B-36 Peacemaker Buzzes Ft. Worth Neighborhood

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn)
08/19/2013 at 13:33 • Filed to: Planelopnik

I posted this to the AOTD thread on the FP. Thought I'd share it here as well. I've never seen this before.

Convair B-36 Peacemaker makes low pass over Fort Worth neighborhood. Neighbors in the Ridglea area south of Carswell AFB reported TV antennas snagged from roofs and structural damage to some homes.

DISCUSSION (11)

Kake Bake > ttyymmnn
08/19/2013 at 14:07

Ah, aerials.

I'm thankful (sometimes) for the hundreds of channels I can get with cable these days, but it's absolutely impossible to deny the romance of a street lined with neat little cracker-box houses, their aerials proudly reaching upward as if toward tomorrow.

ttyymmnn > Kake Bake
08/19/2013 at 14:11

A poet in our midst?

What I find deliciously ironic is that in today's modern age of digital high definition TV, you can still pull in your local TV channel with a set of rabbit ears. In fact, I bought a set for when bad weather knocks out my Dish so I can still get local weather bulletins.

Kake Bake > ttyymmnn
08/19/2013 at 14:15

Too kind.

And I'm sure the pilots of that Peacemaker would agree that redundancy is always useful.

Wave Motion Gun > ttyymmnn
08/19/2013 at 14:23

Awesome footage - I'd never seen that before and I spent 10 years working on the west side of the runway at that base.

Fun fact/trivia time: We had a 4 x 3 x 6 inch solid lead brick we used as a doorstop in one of our areas. Any guesses as to its origin?

ttyymmnn > Wave Motion Gun
08/19/2013 at 14:25

Actually, no. Where did it come from? Ballast?

Jayhawk Jake > Wave Motion Gun
08/19/2013 at 14:37

Does it have holes in it? If it did, I'd say it's a balance weight from a control surface. If not, it's probably ballast.

Wave Motion Gun > ttyymmnn
08/19/2013 at 14:44

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_N…

Was part of the shielding that went into making this happen. I'll take their word that the brick we had was an unused spare...

There was definitely a lot of history at that location. A quick tour of the place would score you an empty MK17 bomb casing and a hands on experience with the full scale A-12 Avenger mockup if you knew where to look.

ttyymmnn > Wave Motion Gun
08/19/2013 at 14:47

What a great idea: carting a functioning nuclear reactor around the skies of the US. That was a different era, though.

Have you ever seen the film Strategic Air Command starring Jimmy Stewart?

Wave Motion Gun > ttyymmnn
08/19/2013 at 14:53

Great film, and one I enjoy watching just to see glimpses of the exact buildings I worked in for a spell. It's amazing to imagine all of the things that have been developed in those things, and equally impressive that they have remained basically unchanged for so many decades.

ttyymmnn > Wave Motion Gun
08/19/2013 at 14:56

I have a friend who lives in Abilene but grew up in Ft. Worth. They used to drive down to Carswell to watch the B-36 operations. He told me that in once scene, shot through the wheel well, you can see his church on the ground below the plane. It's a pretty corny film, but the air-to-air photography is fantastic.

Notsobright2 > ttyymmnn
08/21/2013 at 10:00

Didn't that aircraft rattle windows at 36,000 ft....? That had to be ....very .....loud...