the B-36 mega-bomber

[mckitterick]

Just did a bunch of reading about Cold War-era equipment after sdemory asked about a particularly horrific nuclear cruise missile built during that time (the Supersonic Low-Altitude Missile, or SLAM).

Anyhow, I ended up finding one of my favorite aircraft, the Convair B-36, the most massive combat aircraft ever built, and the only production vehicle to have ten (yes, 10) engines. They have one of these at the Strategic Air and Space Museum in Omaha. You have to experience standing beside or under this mammoth vessel of annihilation to really understand the Cold War.

Cool beans! Freakish war equipment! People suck! Er, I recognize the dissonance there. Can't help it; I'm an SFnal type of guy.

Chris

Comments

[astartes-girdle.livejournal.com]

And you are majorly boy. Your toys, errr, I mean cars, and planes and engines, oh my. :P

*g*

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

I don't know what you mean.

[garyomaha.livejournal.com]

If you're ever up this way and have a chance to get to the museum, I know some folks on the inside. Not sure if your baby is totally accessible to the "general public" (sorry, I'm not intimately familiar with the place) but if it's not, it could be for *you*.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Cool! It used to be (I stood right under those immense bomb bays about, I dunno, 5 or 10 years ago), and saw it at its old location outside on the old SAC base about 15 or so years ago.

[garyomaha.livejournal.com]

My partner and his brothers grew up adjacent to that base and that museum, and used to play in and around those planes. Later, they were involved in various armed services and worked *with* those planes.

Anything you ever want to know about 'em, just ask and I'll pass it along. (Just don't ask me, I'm into trains.)

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Cool! Yeah, that must have been cool to just be able to play around them like that, but I'm glad they're safe indoors now so they'll be around for the next generation to visit.

I only last Fall finally sold my childhood train set. It had about six engines and about 30 cars, plus dozens of buildings and terrain and cool transformers and stuff... but I realized I was never going to set it up again, so I passed it on to a friend with a young boy who'll love it properly.

[pointoforigin.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know just what you mean. Last year we went to the air show at the local helicopter museum, and they brought in an Apache. It rose over the hanger and hovered malevolently over us like the shadow of doom, and did all its killer tricks, and sadly, all I could think was "oh, you beautiful thing." Big trucks, big planes, big engines, big guns, be still my heart. I am at war within myself because I've embraced compassion for all living things, and all those Messrs. Blue and Cold ain't good for nothin' but to put a man six feet in a hole . . . but my spirit still leaps up with awe and lust when I hear that mighty roar. Sigh. I am a creature of darkness.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

You have it exactly! It's just the nature of being human. The underlying theme of my newly done novel, Empire Ship, is that we are both the wolf and the sheep, and without both aspects we are no longer human. Hm.

[hdorsettcase.livejournal.com]

I remember walking under that thing in SAC. It takes up a massive amount of space in the main hanger.