In comments to the post on the B-36 Peacemaker, a joke was made by "rickn8or" that the six Pratt & Whitney radials and four GE turbojets on the Big Stick must have made a heck of a "carbon footprint." This, of course, paled compared to the carbonized footprint it could leave with its 42 ton maximum bomb load.
On May 22nd, 1957, a B-36 preparing to land at Kirtland AFB in New Mexico had a bit of an accident, dropping its Mark-17 thermonuclear gravity bomb into the desert below. Although the bomb's conventional explosive trigger detonated, the nuclear payload on the unarmed weapon was not triggered.
Anybody want to bet on the size of the "carbon footprint" in the bombardier's trousers?
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Wonder what the carbon footprint of PLUTO would be? It would be mostly radiocarbon, I reckon, since PLUTO mostly didn't burn fuel.
Unless it hit a fuel dump or refinery or something.
Carbon Footprint?
The B-36 also dropped the T-12 43,600 pound conventional bomb, something we heed to still have, even if we have to convert C-17s to drop them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T12
A GPS enabled version of this oldie would warm my heart.
Speaking of carburizing.
I was thinking about Sending a Para-Ordnance P-10 carry piece to Coal Creek for the Melonite QPQ finish.
Since you aren't there any more, I wondered if there was anything I ought to know before mailing off a piece.
They're still the place for Melonite QPQ and gunsmithing work in general.
Forget the carbon footprint for burning fuel, did you see how much OIL those engines sued for lubrication. According to the article they took off with 100 GALLONS per engine...and didn't always make it through the mission.
Stunned silence. Man that sound slike crappy engine design.
It's all a matter of perspective really, a porsche has an oil capity of just about 3 gallons. for a 3.2 liter engine. The B-36 has an oil tank with 190 gallons of capity for each engine, for a 70 liter engine. Part of the reason for this is the oil is used to cool the engine, as you go up in altitude the amount of air availabe to cool the air cooled engine decreases, by the time the aircraft 35,000 feet the air is 1/5 as dense. You need 5 times more area to cool the same engine.
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