The B-36 Bomber | National Geographic

resurrected at the end of World War two
rising Cold War tensions gave new life
to the concept of an intercontinental
bomber what emerged from the drafting
tables of the consolidated Aircraft
Company was a plane straight from the
pages of a Jules Verne novel designated
the b-36 the Titanic bomber may not have
been built to start a war but it could
unleash the destructive power to finish
one with a wingspan nearly as long as a
football field its body seemed to
stretch on forever its enormous tail
rose nearly 5 stories and with the
capacity to hold a rail tank car fuel
the bomber could remain airborne for
almost 50 hours allowing it to reach
targets far across the world
with a crew of 17 the aircraft’s forward
and rear crew compartments were
separated by a Bombay more than 80 feet
in length in full attack configuration
the b-36 could carry two atomic bombs
with the destructive energy of sixty
kilotons of tnt three times that of the
bomb dropped on Hiroshima getting the
200 ton bomber into the air required six
piston powered engines with propellers
measuring 19 feet in diameter christened
the peacemaker the Intercontinental
bomber soon became the new icon of
American might