The article covers the last half of B-36J, 52-2827 history. It was delivered to the 92d BW,327th Bomb Squadron on August 14,1954. It departed Fairchild AFB on March 31, 1957, for continued service with the 95th BW. I have a photo of 2827 and 2825, in color taken in July 1956, from 2824. 52-2826 was flying off the left wing of 52-2824. It is titled "Heading Home" 52-2827 and 52-2823 were the last operational B-36 aircraft when retired on 12 Mar 1959, 2823 to D-M, 2827 to Fort Worth.

I think it`s wonderful that the B-36 was donated to PASM.
The restoration crew there did an outstanding job in restoring it.
I volunteered there for 6 years and left just before it arrived. The restoration crew at PASM has always done a great job in restoring aircraft.

Dale Burton

I can still remember the unique low rumble of the B 36 occasionally going by Irving, Texas at 2,000 or so agl.

One time I saw it's con trails and those of P 80's attempting to make passes. One of them went into the con trail and came out vertically. That was educational.

My father retired from Convair in 1966 and was instrumental in the delivery of 52-2827. In fact, he took me and my older brother to see the huge bomber take off on her delivery flight on August 14, 1954. We were only a few feet from the edge of the runway on her run to take-off and were almost washed away by her teriffic draft as she went by. I had heard that unmistakable drone of those 6 Pratt & Whitney engines from the first few flights that would come over our town, to that hot day in August 1954, there was nothing more exciting than to hear that drone of those engines as they took her away into the cold war. We tried to keep 52-2827 in Ft. Worth, but was unable to get he proper financing to keep her. I am totally excited that Pima Museum has her and that she will always be taken care of like I had hoped. All B-36s were special to me because they put clothes on our backs, food on our tables, and confidence that we could defeat those blasted Russians any day with them. 25-2827 was extra special because I was there when she was delivered and was there when she came home to Ft. Worth on her last flight. Thanks Pima Museum for taking care of my favorite airplane ever, she looks great!!!

While in the USAF, I was stationed at Chanute Field, Illinois in 1957, going to Weather School. Our barracks was right accross the street from the end of the runway, where off to the side od the runway, there was a B-36 on static display. One night there was a thunder storm with high winds and when the morning light arrived we saw what strong winds could do to a static B-36. It was sitting on it's tail. I'll try posting the picture in READER SCRAPBOOK.

In the Fall of 1951 I was in Navy boot camp in San Diego. One day I heard this incredible noise and looked up at a B-36 flying low, having just taken off from, I assume, the Convair landing strip nearby. What an awesome sight for this kid from a remote mining town in Northeast Nevada. The photo of Peacemaker 52-2827 brought that memory back in a rush.

As a little boy in the early 50's I would see the B-36 contrails over Northern Calif. and holler, "Birdie Sixes". From those days forward the family referred to them as Birdie Sixes.

I just want to thank Scott Marchand and James Stemm at Pima Air & Space Museum for allowing me, over the course of a couple of years, access to this gem when it was still in the rough. My photos in the article (and the on-line photo gallery) are the result of that access and show some of the challenges their restoration crews faced — corrosion, accidental damage, and truckloads of disassociated parts. They did a magnificent job. A photo that didn't make it into the article shows, of all things, a telegraph key at the radio operator's station! That was a surprisingly anachronistic device in what was, at the time, probably our most sophisticated weapons system. EDITORS' NOTE: Mark Bennett is one of the two photographers whose work was featured in this photo-essay.

I came across several hours of original VHS tape on the disassembly, move, and re-assembly of the RB-36 from Chanute AFB, Illinois, to Castle AFB, California; the move took place twenty years ago last summer. I've put "Part III - The Build" on YouTube (visit http://www.youtube.com and search for: B-36 Castle Build). "Part I: The Disassembly," and "Part II: The Move" were over the ten minute limit so I couldn't upload them. The exhibit recently had a "training shape" for a Mark-17 added to it. Pretty impressive stuff! Pima's restoration looks wonderful! Many thanks!

I was stationed at Chanute AFB, Illinois in 1971-72 while in Flight Simulator Specialist training there. There was a B-36 on static display, as Mr. Lee stated above. I don't know for sure if this is true, but I was told that it was there because it made an emergency landing and ran off the runway, breaking the fuselage behind the wings. I was told they took out a section of the damaged fuselage and put it back together with that part missing. I was also told that even if it hadn't been damaged, the runway there was too short for it to take off from anyway, so it was just put on static display. I spent many off-duty hours sitting under the wing of that behemoth, in total awe of the size of it and amazed that something that large could actually fly. An amazing airplane indeed.

Monster Bomber (August 2010) brought back memories when Jack "Rusty" Bates and I flew the B-36, on ground display at Chanute Air Force Base,Rantoul,Ill. We were both stationed there for tech school in early 1966.Rusty knew alot about air planes because his dad had flown a P-51 in WW-2 and he grew up talking air planes since his dad worked at China Lake Naval Air Base. Rusty said that we could enter the plane by climbing up the landing gear and walk through the wing to the fuselage,which we did one night with two-six packs of beer.We played pilot and tail gunner all night by pulling ourself on a little cart that ran from the front of the AC to the rear. We had to land our dream of flying the Peacemaker because we ran out of fuel(beer). There was a ten ft. section of the fuselage rolled up inside the plane which was removed after being damaged in a storm. After tech school we both ended up working on B-52's, the bird that replaced the B-36. Xen George Anchales Angelus Oaks, Ca.

I just wrote my comments and have a correction to make. In that comment I said rusty's dad flew p-51's in ww 2, well I just talked to rusty and he said his dad, Jack Bates, flew B-24's in ww 2 and after the war he flew B-29's and B-36's. That's why rusty knew about climbing up the landing gear to get inside the aircraft....please make the correction, and I hope you publish it. Xen George Anchales

In 1956-1958, I was in the air force, stationed at the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. I was in the Design Department, where we did set-up designs for all the air craft and other exhibits inside and outside the museum. We had a very large number of planes on static display on the grounds. I got notice that a B-36 had just landed on Patterson's strip and was parked at the far end of the runway.I was told to hop in my car and drive out to this monster and check it out. Well, I was in my glory, so I went out to the plane, climbed up the landing gear into the wing, and walked on into the main body. I climbed from one end of the plane to the far tail gunner spot ( where as a matter of fact I found a live round of ammo). It was then my project to study the design drawings of the plane to determine how to remove certain parts in order to be able to transport the b-36 off the runway, down several streets and up to the display yard of the museum. We got it done without any major problems, and then proceeded to set it up for the general public to be able to view.....Bob Wise,Jacksonville, Fl., July 27, 2010.2:03 pm.

The B-36 was a dinosaur, inferior to the Northrop B-49 in many ways. But because Jack wouldn't roll his company over to Air Force Secretary Stuart Symington's pals at Convair, he was forced to destroy all prototypes and parts of his revolutionary new jet-powered flying wing. Now in Aviation Hell, Symington wears a big silver albatross around his neck.

At the end of its career, the aircraft was given to the city of Ft Worth and landed at the old Great Southwest Airport – about one mile south of the current DFW airport. The aircraft sat outdoors, but was cared for by a crew of retired Convair employees. When DFW airport opened and Great Southwest closed, the volunteers tried to get the aircraft airworthy to fly out – and actually had 4 of the 6 engines running, when the FAA stepped in and said “No way”. They then disassembled the aircraft and moved it to an open lot in outside the gates of the Convair/General Dynamics plant in west Fort Worth. The aircraft continued to degrade due to vandalism and the effects of weather and animals (bird droppings are very corrosive on 0.032 thin magnesium skins). In the early 1990’s General Dynamics provided hangar space for the aircraft to be disassembled and a volunteer crew of mostly retired employees started to work on the restoration. Most of the upper fuselage skin and large portions of the wing skins were replaced with aluminum sheet since magnesium sheet is no longer available. The skins are attached with #3 rivets on ¾ inch spacing, so literally thousands of rivets had to be drilled out and replaced. The cockpit panels were rebuilt using illustrations from the flight manuals and instruments that USAF still had in stock! The effort was lead by Bill Plumlee, who had started as a flight line mechanic at Convair and retired as the Director of Manufacturing at the GD plant.
The original intention was to build a museum in Ft Worth to house the Peacemaker indoors. Charlie Hillard was leading the fund raising effort until his death in a landing accident in his Sea Fury. The Air Force then decided that Pima could provide a nice dry site for the bird to prevent future corrosion. It broke the heart of many of the members of the B-36 Association who had spent so many hours restoring the ship to see it trucked away, but it is good to see the last Peacemaker back together.

I'm looking forward to seeing the B-36 at PIMA. I was impressed with the one inside the Wright-Patterson AFB museum last summer, but disappointed I couldn't climb around inside it. The weapons these planes carried were impressive- the MK 17 Thermonuclear Weapon weighed something like 40,000 lbs, way too heavy for the B-49 to carry. I'm also interested in the B-36B that went down on Vancouver Island in 1950, the first "Broken Arrow". And there's another one that crashed into a cliff at Goose Bay, Labrador because it reached the mainland 1.5 hrs early during a snowstorm. I really respect the men who flew these things, they weren't as safe as modern aircraft. Among several books about the B-36, I really love one title in particular: "Magnesium Overcast".

Some years ago, I visited the Air Force museum at Dayton, Ohio, with my father. I remember being in the section that holds the B-36. In spite of its size, I never saw it until I happened to look up from the F-86 I was inspecting and noticed I (and about 6 or more other aircraft!) were underneath one of the B-36's massive wings! What a "whale" of an airplane!
To those who knew/flew them, were any B-36's flying after 1959? (operationally or otherwise) I could swear that I saw one flying, very high, northbound over West-Central Florida when I was in elementary school in the mid 1960's.

The B-49 could never have been used as a bomber. It was way too unstable. The B-36 had no such problem.

In June of 1955 I reported to Walker AFB in Roswell NM. Fresh out of basic pilot training, I became a 3rd pilot on a B-36 crew. It was the beginning of 2 years of touring the world in the Peacemaker. Although it was only in service for a short time, it played a large role in preserving the peace during the Cold War. It presented the only threat to Russia's homeland for that period.

I'll always remember Aircraft Commanders,Burrelll Gamble and Sid Ward, and their crew members that I had the privilege of serving with for 2 great years.

Gus Wulfman

I remember a B36 flying over New Philadelphia, Ohio. It must have been around 50 or 51 and I can still remember the sound of the 6 engines. It was a distinctive sound and the sight and sounds of that plane remained with me for over 50 years.

Referring to the B-36 that was at Chanute AFB in Rantoul, Il, I was a kid living on the base for many years. I was caught by the Air Force police sitting in the cockpit of that aircraft when a pad locked hatch had been broken off by a drunken airman, or so I had been told. At that time there were a lot of dead birds and tons of bird dropping in the aircraft. If it had happened today with me being an adult instead of a kid, I would not have entered it, but as a kid in love with aircraft, it was an adventure. I was told the same story about a section being removed and I was also told that when it landed, it damaged the runway because of the weight.

I saw these bombers passing over Manila, Philippines when I was a kid in the 50's during our independence day celebration, July 4 that time. They were accompanied by a flight of F-86s and it was an awesome display of airpower that time. I just don't know if they flew from Clark Airbase, Philippines or from a US base in Japan.

It is so huge that I can't even buy a 1:72 scale Monogram model of this bomber, that I like so much because I don't have enough space to display this in our house!

The B-36 was an awsome sight in flight, I remember in 1956 flying into Phenix (Sky Harbor) in an Army H-19 and being advised by tower, look to your right ( I was on approach to 27 L ) there is a B-36 landing 27 R.! It passed me about a mile from touchdown. Was also was at Pima 2 years ago when they had started restoration, but it was in hangar and not available for viewing.

Fond Memories !!!

I know I saw this plane fly over my area, Flower Mound Texas which is the north end of DFW Airport. This was late this summer of 2010. I google searched to see what kind of plane this was. All I could find was this old bomber info and I told my self: hmmm. I know I saw it, I know I heard it, I know. I ran to my 2nd story window to lookout as its shadow and loudness filled and my office, and in the middle of the day, I caught it as it flew out of sight, heading south like most other planes, towards DFW Airport. Six propeller engines, like nothing I have every witnessed. Huge airplane, flying low. If anyone has any info on this sighting, let me know!

I went to a Veterans Day event at the Commerative Air Force in Mesa. I talked to a pilot on a B36 wish I had written down is name. I asked what was the longest flight he had been on in a B36. he said 54 hours. The Air Force wanted to see what the duration of the B36 was. I was amazed. I wanted to know how much fuel a B36 dould carry. Right away his reply was 33000 gallons. He also talked about the engines and he said once they were cruising at about 40000 feet the engines could be slowed down to about 600 RPM. He joked about being able to count the blades. Sorry I do not remember his name. Someone has got to interview these guys before their history is gone.

@ Scottie

You likely saw a low flying large cargo plane of some sort. No actual B-36 has flown since 1959 when the one on display at the Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio was flown in from the scrap yard in Arizona.

The B-36 was awesome to watch -- like the Hindenberg dirigible -- ad just as vulnerable, as explained in my book "Goodbye Beautiful Wing", just pubished April 2012. The primary mission of the Strategic Air Command of the Air Force which justified their huge budget was to be able to destroy the enemy war making ability. That is, the USSR's secret atomic bomb plants in the Ural Mountains. These were far from the stateside US A-bomb storage, across 1000 miles of Arctic, then 3000 miles through Russian airspace's 19,000 interceptors and about 1000 new MiG-15 jet interceptors. A suicide mission ending at the USSR borders, with SAC's UNESCORTED bombers carrying (in 1950) all thirteen of our A-bombs, shot to pieces. The competing 4000-mile-target bomber, the Northrop prop-Wing, the B-35, had demonstrated it was invisibile -- Stealthy -- to our coastal intercept radar at Half Moon Bay north of San Francisco, in 1948, as told to me by Northrop test pilot Chuck Tucker who himself was in the plane. "It was solid as a rock... a good airplane!" said Tucker. "The AF reports about it being unstable were 'bullshit'." Tucker flew the Wing through all the AF stall-tests and recovered it from a spin, as well as about 100 hours of stability and autopilot installation tests. The whole fiasco is related in my book ... leaving us billions poorer from buying 385 mission-incapable B-36s.

It was interesting to read the stories posted above of the B-36 parked at Chanute. I was stationed there in 79-80 and it was still there at that time. I lived in those same old barracks on the other side of the runway and walked past it every day.
I assume it is still at Chanute since I read they opened an air museum there after closing the base many years ago.

In a posting by Bob Wise on July 27, 2010 he commented that when he served at Wright-Patterson AFB in 1955 - 1956, he helped to transport a B-36 that had just landed at Wright- Patterson to the display yard of the museum. The B-36 that is currently on display is a B-36J (52-2220) that was flown up from Davis-Monthan AFB on April 30, 1959. Therefore, the one being referred to from the 1955 - 1956 time period must have been the RB36-E (42-13571) that was retired from Ramey AFB around that time. I flew on 571 at Ramey until the fall of 1955 so I am curious as to when it actually went to Wright-Patterson for display. Hopefully Bob will read this and respond. If not, maybe someone else will have this info.


Thanks,


Roger Stigney

rstigney [at] hotmail [dot] com

I was in the tower at Kadena Airbase, Okinawa in the early ’50s and I remember telling the pilot of that huge, HUGE aircraft to check his gear down and locked and he’s cleared to land. Six engines in the rear! Wow, what a thrill!