View From The Porch: Guys! Guys! Best idea ever!

Friday, March 07, 2014

Guys! Guys! Best idea ever!

Chipping in on pizza is passé. Who wants to go in on a turboprop nuclear bomber with me?

*checks pockets*

I got ten bucks. It's cool, though; we can do a Kickstarter or something.
.

36 comments:

stevierayv said...: How many bombs does it come with?; 6:57 PM, March 07, 2014
pax said...: I'm in.; 6:57 PM, March 07, 2014
Tam said...: "How many bombs does it come with?"

That could be a problem, but I know people who know people in Los Alamos and Oak Ridge!; 7:03 PM, March 07, 2014
drjim said...: RATS! They pulled the listing before I could bid on it!; 7:13 PM, March 07, 2014
Murphy's Law said...: I'm always up for things with wings.

And I note in the pic that there are a pair of what appears to be Su-24 supersonic attack aircraft in the background. Might those be for sale as well? Enquiring minds wanna know!; 7:36 PM, March 07, 2014
Maxwell said...: Oh, man, I would be SO up for that.

*checkin' pockets*

For a Bear, I can scrape up $100 or two...; 8:09 PM, March 07, 2014
RHT447 said...: I SAID START #3!
WHAT? CAN'T HEAR YOU!

Yeah. They're REALLY loud(although much more so at full power).; 8:26 PM, March 07, 2014
Sken said...: As a late Cold War kid (b.1965),to me the Bear is an icon, nostalgic if not actually threatening these days. Google "bear bomber escort" images to get a sense of how frickin' long this thing has been a threat and irritant-
Bears being escorted past sensitive boundaries by anything from F-106 Delta Darts and P-3 Orions (I know- that must have really scared the Bear) to an F-22 Raptor. That skinny-marink bomber has had a hell of a run as the B-52's ne'er do well rival.
-Ken; 8:31 PM, March 07, 2014
KM said...: Gas, Ordnance or ECM...nobody rides for free.; 9:01 PM, March 07, 2014
Sebastian said...: If we got that, we'd totally have to fly it a bit too close to US airspace and see if we can get an escort.; 9:06 PM, March 07, 2014
Sebastian said...: Though, I guess another question is how you can get type-rated on a Bear. I'm pretty sure that particular aircraft requires a type rating.; 9:07 PM, March 07, 2014
Sebastian said...: Hey, good news, if we donate enough cash to the regime, we can get cheap jet fuel for the turbines on that thing.; 9:21 PM, March 07, 2014
fast richard said...: Might be just a little awkward to get that shipped out of Ukraine right now. I wonder where it is sitting. If it is in Crimea it would be very difficult to get to. On the other hand, if it was near Kiev, the Antonov factory might be a source of technical assistance for a price.

I also wonder about the current life expectancy of whoever was going to try to sell it.; 9:27 PM, March 07, 2014
Anonymous said...: The real problem is that you have to buy three of them. One to fly and two for parts to keep #1 flying. That and that noisy slow old bitch burns about 10000GAL. of jet "A" every time you turn around. But it would be fun---Ray; 9:37 PM, March 07, 2014
Overload in Colorado said...: Going to have to hold off on this one; saving all my money for the Littlefield Collection Auction:
http://www.auctionsamerica.com/events/all-lots.cfm?SaleCode=LC14; 9:45 PM, March 07, 2014
Scout26 said...: Only if they through in ear plugs, ear muffs, sound deadening hearing protection, and sound proof the cabin.

I hear that the crews are still shaking from the vibration of eight contra-rotating variable pitch props for a minimum of three days after landing.; 9:54 PM, March 07, 2014
Cincinnatus said...: Heck, for a Tu 95 I might go $40 myself.

That could be a problem, but I know people who know people in Los Alamos and Oak Ridge!

Ahem. Yes, you do.; 9:57 PM, March 07, 2014
Alan J. said...: Well, crap. When I read 'turboprop nuclear bomber' for sale I was hoping for a B-29. Or at least a B-36...Dang it!; 10:10 PM, March 07, 2014
Anonymous said...: Oh, I was hoping Bears would go as cheaply as Dragunovs when the Soviet Union collapsed: My dream was to get one and use it for the first stage on an orbital insertion plan for cheap telecom satellites, or subscription GPS or something.; 12:27 AM, March 08, 2014
Jon said...: Hey now, my friends and I already came up with this idea! Maybe we need to chip in *together*... this particular Bear was modified to launch cruise missiles - we were planning to load some cheap drones on it and convert them ;) - With some help from Los Alamos we can have stand off nuking!

All for the low, low, price of a few million bucks! And whatever Drones and Nukes are going for these days.; 1:31 AM, March 08, 2014
Critter said...: Let me check under the sofa cushions.; 4:45 AM, March 08, 2014
Buzz said...: Too late now, but was Brigid going to fly it back for us?; 7:00 AM, March 08, 2014
Anonymous said...: I'm available for crewmember duties.

- Drifter; 7:39 AM, March 08, 2014
NAVIGATOR said...: SPARE PARTS ARE NEEDED LOTS OF THEM
GOOD TRANSLATIONS OF THE TECH MANUALS AND WHERE WILL YOU STASH THE BEAST WHILST YOU ARE WORKING ON IT ?
ALSO FUEL STORAGE TANKS AND A LONG ENOUGH RUNWAY
SOVIET PARTS HAVE A REPUTATION FAILING AT A CRITICAL MOMENT CAUSING THE AIRCRAFT TO FALL OUT OF THE SKY
LETS DO IT !; 9:11 AM, March 08, 2014
Ed Jones said...: 1200 Gal per hour at 400 MPH, I can think of a lot of things I would rather spend my money on. Ford Rapter, Ed Brown 1911's and ammo.; 9:21 AM, March 08, 2014
leaddog said...: UMMM Lessee,

3 ones, a five...(checks other pocket)43 cents, some um either dental floss or fishing line, 2 spent 22 brass...

OK I'm in!; 9:58 AM, March 08, 2014
NotClauswitz said...: I'm in!!; 1:24 PM, March 08, 2014
Robert Fowler said...: I've got a 20 and a jar half full of change.; 2:51 PM, March 08, 2014
Joe in PNG said...: I've been eyeing that old Bear for a few days now myself, so yeah, I've got a jar of PNG toea I can also throw into the kitty.; 3:30 PM, March 08, 2014
JimB said...: They were the prime concern of Army Air Defense Command (ARADCOM) back in the 60's...; 3:47 PM, March 08, 2014
RandyGC said...: What could go wrong?[/Clarkson]

I just pulled $40 from the ATM, I can spare at least half of that.

I'm in as Radio Op (or relief for Roberta if she's in). I think I may even know a source of cold war electronics gear, of course it might say Collins on it.. (Collinski?); 5:17 PM, March 08, 2014
Robert said...: I got five 500 round boxes of .22LR I can toss in on it. I'd really prefer a B-36 though.; 7:13 PM, March 08, 2014
Tam said...: Robert,

"I got five 500 round boxes of .22LR I can toss in on it."

It's cool, we can make change. ;); 7:23 PM, March 08, 2014
will_1400 said...: This reminds me of an ad I saw a while back for a Saab J35 Draken. Asking price was $500k to start the bidding if I remember correctly.; 7:28 PM, March 08, 2014
Kristophr said...: Fuel's gonna be a bitch ...; 12:08 AM, March 09, 2014
markm said...: Alan J: The B-29 and B-36 used piston engines, not turboprops. AFAIK, the Bear was the only "turboprop nuclear bomber". If I understand the history of the technology, the reason the B-36 _had_ props was that they were still inventing the materials for a turbine that could last at the high temperatures necessary for efficiency. The B36 jet engines were considerably better than the German WWII jets, which could barely reach interception altitude before they had to turn around and go home for fuel, but they were still quite inefficient and could only be used for short bursts of speed.

So Wright put two of their 14-cylinder dual row radial engines onto a common crankshaft to create a 3800 horsepower piston engine with four rows of seven cylinders, each row offset so the engine looked like a corncob. It burned a lot of fuel, but it provided a lot of power, enough to take what was basically a giant winged fuel tank with a few accessories to Moscow. (Getting back was another issue - IIRC, if the B-36 made it's first rendezvous with a tanker somewhere over the Arctic Sea, it would have enough fuel to bomb Moscow and come back to the Arctic Sea and look for the second tanker. If it missed the first tanker, it became a suicide mission, because you really didn't want to learn what the surviving Russians would do to bomber crews who bailed out in their territory after nuking their cities. If the B-36 found the first one, and got into Russia and out without being shot down, maybe the crew's luck was running good enough that there would still be a second tanker, and they wouldn't wind up as part of an ice floe.)

But if you think the B-36 was a cobbled together mess, look up the Super Corsair. That was a hookwinged F4U fighter with one of those monster corncob engines kludged into the nose. That was supposed to give it the speed and climbing rate to meet a kamikaze while it was still a long ways from the ships, but the war ended while they were still trying to work out the problems with that. The regular F4U was a wonderful fighter until you tried to land it, and then the nose blocked your view of where you were landing, and the landing gear was bouncy. The visibility problem was solved by landing in a turn and looking through the notch in the wing, but I think that would take extra piloting skill, especially on a carrier. And bouncing when you were trying to catch the arresting cables could be fatal - they didn't yet have the slant decks where if you missed the cables you'd just fly off the other end of the landing strip and circle around for another try. Instead, you continued straight down the deck towards where the airplanes that had landed before you were parked, behind a barrier solid enough to bring your plane from 60 to 0 in an instant. That didn't leave much of the plane or you, but they had to save the other ones. What made this acceptable was that the F4U was the best fighter we had against a Zero, and if you couldn't beat the Zeros you didn't have to worry about landing.

So they took this plane that was OK for good pilots flying from a land base, but was a little unsafe for carrier landings, made the nose even longer, wrecked the balance with all that weight out in front, and intended it for a role where it _had_ to fly from carriers. Yes, they had some problems!; 11:36 PM, March 16, 2014