Strategic Air Command GroupBulid

Wirraway wrote:

Herr Feldmarschall/Yardbird I may have jumped the gun here - the RB-57F was the long wing/recon/surveillance bird, correct ?  What I have is a B-57B.  Was that still a SAC aircraft ?

Yes, the RB-57F was the long wing version with TF-33 turbo fan main engines.  Some had a small auxiliary jet underwing outboard of the main jet.  I cannot find any reference to either of the B-57's being in SAC.

Darwin, O.F. 

FeldMarSchall Model wrote:

Only place I see a B-57 in SAC is on Wikipedia, and I got a question for you all.  On the bottom of the B-47 on some models, on the under side at the front theres a bubble the is suppost to be painted a color "Right Yellow".  It looks like a tan mix with yellow, but im not sure?

That is the radome covering the AS-361B antenna.  It was normally light tan with a fairly wide flat black band at the front and narrow ones down both sides.

Darwin, O.F.  

This will be the first of a series of information tidbits about various SAC aircraft.

F-101A, single seat fighter with two 20mm cannon under each side of the nose.

The Air Force began testing the F-101 during 1956 to determine it's capabilities and possible assignments.  Originally intended for service with SAC as a strategic penetration fighter, the Voodoo joined the Command in May 1957 with the start of deliveries to the 27th Strategic Fighter Wing at Bergstrom AFB, Texas.  It's SAC career was short, as the 27th SFW was transferred to Tactical Air Command on 1 July 1957 and redesignated the 27th Fighter Bomber Wing.

Darwin, O.F.

FeldMarSchall Model wrote:

R-CMan73, Cross/overs are allowed.  Your entering a E-3 Awacs, and a B-52?

Thanks for allowing the cross/over. Sure why not. I think I can do both by the end date.  1/72 Heller E-3  and a 1/72 Monogram B-52

2nd in a series.

Fairchild C-123 Provider.  2 recip engines, high tail, real loading ramp, kinda like a C-130 with only two engines.

During their early years with SAC, the B-58s assigned to Little Rock AFB, Arkansas, Bunker Hill AFB, Indiana were real maintenance nightmares.  They frequently landed at some other locations and maintenance folks had to gather up tools and parts and go fix them.  Both bomb wings that operated the Hustler also had a few C-123 Providers to fulfill this support role.  C-123 # 540680 had a natural metal lower fuselage and tail with gloss white upper fuselage and had the SAC milkyway band & shield on the fuselage just aft of the rear troop doors.

Darwin, O.F.  

Wiccan Warrior wrote:

I have a question - would a prototype aircraft that was designed to be part of SAC count, i.e. the YB-49?

Yes the YB-49 was a prototype, I think it was intended for SAC?

How's this for a start,

Here's a wideshot of the Coldwar hanger at the USAF Museum in Dayton Ohio, I couldn't get them all in.  I'll have to try again next time.

And another view looking more right,

Number Three.

The Grumman SA-16 or HU-16 Albatross came in both A and B models.  The main external difference was a 200 inch longer wing on the B model.  There was a 70 inch plug just outboard of the engines and a 30 inch plug just inboard of the tips. This made a distinctive "kink" in the trailing edge of the wing at the inboard extension. It was originally designed and built as an amphibian that could operate off of water or land.  Quite a few of them were modified to "Tri-phibian" status with addition of a keel skid and castoring skids on the tips floats that allowed the plane to operate off of ice or snow.

SAC operated several SA-16s at northern tier bases in the mid to late 1950s, particularly in Newfoundland, Canada, for resupply, communications, rescue and base hacks.  Actually the most important use was when a few Generals wanted to use them for transportation to a remote Canadian lake to go fishing.

They had Insignia Red high visibility markings on the tail, outer wing panels and tip floats with the SAC band & insignia on the aft fuselage.

Darwin, O.F.

Number Four 

The two Boeing XB-47 Stratojet prototypes were produced at Boeing's Seattle, Washington, plant.  Production was then started at Boeing's Wichita, Kansas plant and supplemented by production by Douglas at their Tulsa, Oklahoma, plant and Lockheed-Martin plant at Marietta, Georgia plant.  Total production was 2,049 airframes.

XB-47-BO         2      Boeing-Seattle

B-47A-BW       10      Boeing-Wichita

B-47B-BW       399     Boeing-Wichita

B-47E-BW         931     Boeing-Wichita

B-47E-DT        274     Douglas-Tulsa

B-47E-LM        386     Lockheed-Martin

RB-47H-BW       32     Boeing-Wichita

RB-47K-BW       15      Boeing-Wichita

The vast majority of these machines were assigned to the 40 bomb and reconnaissance wings of SAC.

Darwin, O.F.

Did you mean B-57 ?  I only picked it because it was the easiest, a fairly basic model those old Revell kits.  I was a bit spolied for choice with a B-36, B-58 and a B-52 in the stash, but I'm looking forward to starting the Peacemaker, now I know how much weight to put in to keep the nose wheel on the deck. 

Paul.

Even if the FeldMarSchall was guilty of a typo and meant the B-57, there's this. According to this Global security page...

http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/systems/rb-57.htm

...SAC took delivery of RB-57s in 1956.

It seems reasonable that since the B-57 was adopted as a replacement for a tactical bomber (the B-26) it was used in a tactical role by tactical commands, but SAC took care of strategic recon, so a recon version would be up for grabs. TAC also used it for tactical recon.

Number Five

Northrop XB/YB-35 and YB/YRB-49.  I just finished re-reading the book, "The Flying Wings of Jack Northrop", by Garry Pape and John Campbell.  The introduction to the B-35 on page 46 starts out, "The B-35 seemed to be Jack Northrop's dream of a flying wing come true.  It was designed to meet the need for an intercontinental bomber capable of hitting German targets from the US."

  The Convair B-36 and the Northrop B-35 were both designed to meet this requirement and as such, whichever one was put into production would become part of the US strategic bomber program.  The B-35 was powered by 4 of the P&W R-4360 engines driving two, four bladed contra-rotating propellers on each engine.  These proved very troublesome due to excessive vibration and gearbox problems.  They were replaced by a single four bladed prop on each engine.  This reduced some of the problems, but caused others including drastically reduced aircraft performance.

  The jet engine was fast replacing the piston engine, propeller driven aircraft and so the Northrop engineers modified several YB-35s for jet propulsion and this became the B-49.  They originally used 4 Allison J-35-A-15 jets in each wing.  The last version was the YRB-49 which was powered by two Allison J-35-A-19 engines in each wing and one more in a pod under each wing.  The jet powered wing flew at a maximum of 493 mph vs 391mph for the recip and cruise speed was 419 vs 240 mph.  The biggest problem was that range dropped from 7100 miles to just 3100.  The maximum bomb load dropped from 52,000 pounds to just 32,000.

The Flying Wing was a great airplane that was aerodynamically many years ahead of it's time and comtemporaries, but the instability inherent to the design could not be conquered until the advent of modern day computer controlled flight. 

Darwin, O.F.

Hiya FeldMarSchall!

Brand new here, and i gotta U-2R  on the bench to build. Just waitin on my airbrush. Can i get in on the group build here? Or am i too late?

DesertRat, You can still post your U-2R even if its closer to being finished.

Cdclukey, Don't know what I was thinking.  RB-57s were in SAC, my mistake.

Wirraway,  You can do a RB-57.  And did you say somthing about B-58?  --> 

Yardbird78, Great job on this mini aircraft bio's.

Sweet!!!!! My first GB! So when do i get my official decoder ring?

Actually FWIW, i should clarify that i'm waiting to start my U-2R. Just awaiting the needed tools, ya know?

Nice choice! I kinda see a skunkworks theme starting to brew here!

Oh, and i'm sure you must be absolutely mortified that you "have to" go buy another kit!

DesertRat, it is.

Heres two pictures of my second Blackbird,

It looks better than my first blackbird, it was the B model.  And I painted it in gloss black lol.  That along with an F-117, those two were my first aircraft.  After putting together a Me-109, and seeing how good that turned out.  I know my B-47, and SR-71 will turn out good.  

FeldMarSchall Model wrote:

Cdclukey, Don't know what I was thinking.  RB-57s were in SAC, my mistake.

No sweat, Herr FeldMarschall, you're a modeler, not SAC's authorized biographer. :-)

FeldMarSchall Model wrote:

Heres two pictures of my second Blackbird,

Nice work on the Blackbird.  I was married to that thing for 12 years, so it has a very special place in my heart.  I spent 7 years out of that 12 TDY, mostly to Kadena, supporting it.

Darwin, O.F.

Can't seem to load any pictures here at my work computer. So i'll have to take a look at it tonight. But since we are kinda hovering around the subject, with the U-2, SR-71, F-117 (or any military AC that is painted black it seems) it looks like there is no gloss or luster on the paint at all. It looks like with all those airframes, it looks very much as if they were powdercoated or something. And of course any pictures i bring up online kinda show more of the same. Was this a SAC or blackops thing?

   I've read on other threads concerning future or some kinda glosscoat, and i wanted to try it. But i'm wondering if that would be inaccurate for my first project here. Any thoughts? Thanks

Here are some progress pix of the E-3

The Radome

The engines

The trucks

The underside of the wing

The upperside

The tail

And the office