The cool video in this post shows some neat clips of the awesome Convair B-36 strategic bomber taking off and landing.
The footage is taken from James Stewart’s Strategic Air Command movie and has been re-edited in 4 K so, as told in the video description, if you have a big screen 4 K or 8K tv this looks awesome.
Strategic Air Command is a 1955 American military aviation film starring James Stewart and was the first of four Hollywood films that depicted the role of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) in the Cold War era.
On March 22, 1941, Jimmy Stewart was drafted into the U.S. Armed Forces. He was assigned to the Army Air Corps as an enlisted man and stationed at Moffett Field, Calif. During his nine months of training at that base, he also took extension courses with the idea of obtaining a commission. He completed the courses and was awaiting the results when Pearl Harbor took place. A month later he received his commission, and because he had logged over 400 hours as a civilian, he was permitted to take basic flight training at Moffett and received his pilot wings. During the next nine months, he instructed in AT-6, AT-9 and B-17 aircraft and flew bombardiers in the training school at Albuquerque, N.M. In the fall of 1943, Stewart went to England as Commanding Officer of the 703d Bomb Squadron, equipped with B-24s.
He began flying combat missions and on Mar. 31, 1944, was appointed Operations Officer of the 453rd Bomb Group and, subsequently, Chief of Staff of the 2nd Combat wing, 2nd Air Division of the 8th Air Force. Stewart ended the war with 20 combat missions.
Even after resuming his acting career, Stewart continued to take his Air Force Reserve duties extremely seriously, and ensured that he flew the B-36, B-47, B-52 and B-58.
While in the USAF Reserve and was promoted to brigadier general on Jul. 23, 1959. He retired on May 31, 1968.
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Very nice. This seems awkward to admit but it brings back memories from about 70 years ago. When I was a young boy growing up in Norman, OK I watched a B-36 Peacemaker flying over our house. We lived across the street from a small park where I spent a lot of time. When there was no one around to play with I would often lay on my back on the grass and watch for the occasional aircraft to fly over.
In addition to the B-36 I saw the piston-powered Northrop YB-35 flying wing fly overhead on two different days and one day the turbojet-powered YB-49 flying wing flew overhead.
I only realized recently that since they were only a few thousand feet AGL they must have been landing at Tinker AFB which was, and still is, just 15 miles due north of our old house.