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An inside look at the cockpit of a B-36
A pal of mine passed this on to me. I thought some of you who remember boiler gauges would enjoy the tour. B-36 Cockpit Gauge Maze The B-36 was a state of the art airplane in its day. The Flight Engineer was responsible for starting, maintaining and shutting down the 6 Radial Engines and the 4 Jet Engines required to make it fly and complete its mission. No modern technology, such as "Fly by Wire" or "Computer controlled Aircraft" systems, were involved here. Just straight… (www.nmusafvirtualtour.com) More...
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I remember being told that the B-36 carried enough fuel to fly from US bases to Russia and return without refueling.
Very True...
I remember being told that the B-36 was capable of flying non-stop from US bases to Russia and return without refueling.
I'd love to sit there and watch one of these cockpits in action.
Question for those who might know: The throttle levers at the flight engineer's station... Are they the same as what the pilots have? Or do the FE levers have a wider range with the pilots' levers operating in a narrower window to serve the more immediate purpose of controlling speed? I know that a lot of those old piston monsters were incredibly complex and that they usually ran right at their limit, so did the FE have to "protect" them from the pilots?
Question for those who might know: The throttle levers at the flight engineer's station... Are they the same as what the pilots have? Or do the FE levers have a wider range with the pilots' levers operating in a narrower window to serve the more immediate purpose of controlling speed? I know that a lot of those old piston monsters were incredibly complex and that they usually ran right at their limit, so did the FE have to "protect" them from the pilots?
Don't know the answer about the throttles... but my dad was a B-29 FE in WWII. He flew 35 missions over Japan including the fire raids over Tokyo. I remember him talking about the overheating issues they had with those big 2000 HP R3350s. His bomb group was based on Siapan and he said when fully loaded they really struggled getting airborne before running off the 8700' runway into the Pacific. He said in order to keep the engines from overheating he had to crack open the huge cowl flaps which cooled down the engines but increased drag, which lengthed the takeoff and visa versa. Another constant headache was 12 hours of fuel management. But that's another story...
I suspect the cowl flaps would always have been "full-open" on takeoff. But I too have heard of the neccessity for cracking them slightly in criuse flight....and that would certainly have created increased drag and subsequent fuel consumption. It was a bit before my time but I still find those early B-29 air/ground crews to be real "heros"! The B-29 simply wasn't a reliable machine for the high alt long range mission required.....but they made it work anyway!
Many times a B-36 returning from a long mission would have several of the reciprocating engines feathered. There was a note on the bulletin board at base ops that running with more then three engines out on one side was not approved.
The training school (MTD) for all B-36 systems was just across the street from my house and many of the system panel were not locked up at night. The J-47 and R-4360 cutaway engines were there to poke at.
Clint,
Menlo Park, CA