Big 'uns

Welcome to any newcomers to Sarge's blog.  If you happened to be stopping by expecting to see well-endowed human anatomical parts, well...you're probably going to be disappointed.  

Big 'uns in this case refers to large aircraft.  Specifically the large aircraft I encountered earlier this month at the National Museum of the US Air Force.  

There were some Yuuuge! aircraft on display.  At least one of which is larger than Donald Trumps ego, (but not as large as the puddle of corruption surrounding one of the other Presidential candidates in this election).  

But, I digress...

One of the first aircraft in this collection was on display as an RB-47H Stratojet.  

RB-47H (Sort of,,  the nose section is from an EB-47E from the Navy.  Who knew?  I thought all Navy aircraft had to have hooks!)

In any case, the B-47 was put into service as an all jet nuclear bomber.  Fortunately, it never saw combat in that role.  It also performed reconnaissance flights over Russia and in at least one case, encountered a MIG-15 and did not return to base.  The Cold War wasn't always cold.  

Walking around the aircraft took quite a while as it's wingspan sheltered several other exhibits.  It qualifies as a Big 'un.

C-124

Another Big Un was the C-124.  Huge aircraft and I'm old enough to have seen them flying.  They would fly in to Webb when I was a kid.  It was always interesting to climb in the nose wander around and then exit from the tail.  Not very fast, not very high flying but carried a lot of things a long way..

One of the drawbacks to not flying above the weather.  your props would pick up ice and when you used the deicing equipment in flight, chunks of ice were thrown off.  I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to have been sitting in the seat just behind the prop there.

Trying to provide some size perspective.  There are two separate exhibits between the left inboard engine and the wingtip

As you can see, there were two decks for passengers or 1 and 1 for passengers and cargo.  It could carry a lot of stuff!

Another large aircraft in the Museum that I wouldn't have minded flying (and I'm sure was "one of the models I made as a kid" for a great number of the readership) was this one.

B-58A Hustler

I never saw one of these when it was actively flying.  The first time I got a close up was at the Lone Star Flight Museum in Galveston.  A cool museum, (it even has a flying Spitfire) the Hustler filled up the room.

Powered by 4 J-79 engines (the same engine that powered the F-4), it was capable of Mach 2 at high altitude.  The large pod under the fuselage was a combination fuel tank and bombbay.  The thing that looks like a baby seat to the right of the fuselage, was actually an ejection pod, designed to protect the crew in the event of a high speed ejection.

There was also a B-52 at the museum, but for some reason, I didn't take any pictures of it.  The BUFF was in the Vietnam section and had been badly damaged in the Linebacker II campaign.  Badly shot up it made it back to base, but was Class-26'd at that point.

Also, in the above shot is another aircraft, the B-36.  Huge does not suffice in describing this aircraft.  In the above shot, you've got a father and his son looking at the Hustler.  The guy was about 6'1" or so.  He obviously could walk under the fuselage without much difficulty.

B-36 Tail section..  The horizontal slab actually goes over the top of the Hustler fuselage.

It's so big that it dominates the whole exhibit.  I couldn't get far enough away to get a picture that encompasses it.

It was built to carry this weapon.  That's the aircraft in the background.  Huge weapon required huge aircraft.

Screen Shot from the Museum's Virtual Tour  Cold War 6/17 is the position.  That's the RB-47 wing above.  The B-36 wing still has a jet engine to the left of the screen.  Monster Aircraft!

The last aircraft in the Big 'Uns category was the pride and joy of the Museum. The only surviving example of this beautiful aircraft

XB-70 Valkyrie

So big, I had to climb up on the Space Shuttle to get it all in one shot.

Three aircraft were ordered, two were delivered and one crashed in a publicity photo shoot.  The program was canceled at that point.