The World's LARGEST Propeller Bomber - Convair B-36

Video from the channel Mundo de Aviación about Convair, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 13:30. Language: Spanish. Video type: Documentary.

Presentation of the Convair B-36, the American strategic bomber of the 1950s that sustained nuclear deterrence at the start of the Cold War. With a range of 16,000 km, it could carry any nuclear weapon in the arsenal without aerial refueling.

It was conceived before the United States entered World War II, to reach Europe and, later, Japan from Hawaii. 100 units were ordered before the prototypes were even tested, but the first flight did not take place until August 8, 1946, with the war already over. Until the B-52 entered service in 1955, it was the only truly intercontinental bomber of Strategic Air Command. It was in service from 1949 to 1959.

It weighed up to 186 tons at takeoff, had a combat radius of 6,413 km, a top speed of 700 km/h and four bomb bays for 39 tons of ordnance. It was powered by six Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major 28-cylinder radial engines in pusher configuration, with 5.8 m propellers. From the B-36D onward it added four General Electric J47 jets, hence the motto "six turning, four burning." It carried 15 crew members, who moved around on a trolley through a pressurized tunnel. Lightened in 1954, it could reach 15,000 m. The RB-36D was the main reconnaissance aircraft until the arrival of the U-2, and the NB-36H carried an operating nuclear reactor to study radiation shielding. It never saw combat.