Convair B-36 - Aircraft On Display

Aircraft On Display

Only four complete (and one stored) B-36 type aircraft survive today, from the 384 produced.

• YB-36/RB-36E Peacemaker, s/n 42-13571, is in the private collection of the late Walter Soplata in Newbury, Ohio. This was the first prototype to be converted to the bubble canopy used on production B-36s. It was on display in the 1950s and 1960s at the former site of the Air Force Museum, now the National Museum of the United States Air Force, at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. When the museum's current location at Wright-Patterson was being developed in the late 1950s, the cost of moving the bomber was more than simply flying a different B-36 to the new location and the aircraft was slated to be scrapped. It was cut up at the old museum site by the summer of 1972. Instead, Soplata bought it and transported the pieces by truck to his farm, where it sits today in several large pieces. The bomb bay currently contains a complete P-47N still packed in its original shipping crate.

• RB-36H Peacemaker, s/n 51-13730, at the Castle Air Museum at the former Castle Air Force Base in Atwater, California.

• B-36J Peacemaker, s/n 52-2217, at the Strategic Air and Space Museum, formerly located at Offutt Air Force Base, and now just off base near Ashland, Nebraska.

• B-36J Peacemaker, s/n 52-2220, at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, (formerly The U.S. Air Force Museum) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. Its flight to the museum from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona on 30 April 1959 was the last flight of a B-36. This B-36J replaced the former Air Force Museum's original YB-36 AF Serial Number 42-13571 (see above). This was also the first aircraft to be placed in the Museum's new display hangar, and was not moved again until relocated to the Museum's latest addition in 2003. It is displayed alongside the only surviving example of the massive 9 ft (2.7 m) XB-36 wheel and tire.

• B-36J Peacemaker, s/n 52-2827, at the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona. It was the final B-36 built, named "The City of Fort Worth", and loaned to the city of Fort Worth, Texas on 12 February 1959. It sat on the field at the Greater Southwest International Airport until that property was redeveloped as a business park (some attempts were made to begin restoration there, during in the 1970s). It then moved to the short-lived Southwest Aero Museum, which was located between the former Carswell Air Force Base (now Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth) and the former General Dynamics (now Lockheed Martin) assembly plant, where it was originally built; some restoration took place while at the plant. As Lockheed Martin had no place to display the finished aircraft, and local community efforts in Fort Worth to build a facility to house and maintain the massive aircraft fell short, the USAF Museum retook possession of the aircraft and it was transported to Tucson, Arizona for loan to the Pima Air & Space Museum. It is now restored and reassembled at that museum, just south of Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona and is displayed at that location.