excellent job of keeping all the aircraft preserved
Played in this in the mid-'60s at GSW Airport. Rode the tunnel many times, 'flew' many a bombing mission as an 11 y.o. American Airlines trained their pilots at this same, largely unusedcairport during this period. It was weird to see a shiny new DC-10 at an airport with not a single other flyable aircraft around. Love Field in Dallas was the main airport, DFW Airport was -6 years away and would cause the final closure of GSW because their patterns conflicted.
I pretty much grew up under the "City of Fort Worth"t when it was on display outside of (then) Carswell AFB in the late 80s/90s. My dad took me out there just about every other weekend
until the museum closed around the time Carswell stood down. Had a lot of great memories at that museum, had a diverse collection of aircraft and it was a sad day when the closure was announced. The organization that had custody of it tried like hell to find it a home, but the city showed absolutely zero interest in supporting the preservation of its aviation history in any shape or form. It left some seriously bitter feelings with a lot of people, myself included.
They did a good job restoring it at their hanger that Lockheed Martain/General Dynamics had loaned them. They would wheel out the forward fuselage to the Alliance Airshow just about every year
trying to raise donations for a museum. She was a beauty even in her dismembered state! It was upsetting at the time when the air force took her back, but time had ran out, Lockheed was taking the hanger back for the Joint Strike Fighter program and.. That was it. Hated to see her be taken, and taken so far away.. But it worked out in the end.
I was finally able to visit the museum last year, and being able to see that old Bird was an emotional experience. It was part of my childhood, it shaped my love of aviation, and damn was
it good to see it safe and sound. All I want to do is go back and see her again.
Hopefully she will be getting some TLC soon at Pima.
In 1950 my father took me to Mitchell AFB on Long Island. It was Memorial Day, and the B-36 was on display, but it was roped off. I could walk around it, and that was all. Later when they took off everyone within 5 miles could hear them, they were so loud.
My father was in the Air Force stationed at Mitchel in the 1950s. I was a small child, but I vaguely remember a B-36 sitting on the ramp at a Mitchel Airshow. This would have been the 1954-56 time period. It left an impression on me. The B-36 has been my all time favorite airplane since.
I had the fortune to see her at the end of a runway in Fort Worth in the mid 1970s while going to a band contest at Six Flags Over Texas.
I always enjoy spending time visiting the museum there when I'm traveling through the area. I've found the shade provided by the Peacemaker's wings is a welcome respite when wandering among the aircraft kept there outdoors.
Certainly plenty of shade provided by the Magnesium Overcast!
I saw that one in Ft. Worth as a child. It was huge, and in pretty ragged condition. I'm glad it's preserved in it's current state, better than chopped up for scrap.
There are five aircraft in the echelon formation clip at frame [0:38]. Closest to camera is a B-36, then a B-29, and a B-17. The two outboard aircraft are slightly distorted in profile, but I'm guessing they are an A-26 Douglas Invader and a North American P-51 Mustang.
That is what I made out too, just didn't think there was enough time in the clip to label them all
The last time i touched that beautiful bird was in the early 80s in FW,TX ✈️♥️
I don't know if this is the same plane but I saw a B-36 on static display at what was then Greater Southwest Airport in Tarrant County back in the 1960's. I also got to go inside one at Lowrey Field in the early 1950's but I was only about 5 years old so my memory is fuzzy, I do remember getting to go through the tunnel from the flight deck to the crew area. Good memories!
She was that very aircraft!
Great video. While I run an Airliner channel on youtube, the overall collection Pima rivals those I have seen anywhere else. Kind of wish they were all inside though, like at the National Air and Space Museum, or for the most part at the USAF Museum, but Pima makes due with what they've got. Hopefully, when I am able to go out to Pima to do one of my airliner videos, I can spend some quality time wth the rest of the collection.
Given the size of the collection, you'd need a building like Boeing's facility at Everett to fit them all in! Have subscribed to your channel. Let me know when you head out and I'll let the team know you're going.
@@damcasterspod that’s awesome. Thank you. And you’re right building something big enough for that collection would be prohibitive without a major sponsor
I was in Fort Worth taking training AT Bell Helicopters. The engines were being run at that time. Big round engines! Glad it was saved in one piece.
A glorious noise I bet!
+@robertsanders6463 The USAF Museum removed the engines and mounts when they learned they were thinking of trying to fly it. The plane still belongs to the museum.
Would love to visit that place in the near future, definitely on my bucket list after I retire soon. Always wanted to see a real B-36 all my life as well as the other aircrafts on display there.
You should! Pima is overwhelmingly good fun.
@@damcasterspod My question is transportation from a good hotel near the Tucson International Airport to Pima and back. What do you recommend?
Taxi probably best if you are just doing a day trip.
Great presentation... I saw that same aircraft when I flew home fresh out of Basic Training in the 1980s... It was so big that you could easily spot it from the plane as it flew over its then outside display. Saw her sister at Chanute AFB in tech school. That plane was dismantled after Chanute closed in the mid 1990s by a wonderful father and son team and railroaded out to Castle AFB in California... Note: If anyone sees this message, PLEASE ORCANIZE A TEAM TO HELP WORK ON THE CASTLE BIRD? Last time I saw, it was getting in really bad condition and needs some help!
Got a picture of me standing next to the Chanute aircraft when I was at tech school. I was assigned to Castle in 1977, the Chanute aircraft followed me there many years later!
@@homerfry9234 *Same... Got a picture next to the Chanute bird in the early 1980s. Looks like she followed us both out to California! Hope somebody starts to tend to her... Saw an update video the other day and I think part of it fell off or something...*
It was a 42,000 pound Mark17 thermonuclear bomb with an explosive yield of 15 megatons which fell through the bomb bay doors of a B-36 on final approach to Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque NM on May 27, 1957. The airplane was only 1700 feet AGL and relieved of its load shot up a couple thousand feet. With plutonium core removed there was no nuclear detonation but the conventional explosive lenses detonated scattering radioactive material from the secondary over a mile wide area. The explosion left a crater 25 feet across and 12 feet deep. The USAF decontaminated the area. It's considered a Broken Arrow event. The bomb was in the process of being returned to Sandia Laboratory at Los Alamos to be decommissioned. The Mark17s were only deployed from 1954-1957 before being removed from service.
It is good to learn the B-36 will soon undergo some TLC to correct years of baking in the sun. Hopefully at that time the gun sighting blisters will be removed and replaced with the plugs that are stored inside the airplane. A full set of blisters was made at Fort Worth by the B-36 restoration team from the original molds and were to be shipped to the Air Force Museum to be installed on the B-36 there. Unfortunately, the B-36 was moved from Fort Worth to PIMA Museum with the new blisters still stored inside the airplane. All B-36J airplanes had no sighting blisters.
Back in pre-internet days, I mind seeing Jimmy Stewart in "Strategic Air Command" and one of these. I also had a 1/72 scale model kit I built up and it was big.....sure I had to add a chunk of weight to the nose so it would sit on it's wheels, instead of using the clear plastic prop
There is a great film about the Hustle Jimmy made called "B-58 Hustler Champion of Champions". You can find it on RUclips and well worth watching if you haven't already.
I think it was SAC that made a weekly non-stop flight w/ the massive B36 from Texas to Alaska,
flying over the big urban areas along the way, to show the most citizens possible that their taxes were
indeed going to a program that would protect the US from any Russian Communist threat.
In the SF Bay area [CA], one flight would be over the Peninsula and SF; the next flight would be
over the East Bay and Oakland, perhaps for maximum program visibility.
I can still remember the "approaching" deep-pitched ROAR of those Huge props and the Six Massive
supercharged Three-row "Corn-cob" engines, a sound that transitioned to Even More prop Roar,
combined w/ the Scream of the four jet engines that hung under [and ahead of ] the wings, near the
wing-tips, as the Big Bird passed over, headed for the Arctic Circle and the DEW Line... It was LOUD ;
it was a Show ; And Not at any great altitude; the windows rattled, and the leaves on the trees trembled...
That was in the 1950's; we were kids playing ball in the street, after school...
As a kid, in the 50s, I was hoeing in our cotton field in NW Texas. I would watch the B-36s flying over our cotton field, at various time. One day, I heard this big boom, I looked up and could see smoke coming from one of the engines. I thought I was going to witness a crash. The plane continued to fly.
Goodness!
I did 250 volunteer hours on the restoration of this aircraft when it was at Fort Worth.
There must be some tales from that!
The American Bear! If only it could be restored.
Around the early 1950's I came out of my private school in Ruislip in the UK and saw one flying low towards me as I walked down Windmill Hill and I expect that it was going into Northolt Airport. Does anyone know about flights of this plane in the UK and even have access to flight records. It would be great to find out when it could have been. Best Dave
can you get access to the restoration shop mainly the me-109
We did head in for a look, mainly to see the Viggen and the Camel replica but didn't have time to film there on this trip unfortunately. Next time!
On 2-19-24, I stood in that very spot. Until you physically stand next to this beast, and many others there, you can't fathom just how big these planes really are and to think these are propeller driven and they were designed and built 70 years ago. No computers, just brains, slide rules and determination.
I often wonder if one of the engineers at Convair got one of his conversations on the slide rule wrong and that is why it is so big
This aircraft at Pima, did not make the last flight of a B-36 as stated here. The B-36 at the USAF Museum in Dayton, OH made the last flight ever of a B-36 when it was flown from Davis- Monthan AFB to Dayton, OH.
52-2827 did make the last operational flight of a B-36 as she was still on active duty with the 95th Bomb Wing at Biggs AFB in Texas. 52-2220 made the last actual flight but had already been assigned to the boneyard at DM. So you are both correct! 😉
I saw and, went in the front section, forward of the wings at the Alliance Air Show many times back in the early 90’s. I know she has a good home. But I want her to come back to her true home in FT Worth, she belongs in Texas. Also I wish she could fly. Screw that pesky treaty with have with Russia. Pima, Take care of the old gal form me and, others. 👍🏻👍🏻
I think there was one at Chanute AFB when I went to tech school. Can anyone confirm?
There was, it is now at the Castle Air Museum.
There was, I was in tech-school fall and winter of 1982. Believe it was called "Aly-oop". Marched by it every morning before sunrise. Lol
Could it cruise without the jets?
Yes, the jets were for better take-off performance and were usually shut down in flight to save fuel.
Yep Monogram it was😊
"two turning, two burning, two smoking, two choking and two more unaccounted for"
Jimmy Stewart, Strategic Air Command
Odd film with great aerials of the B-36 and B-47
6 pushing, 4 pulling,.... nice project
Now imagine if they had continued developing it, and put in turboprops. A more modernized tail section and improved winds. We could have ended up with the American Tu-95 and it would probably be still flying, like the B-52.
And 6 turning, 4 burning...
Surely it can be restored to Flight if you wanted to.
Anything is possible, but the cost with be eye watering as would the insurance.
+@user-ib6wc6eo5w Considering the hours of maintenance per hour of flight it's not economical. And the USAF Museum legally still owns it and they're not going to even consider that.
Is president eisenhower's plane still there? I think it was called Columbine
Ofcourse they're never going to let it fly again. It's still current, just a bit of modernization with turboprop engines and you have a potential contender.
During it's restoration in Fort Worth, all of the wires,and cables were removed,and not replaced.
@@44WillysMB . What a shame, and I suppose there are no diagrams around to replace them, or the cost so high that discourages most from even attempting it.
@@tatumergo3931 It was being restored for static display at a museum at Alliance Airport that never happened. Instead of replacing the damaged skin of the top of the wing it was covered with fresh aluminum.
@@44WillysMB. What a shame, are there anymore of them laying around somewhere?
There is one at the bottom of the lake on the north end of the runway at Carswell AFB. That is where one of the side blisters on this one came from after several failed attempts to mold a new one.
This is the lightweight J version, stripped of guns except tail guns, and reduced crew.
Great looking aeroplane, but painting the glass neuters it.
You have no idea how intense the Tucson Sun is. If they left the plexiglass uncovered, it would not only deteriorate in the solar radiation, but rays reflecting inside would melt and distort components. At the DMAFB boneyard across the road, the Air Force puts an adhesive-backed white opaque plastic sheeting over all the plexiglass to prevent this. Aircraft on display inside the hangars at PASM don't have their glazing covered, but the B-36 is too big for any current hangars at the facility.
I have a video coming out soon on the NB-52A 'High and Mighty One' at PASM, trust me, the painted up windows as needed as even with them, in February, it gets mighty hot inside those aircraft.
@@damcasterspod . That aircraft was not built for that climate. It was meant to fly the high skies of the Artic regions in glorious splendor!
She was only bismamntel 2 times
Just sad that after all the work they did on this plane it was wasted by sitting outdoors for years and now it’s out in the desert and basically back to the condition it started in.
As Scott says in the video, they are planning to restore the aircraft soon.
You will find if you do some digging that the Air Force was very often hostile to communities wanting to restore aircraft to a flyable state. Even if they were to sign wavers and everything else to absolve the Air Force of any liability the Air Force nearly always refused. and this went back to the 70's. Now of course nowadays I can understand it since judges and juries will ignore any waivers and award money to anyone for anything. But forty or fifty years ago that was not happening and the Air Force were still acting like dicks.
I've done that digging and the thing to remember is that this is not a fighter or medium bomber, it is a ten engined strategic bomber with highly complex and very troublesome engines. I do have sympathy with the USAF in that regard, but it would have been amazing to see the aircraft restored and managed in DFW. As for awarding money, if spectators or bystanders are killed, then compensation should be paid by the operator and those in the chain that keep the aircraft flying. A situation we are still dealing with over here after the Hunter crash at Shoreham killed 11 and hurt a further 16.
@@damcasterspod The Air Force has acted like assholes in several situations with aircraft much less complicated so I do not buy that excuse at all. Been involved with museums most of my life and I knew people in the Old Confederate Air Force who told me of instances like this. And like I said going back fifty years.
Less an excuse and more a statement of fact. As much as we feel we have agency over these aircraft, while our tax dollars and pounds paid for them, we have no claim over them. The MOD is no different.
@@damcasterspod Actually when the Air Force relinquishes an aircraft they legally have no right over it period from that point. However, they use basically thug tactics. As I said, I have talked to people over the years that had described this. Unfortunately, none of the museums or cities that get the aircraft that the Air Force then decided to be bitches about either have the money or are willing to take them to court. Only one private museum did so and the federal judge ruled against the Air Force. But as usual, they keep doing it knowing nine out of ten times they will get away with it.
Another Waste of money..
Depends on your point of view. When commisioned there was a realistic need for an intercontinental bomber, then there was the need for a nuclear bomber. Jets just put the kibosh on that need. As a works program, it kept a lot of americans employed at Convair too, something that we see again today with the procurement of the F-35.
@@damcasterspod It was the only platform capable of long-range strike into Russia at the start of the Cold War. It was also a boondoggle for Secretary of the Air Force Stuart Symington who took a cushy job at Convair after bludgeoning Jack Northrop for not merging with Convair and killing his flying wing program out of spite.
@@damcasterspodf35 is cutting edge tech can be upgraded will be around for 30+ years not the b36 obsolete when in service.
Needs to come back to ft.worth
I think I'm contractually obliged to disagree!
+@donkeylong7707 Legally it is still property of the USAF Museum. It was on loan to TX and it wasn't housed properly or taken care of.
@@FiveCentsPlease You seem to forget the airplane received a full restoration at Fort Worth before going to PIMA. It exists today because of that restoration.
@@AVhistorybuff The USAF Museum repossessed the B-36 in 1974 after learning that the Peacemaker Foundation was attempting to make it flyable. The museum even negotiated a one-time flight but the conditions were not met, although it was also made clear that no B-36 would fly again. It was disassembled and moved to Carswell. Yes, Lockheed donated hangar space in 1990s for the B-36 to receive a restoration by volunteers and former Convair employees. Afterward it was decided that there were insufficient resources to display and maintain the aircraft in TX and it was moved to PIMA.
Shame on FT Worth
It would have been a huge undertaking for the city, it is understandable why the move was made.
It’s because we had a crappy mayor who didn’t care about it so they made no effort to find a home…. We the ppl of ft worth want it back 😡
Totally understand your anger. The aircraft is in safe hands though.