Casing. (I hope that's all it is) located on the old Carswell AFB, TX. stayed there a few nights last week. it is now called Naval Air Station, Joint Reserve Base, Ft Worth. if you are active or retired military, they have a really nice Navy Lodge there located right on Lake Worth for $105.00 a night. Lee

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VFW, NRA, VVA, S&WCA 1758

That's a MK17. The only aircraft able to carry it was the B36 as it was 24 feet long.

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NRA, SWCA #2262

Where's Maj. Kong when you need him?

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No baby we aint

...that it's a fully armed bomb sitting there. They never bothered to check.

"Hey Captain, what do you want to do with this old bomb?"

"It would make a great display at the gate. How about order some concrete, some bricks, a coupla benches and some nice signs."

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

There used to be a B-36 sitting on the West side of Carswell. Fairly decrepit. Probably long gone by now.

Timely, that is…I just watched the original “On the Beach” yesterday. I recently found that there was a remake of it with Armand Asante as Cdr. Towers, Rachael Ward as Moira, Bryan Brown as Julian, and a young Aussie chap, Grant Bowers as Leftenent (sp?) Holmes. Roles played by Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire, and Anthony Perkins, respectively, in the original. Anyway, I watched the new version over a few nights last week (it’s 3:20 long), and had to watch the original again to see how it held up…original is definitely better, IMHO. I read the book several years ago, and now I’ll have to revisit that as well

Mrs. tlawler says I seem to have a morbid fascination with apocalyptic/post apocalyptic stories, one that seems to have taken an early hold after I read Alas Babylon as a kid when I found out the events in the novel take place very close to where I grew up in Central Florida. Now, that’s a novel that I would love to see made into a movie!

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USS Brewton FF1086
SWCA#3597

It weighed 42,000 pounds and had a yield of 15 megatons. I plugged the yield into the nukemap site and an airburst detonation centered on DC would obliterate the entire Washington, DC area including College Park, Bethesda and Alexandria. Anyone in an exposed area would get third degree burns as far out as Manassas and Annapolis. The primary fireball would be a quarter the size of the District of Columbia.

Quite a bang.

If that plot line is your interest, you should find a copy of The Jesus Factor.

Urban renewal.

It was moved and restored.

B-36 Peacemaker Museum - Wikipedia

Read the book by Nevil Shute. It is very well written and gets into the moral dilemma of suicide more than the movie did. I read it when I was in high school back in the early 70's when the cold war was peaking and it made a big impression.

I read The Jesus Factor back in the 1970's IIRC. It's a well blended mixture of fact and fiction, and it kinda sticks in my memory. I may read it again.

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NRA Endowment Member

That's it. I used to drive past that B-36 most every day. As I remember its dilapidated condition, it must have been an extremely difficult job to restore it.

My family lived in the Ft. Worth area (now called a "Metroplex")after my father got out of the Army. I remember him taking me and my younger brother out to see that aircraft and it had to be about 1959. The Convair plant was a landmark in that area.

When the B-58 Hustler came out, there was an overlook by Lake Worth where you could see planes landing and taking off from Carswell AFB. Seeing the novel swept wing fighter/bomber with my Dad is still a fond memory.

I’ve been to the Nuke Museum here in town which also has a MK-17.
And we have the distinction of having a MK-17 dropped here.

1957 incident
On May 27, 1957 a Mark 17 was unintentionally jettisoned from a Convair B-36 Peacemaker just south of Albuquerque, New Mexico's Kirtland AFB. The device fell through the closed bomb bay doors of the bomber, which was approaching Kirtland at an altitude of 520 metres (1,700 ft).

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

And they expected the biggest, slowest bomber ever to drop it . . .
and get away?

One is at the Air Force Museum near Wright Patterson AFB in Ohio. ( Along with about 5 other different Nuclear bombs. )

Per the description

The MK-17 was carried by B-36s and was in service from 1954 until 1957. By today's standards, it was extremely large and heavy. It had a casing 3 1/2 inches thick, a length of 24 feet 10 inches, diameter of 5 feet 2 inches and a loaded weight of 41,400 pounds.

"When the bomb was test-dropped, pilots said the bomber might soar upward several hundred feet, having been lightened of such a load".

The MK-17 had an explosive force (yield) in the megaton (one million tons of TNT) range. A 64-foot ribbon chute stabilized the MK-17 bomb when dropped and slowed its descent, giving the bomber greater time to escape the area of detonation. (Note: a plastic cover has been added to protect the parachute while on display.)

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Sceva
OGCA SWCA NRA

For awhile I worked in what was once, during the Cold War days, a nuclear weapons maintenance and inspection facility at Lackland AFB. Not sure what size nukes they kept at Lackland, probably most of them. They had a huge magazine complex (over 100 of them) for storing undisclosed "Air Force Stuff." I don't think they still store nukes there. Anyway, the old maintenance building I worked in was quite large, at least 5,000 SF, so the weapons themselves were probably large ones. Anyone who went through AF basic training at Lackland would probably remember seeing the magazine complex at the Medina Annex, which was also where the small arms ranges were located.

That's what I thought as soon as I saw the pic

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it just needs more voltage

one was decommissioned after a test due to flash damage.
They expected the biggest slowest bomber to drop it ... getting away was an afterthought.
this is why I always say the B36 was obsolete before it was built.
By the time it was operational, nuclear yield would surpass it's legs.

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it just needs more voltage

It was a hell of a job just running it.
The pusher prop arrangement had those P&W radials running in the upper end of their rated temp range.
Mission length was in days. Spark plugs were said to be changed every flight

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it just needs more voltage

I believe the one from Chanute AFB was disassembled and moved to the Former Castle AFB in CA.

I don't think they were too worried about it getting away.

There is a B-36 on display in the Museum of the USAF in Dayton. Gawdamitey it's a big airplane.

There was a cargo version of the B-36 also. I believe there was only one of those made, and it was stationed at Kelly AFB, and used to deliver aircraft parts and components around the country. Convair XC-99 - Wikipedia

We did a break down, cosmetic rework/repair, and sent it to Arizona. The task was done by old retirees and some younger volunteers. Took about three years, but looked good after all was done.

The last time I saw the XC-99 it was parked in a mud hole at KELLY AFB.
The last time I saw the B-36 at the Pima it looked like this.

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

IIRC, the Army had a tactical nuke (Davy Crockett?) with the same range/yield problem. The launch crew had to have deep fox holes dug before deployment.

One was built with a functional nuclear reactor in it. Not to power it, but to test the radiation shielding of the airplane. The reactor weighed 35,000 pounds.

Yep. The MX-1589 experiment. The ANP project ran for a while- crazy stuff.

Some people are thinking along the same lines for SSTO.

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SWCA #3356, SWHF#611

A lot of interesting aircraft have come ignominious ends. I read somewhere that the second Hughes XF-11 ended its days rotting at Sheppard AFB. It was one of the pinnacles of piston-engined aviation. The Republic XF-12 was another. I know one XF-12 crashed, I don't know about the other.

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Release the Kraken

The era had plenty of Darwin moments.
project pluto. the open core nuclear ram jet.
the los Alamos demon core.
all the military post blast human testing.
Sometimes history looks like it was giving a pack of razor blades to a baby

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it just needs more voltage

Anyone here that went to Thule or on standby as a
member of the USAF's "loose a nuke, go find it team",
in Jan '68?

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Have Fun/Stay Safe

My first shop supervisor (1971) used to threaten to send me to Thule and/or Goose Bay.