Thread: The sound of six turbo-supercharged 28-cylinder piston engines

The B-36 was designed to be able to bomb Germany flying from US bases. Too late, and not needed anyway for the original design purpose, since Britain did not fall to Germany, it was repurposed as the US's first strategic nuclear bomber (the B29 was the first nuclear bomber, but needed structural modifications to carry early nuclear weapons). But - the original design basics were set in the April 1941, and by the time it actually entered service in 1949, the landscape of leading edge aircraft design was vastly different. And the appearance of MIG-15 fighters over Korea in 1950 effectively made piston engined bombers immediately obsolete. Not only the engines, but the aerodynamic design was obsolete by the time it went into service, with German research on swept wing design being available to the US after 1945.

There were also serious defects with the engines, or at least their installation, with engine fires not uncommon, and leading to the first loss of a nuclear weapon. It has also been suggested that lack of air to air refuelling capability was a factor, but in my view, it was simply another one of the WW2 design military aircraft designs that were too late for the war and overtaken by turbojet technology. (Adding turbojets to the B-36D was obviously a makeshift!)

It set a number of records however, one being that it had the longest wingspan of any military aircraft mass produced.

Was this built by someone following instructions in an IKEA flat pack ?

How else could you get 6 engines on the wrong side of the wing

It wasn't nicknamed the Aluminium Overcast for nothing! Or should that be Aluminum.....