1952-1955 I was stationed at Ramey AFB, Puerto Rico. I was on an engine change and engine component crew. We worked many long and hard hours on this bird but never regretted one moment of it. I did get to fly on one mission which was a superb experience. I continued my service career for a total of 31 years. I would do it all over again for this great country. GOD BLESS AMERICA !! from a 90 year old vet.

I worked on the B36 and had the pleasure of flying on one from Walker AFB in Roswell, NM.

As a 10 year old boy I could stand in my back yard and watch this and even saw a flying Wing go over. I lived in Omaha, Nebraska way back then. It was awesome to see.

With ten engines this was a flight engineer's nightmare! The piston engines were pushed to the max design-wise, and the early jets were troublesome also. One of the quips about the B-36 went like this: "Two turning, two burning, two smoking, two choking, and two more unaccounted for."

I remember these flying over our farm. What a sight and the sounds it made. Very exciting to see those huge bombers.

Been watching Strategic Air Command over and over. Can't get enough of the B-36.

This airplane, The RB-36 was a tremendous tool. I only have about 1000 hours as a gunner/mechanic/electrician. A/1c. Stationed at Travis AFB. The longest flight I was ever on was just 32hrs 25 minutes . Our AC never left his seat (except) to urinate. That was Major Brown. WE were a combat ready crew. This airplane never fired a shot in anger as it could get to its assigned war target any where in the world with out refueling. 8th AF, . 23rd Strat Recon under the command of General LeMay.

You know back when discovery channel actually had awesome shows worth watching

I've seen several documentaries on the B36 but this was the most broad and interesting. The only thing that was missing was the tornado of Sept 1952 which damaged almost 70% of the entire B36 fleet. My grandfather and father both worked at Convair/General Dynamics next to Carswell on the B36 and later B58. They lived less than 1/2 miles from the end of the runway in White Settlement and I can remember the wonderful noise of the takeoffs in my childhood.

I set a link to this video to a dear friend -- a WWII veteran who flew in the China-Burma-India theater. He enjoyed it, but passed from this life, yesterday, June 11, 2014, at 94 years of age. This could have been the last collection of WWII films he was able to see. RIP Captain James S. Rickard

As an 8 year old, I was taken on a field trip to an air force airshow. I got to stand next to a B-36. I leave it to your imagination as to the impression this monster had on an 8 year old kid. Now, many decades later, I'll never forget it. There is one on display at the USAF museum in Dayton, OH, if you want to to show it to your 8 year old, no matter how old he really is.

The second A-Bomb was delivered by "Bocks Car". Last I knew, this plane was on display at Wright-Patterson AFB, USAF museum in Ohio. The B-36 has special meaning to me because my father was a flight engineer on a "D" model and later worked for the company that made all the engines both the R-4360(CID)and J-57s, Pratt and Whitney Aircraft for 35 years as a test engine assembler, and later foreman.

In the late 1940s my family lived in Grand Prairie, TX midway between Carswell AFB and Dallas. On Armed Forced Day an airshow was underway near Hensley Field in Grand Prairie. Midway through the event a B-36 Peacemaker passed right over our house as it approached Hensley Field. It was flying low, most likely around 500 feet. The roar of its engines terrified my younger sister, but it was thrilling to watch. One of my uncles worked at Convair in Fort Worth building the B-36.

I grew up in Fort Worth... and I have to say ... you've NEVER heard ANYTHING like a B36 flying overhead. It has a very unique sound. It almost sounds like "several" planes flying over. A beautiful sound!

Wings is one of the things I miss about the 90s.

Who remembers the 1955 movie Strategic Air Command with Jimmy Stewart ? Not a bad movie acting wise ,all the actors were very good but watch it for the real star the B-36! There is great film footage from that time ( not computer generated stuff) of the peacemaker flying. There is even real B47's in the movie. It was the 1950s and America was great! We made it all and we had it all!

My Uncle, LT Joe Elonis, flew these out of Carswell AFB in Ft. Worth and was a trainer. The plane has always held a special place in my heart for that reason. Pictures all around our house while I was growing up.

These historical films are terrific. Thank you.

I just got back from a visit to the SAC museum in Omaha NE, where they have one of these on display. Pictures and movies do not do it justice. It is---quite literally---the most awesomely huge humongous thing I have ever seen. Simply enormous! I walked around it and kept wondering how such a titanic machine could ever have gotten of the ground.

While in Navy boot camp in San Diego CA (1950) the "36 would fly out of North Island Naval Base. When at altitude and almost unseen except for it's contrail, it's distinctive deep roar of the engines identified it as a B-36. It made the hair on your body stand up!

I was just a teen in the mid 50s. I was at a scout camp in Mid Michigan. One day the ground began to shake. A tremendous roar. All of a sudden a very big shadow came over. I ran down to the lake. A B-36 came over. it appeared to be only a hundred feet over the trees. Soon after it passed over head. A second one flew over. About 10 minutes later. Two more (unknown if the same ones) flew over. I never seen anything so big and flying. The lake we were by had several scout camps around it. I looked around. The entire lake had people stand on the shore line.

They experimented with mid-air refueling with various versions of this plane. At the time, no one used aerial refueling. By using fuel bladders in two of the four bomb bays, they could extend the range quite a bit. His stories growing up were of missions up to 72 hours in air. They built beds for crew into the aircraft. I asked him about the 4 vs 2 bomb bays, he said the panels cover two bays each. Designed to carry two 42000 lb bombs that he admitted he didn't know if they ever got built.

Love the b-36 yet I’m surprised it didn’t go faster with that slightly swept wing. Imagine if it had turboprops in place of the pistons, that would’ve truly raised it up another level

I used to Work in the Bomber Plant in FtWorth. It's an AMAZING Facility. They were General Dynamics building the F16 when I was there. There was a complete B36 in the Boneyard just outside the South Gate.

Ive been an military aviation nut since I was 4-5 years old. I was ridin my G'pa's big old plow horse , Ole Dan , lol .around our old place in St Maurice , L:a,exactly where the Red River and Saline Bayou join , About 65-70 miles south of Barksdale, AFB . Im 5 years old when I heard rackett Id never heard before in the sky ,I looked up and saw giant airplanes circling and joining up with other flights of airplanes while all these little delta wing jets ( F106's , 102's and Im sure some 101's and F100'swere in that swarm ) They were low enogh to see details .as they zoomed in and around the formations , It may have been 15-20 big bombers but to me my 5 year old eyes the sky was full of them .I dont recall seeing any B36's but saw plenty of big jets with swept back wings .Today B52's and probably B47's hell I was 5 ...I had a good view point too cause ole Daan was a real big tall horse , bareback and a 55 gallon drum to get on his back .. It was later when I started high school did I put it all together as to what I had seen that day .I had witnessed just how close we came to nuclear war , It was that final day of the Cuban Missile Crisis , Louisiana is just 6-700 miles from Cuba, Barksdale AFB ,a giant SAC base still active was only 70 miles to my north , England AFB, a TAC base down in Alexandria , La,. was 45 miles to my south , and just for mention, Ft. Polk ,, La. A huge Army base 45 miles to my west .In had a ring side seat to what was to be the End of the World as we know it , The Cuban Missile crisis and it had finally come to a head Kruschev and Kennedy were about to to the deed . To me it was just a fall day riding ole Dan ,but today I almost get the chills thinking about what it really was I had witnessed

the b-36, on account of its sheer massiveness, is one of my favorite planes. my grandpa says that he used to hear these things rattling Windows on his farm.

Someone could run a great KZfaq Live stream of just all these old discovery wings and other military documentaries!

Of the four remaining, I've been lucky enough to see two of them (at Castle and Pima), and they are amazing machines. I only wish I could have seen (and heard) one fly.

Fairchild AFB west of Spokane WA was a SAC base that hosted the B36 until about 1957 when the B52 replaced them. They had a very distinctive sound that was unlike anything else. I remember the china in the china cabinet rattling when a B36 flew over at about 35,000 feet. I loved the sound of the B36 flying at it's cruising altitude.

A beauty built back when the USAF could apply its full might to doing one mission type better than anyone else, unlike our modern "multi-mission"--and multi-billion--hangar queen boondoggles (F-22 and -35 I'm looking at you). I've been in, on and all around a B-36 (which feels like it takes weeks... they are HUGE!), and the sheer fact it actually could fly--and fight--the way it did is a miracle, especially given the "tech" (ha!) hey had to work with. A Peacemaker is truly a MUST SEE PLANE!

The USAF had many great experimental bombers such as the B-36 & XB-70... They are truly magnificent planes thanks for uploading. :)

I had the great good fortune to see the very last B36 ever produced in 1973, parked at the end of a runway in Fort Worth as my band bus drove past it....

By the way, Joe - later in my USN career we also intercepted P2 and P3 aircraft (yes, got the photos) and Russian May aircraft flying from their bases in Afghanistan to Socotra Island (Aden). On one occasion we also intercepted a P2 flown by the Iranian Air Force (after the shah, during the Iranian Hostage crisis). This last was the most nerve wracking of my career. Literrally our fingers were on the trigger at THAT time. Yes, got pics of all this. It was SOP to take pics.

I'll never forget the impact of seeing a model airplane version of this monster at the store when I was a kid. The box lid art was total fantasy, but those rear-facing props and GEs in pods just grabbed me. I never even knew the plane existed before then, though I grew up in East Dallas and may have seen them fly over at altitude, but I bought that model and built it pronto. Imagine my amazement when, a couple of years later in what was probably 1968 or 69, we drove past one parked by a highway on-ramp just outside Ft. Worth. I assume it was at the Convair plant waiting to be scrapped, (or at Carswell being used as an enlisted men's club-ha ha) as it was way out on the far edge of the property all alone. BTW: Has anyone read the book by Richard Kirkland called "War Pilot"? He was one of the first SAR helicopter pilots in the Air Force, and was involved in the search for a missing B-36 in British Columbia back around 1950. Amazing book!

My Dad was a mechanic and frequently flight engineer for these. Many of his stories you wouldn't believe and some outright contradict the official stats for the planes. They flew a lot farther and higher than reported.

There is one at the Pima Air Museum. Awesome!

Fascinating to watch, especially since my family grew up near Carswell AFB in Fort Worth, with some relatives having worked at Consolidated, Convair and throughput General Dynamics.

The pilot in the first "parasite bomber" keeping his wits about him after having been dropped from the first docking attempt with the giant aircraft, and thus crash landing the parasite bomber, has big, huge brass balls...that pilot was a savage.....

I was a US Navy SP-2H navigator. That bird had two R-3350 radials and two turbojets (forget the model). Well anyways, AVGAS was burned in the jets and I reckon that was the same with the B-36. Not the most fuel efficient way to do it, but it worked.

Would love to see one of these babies still flying. It must have been an impressive sight. I enjoy watching "Strategic Air Command" just to watch the excellent film of these in flight. Watching one of these things putting on the brakes and watching the whole plane bounce is impressive too.

I grew up near a SAC base and would often see 3 of these planes in formation prior to landing. The 6 engines had their own unique roar. They were so big they seemed going too slow to fly.

This plane still just blows me away. I wasn't old enough to remember it but people I know who lived near a SAC base then said it was stupefying to see & hear

One of these did two low-level flybys over the runway at an Oakland, CA airshow in Sept 1956 (which featured the Blue Angels AND the Thunderbirds). After circling SF Bay the second pass was made just using the four outboard jet engines. That was my only close-up view of one in flight - many were seen (and heard) at cruising altitudes with their contrails.

B-36 top speed 418 mph; cruise 230. B-36 service ceiling, 43,600' ( it would take a miracle for a B-36 to get to 55,000' ) .

What a great documentary

Nobody likes nukes but without them many think Stalin would have kept on rolling through Europe, and this was the only plane then that could do it .So did its job well.

The true final flight of the B-36 took place on 30 April 1959 when 52-2220 flew from Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ to the National Museum of the United States Air Force, where it is now on permanent display.

What a great thing the people who put that plane together and flying it, amazing stuff....

Majestic bomder that is much bigger than it looks on video.

Oh yes six turning in for burning what a beautiful aircraft. I actually got to see one in Dayton Ohio when I was younger at Wright Patterson Air Force Base

I have actually seen a B-36. A real monster of an airplane!

I remember seeing B-36s fly over our home in FL where we lived during the late '40s & early '50s. They were flying out of McDill AFB in Tampa, and the engine sound was so distinctive that I could run outside to see them fly over whenever I heard that sound. We were about 50 miles from McDill and by then the planes were high enough that they were sometimes hard to see if there was even a light overcast, but I could always identify that peculiar 6-engine drone even of I couldn't see the planes.

Had to have taken alot of nerve to jump into these monsters and bury the throttles and hopped for the best ! I do admire the bravery of these guys .

6 turning and 4 burning, an amazing plane that was THE deterrent to the Soviets and Chinese in the 50s!

Whatever happened to those WIngs programs from the 1980's that had that fantastic narrator and that great 80's music? That's what I grew up watching as a kid. I can't really find any of them on here. The best one was about the RATO/JATO STOL/VTOL aircraft.

The XC-99 is still around... in pieces now at the boneyard in Arizona, to protect it from further corrosion and until funds can be found to restore it...

It is interesting to note this documentary makes the same mistake as many others- the YB-60 WAS designed to carry defensive turrets like the B-36. This was made clear in the excellent book on the B-36- Magnesium Overcast.

There is a B-36 in the SAC Museum off I-80 between Omaha and Lincoln, Neb. There's a 52 parked under the right wing. At first, you don't even notice the B-52. It looks tiny by comparison.

Went on a field trip in a&p school we crawled all over the B36 in ft worth.Huge you could stand up in the wing root.

According to the description of one who was there, the speed, range, ceiling, and bomb loads were all severely understated.

Oddly, the B-36 even flew into a rather tiny airbase on the northwestern corner of Puerto Rico! It's now a civilian airport; the AF moved out in the early 70's, AFAIK. They have a museum there in one of the old Quonset Hut hangers with all manner of pic's and artifacts from its time as a USAAF then USAF base. I have a souvenir T-shirt with a B-36 screen printed on; they depend on sales and donations to keep the doors open. The town of Aguadilla wouldn't be on the map if not for that base.

The 4360ci engines were basically 4 engines one infront of the other. Rear cylinders over heated. Front engines get their carburetors frozen.......

Great video. You gotta love the clips from Jimmy Steward's "Strategic Air Command"

👍 Thank for that outstanding and informative presentation!🛫

My Dad worked on these in the fifties in Alaska.

Four burnin, two turnin, two smokin and two jokin.

This thing had the Soviets shitin' bricks in the early 1950's.

I read a first person account in the Journal of the Air Force Museum by a B36 crew member of an exercise about 1956 when the USAF flew a large number of B36s over the pole. They went line abreast approaching the USSR and watched the Russian air defense light up. At the point of no return they did a 180 and fired off a long burst of tracers from all the tail guns. Most of the B36s carried spare engines in the 2nd bomb bay so when they refueled in Alaska they could swap failing engines.

Error AT 21:52 . I'm sure he meant "Consolidated's giant". Not Boeing's.

it still has several good shows

Thanks for posting this video, I enjoyed it a lot! There's a great book about the 1950 crash of a B-36B in the Queen Charlotte islands in northern BC, Canada called "Broken Arrow: America's first lost nuclear weapon" by Norman Leach. That plane crashed because the carbs iced up and backfired, and set the wings on fire. Though pusher engines are cool, that is their major drawback- poor carb heat. The bomb tech tried to fly it back to Eielson AFB, got within 50 miles but hit a mountain.

42:14 I had no idea the B58 Hustler was linked to the B36 Peacemaker. Cool.

General Curtis Lemay yes, among other achievements he is credited as being the main proponent of an Air Force that would be independent from the Army. In the 1930's he also pioneered naval aviation even though he never served in the Navy. But he was a controversial figure, some of his colleagues considered him overly aggressive in his policies as a top-level advisor.

Standard intercept procedure for carrier task groups is to intercept Bear (and other soviet) aircraft at 200NM distance from the carrier. This was done routinely when I was aboard US 'birdfarms'. We also routinely practiced intercepting B-52s doing their SAC patrols in the N Atlantic and Mediterranean during the 1960s and 1970s. We were always successful, with both Bear and B-52s - - I've got the pictures to prove it!

I had no clue the U.S. had so many different prototypes of heavy bomber on the go back then...cool.

My grandfather once told me a story about them, how it was like an airborne earthquake, like seeing an office building climb up into the clouds. Dover AFB

Thank you for this video. The B36 at Wright Patterson in Dayton OH at the air museum is truly an eye opener. They even have one of the little fighter jets that were supposed to protect the bomber. Interesting that both sides were and are run by the same international bankers. They make big money on war and the development and production of armaments. It is in their interest for wars to start and continue to happen. Maybe some day we will be free of their control. Some of them even think that a first strike will make nuclear war winnable. That's how crazy they are.

"Curtis Lemay ; Was a great leader with his single minded purpose of destroying Japan and winning the war! He was not one to chase his tail by second guessing what needed to be done, and didn't pay attention to the tree huggers!

I just found my next woodworking project for my grandson.

There's a B-36 at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. They've also got the casings for several nuclear weapons (the Mk 17 etc.) as well as the plane that dropped the Bomb on Nagasaki.

Great films of some awsome aircraft!

The B-36 at the beginning of this video is the same one that stared in "Strategic Air Command", buzz number 5734. Notice that the jet pods are not painted with the red and white stripes shown in the movie.

Just a point of intrest, but about 13:00 the narrator says the first test flight was at 1 in the morning (dark out) and that they left the wheels down if emergency landing needed during the short flight. Either they where very brave to test flight inthe darkt with limited visibility or the time was wrong. just an odd statement that caought my ear.

Why do German newsreels look so grainy while us newsreels are more crisp

I used to be stationed at Eielson AFB. Its pronounced "EYE-el-son", not "Ellis-son". Looks like they waited for a light ice fog condition to blur the background. I'm a bit surprised at the dogs running around, but Security Forces might have been running dogsled teams for patrol. The big hangar seen in the clip is still there, but the control tower was moved to the other end of the field.

Excellent film.

I am always surprised that the idea of the use of large quantities of magnesium sheet for construction saved a great amount of weight and effectively extended the range. Hence, creating the nickname of "Magnesium Overcast".

Back when The Discovery Channel had good shows on.

It wasn't ironic. It was true. SAC's motto was "Peace ... is our Profession". It was true. SAC helped maintain the peace through the strength of strategic deterrence.

Narrator of this documentary sounds like Roger Climpson, newsreader on TV Channel 7 Sydney for many years

my father was an old time sac pilot with b-36s they were out of rapid city

It was clearly a stop gap measure tying together piston and jet power (it had both). But the piston engines (PW 4360) were big, powerful but as said was a maintenance nightmare and were not reliable over the long run. Pretty impressive how many were made and put in service though, it shows the dominance of the US after the war.

One made a forced/crash landing just a few miles from where I live in Salisbury U.K. in the winter of 1952.

I always had fun shooting down B-36s with a Mig15 in the USNF'97 computer game

One plane was converted to NB-36H and included an 11 ton shielded crew section for testing radiation dose rates from a 3 megawatt air cooled nuclear reactor. Numerous test flights were conducted. A functional X-6 was planned but the entire program was scrapped with the advent of ICBM technology.

Hope to see this plane at the Pima Air and Space Museum here in Tucson AZ.

great videolist,thanks

Wow 40 years after the Wright Brothers

If you can find B36 crew or ground support person and ask them how many flights made it to altitude with " 6 turning ". Most times they soured at least one or more engines on climb out. The man who killed the wing went to work at Consolidated a year later.

Not sure if there is one but if you haven't yet and have the chance go to the SAC museum in nebraska they have one there among many other things. Great place to visit.