Convair B-36 Peacemaker

Warbird Tech Series, Volume 24
By Dennis R. Jenkins
Specialty Press
ISBN 1-58007-019-1
100 pages
Suggested Retail Price: $16.95

Reviewed by Tom Cleaver

I well remember the very first time I ever saw a B-36. I was age 4, and had gone with my father out to Stapleton Field in Denver, to see the then-brand new B-36 that had come to Denver for high-altitude tests. The airplane was going to take off and fly back to Texas, which promised to be quite a sight. Instead, given that the airfield temperature that summer Saturday was around 85 degrees F - which provided for a density altitude of well over 10,000 feet MSL - the B-36 sat there. And sat there for another six days, until the heat wave broke and it was able to get off the ground at dawn the following Friday. No wonder the Air Force quickly hung "four burning" to augment the "six turning" of this monster. As a child of the Cold War, I often looked up at the contrails that used to fill the skies over the United States in the 1950s, many of which were undoubtedly the handiwork of the B-36. I never ceased to be amazed at just how big the darn thing was whenever one would fly in for an Air Force Day celebration at Lowry AFB.

Dennis Jenkins has performed yeoman service in this 24th volume of the Warbird Tech series, in providing the serious modeler with lots of technical information about the biggest piston-engined bomber ever made. I know for a fact that the FICON model currently hanging in the Planes of Fame Air Museum could have benefited from the drawings of that system which are provided here and removed six months worth of "guess work" from the project.

The B-36 was the bomber Barnes Wallis had been hoping for when he designed his "earthquake bomb," known during the Second World War as "Tall Boy" and in its final form as "Grand Slam." Did you know the B-36 could carry two Tall Boys in its bomb bay? It could carry the "Grand Slam" up to 43,000 feet, the altitude Wallis had meant it to be dropped from for maximum effect. The airplane was also the only aircraft that could carry the original H-bomb, which was a real monster in more ways than one.

As is standard with the Warbird Tech series, the book provides a brief development history, and chapters that deal with the XC-99 cargo derivative, the YB-60 jet-powered derivative, and the FICON carriers, as well as information about the reconnaissance systems of the RB-36 series. It was the RB-36 that actually saw "operational" service over enemy territory. Able to fly at nearly 50,000 feet after burning off fuel from a long trip across the pole and maintain a speed over 400mph with full controllability, the RB-36s did indeed fly over the Soviet Union in the dark days of the Cold War.

With the Monogram B-36 - still the largest plastic model ever manufactured - available again, this book will be very useful to the modeler who is considering attacking that monster project.