Does anyone know of any really good reference photos of the inside of the B-36 gun turret bays? I know what the turrets look like, but the inside of the bays are a pure guess on my part. I would like to make another 1/72 B-36 with exposed gun turrets, but more accurate than I did before. Any help is appreciated. Thank you.
There are a couple of pictures and a few drawings of the gun bays in the book ‘Convair B-36: A Comprehensive History of America’s Big Stick’ published by Schiffer. I don’t know if the pictures are good enough for basing some scratchbuilding on, but they are better than nothing.
Hope this helps,
Mark
The book “Convair B-36 Peacemaker” by Dennis Jenkins has a diagram of the retraction mechanism, but no useful pictures.
The book “Magnesium Overcast” also by Dennis Jenkins has several drawings of the gun mechanisms and bay arrangments, and a couple of pictures of crewman servicing the guns, but nothing that would show you structures deep into the bay (you might be able to get enough useful info from the drawings).
For what it’s worth, the “B-36 in Action” book does not contain anything useful for this.
Another book that I don’t have is the Detail and Scale B-36 book - so I can’t comment on whether it would have that yet (wait a week and I’ll know - that one’s on order from Squadron).
Bruce
I had forgotten I have this book until you mentioned it. I thumbed through it and found one picture and two drawings of the gun bays. It sounds like they might be the same as what’s in ‘Magnesium Overcast.’ The picture is of the guns being serviced and isn’t too useful for the gun bays themselves, but the drawings, assuming they are accurate (they are from the USAF and should be), could be of value for some scratchbuilding.
Mark
There are a couple of pictures of the gun bays shot from the inside in Magnesium Overcast but they aren’t necesarily in the chapters about armaments. I know there is at least one photo of the #4 bomb bay that shows the rear turrets in the retracted position.
Maybe you could write to the people in Dallas with the B-36 and ask them for a few photos. I sometimes ask museums for photos, sometimes they respond and sometimes they don’t.
The Magnesium Overcast has one very good shot from overhead of a pair of B-36A forward fuselages after they had been removed from the fuselage during their remanufacture as B-36Ds. Both turrets and the doors have been removed and you can see directly down into the area the turrets were stored. Plus there is one shot of a fuselage during building which show the interior of the forward turret area less the front bulk head. Those plus the drawings from the Dash-2 (Erection & Maintenance manual) that are reproduced in the book might give you what you want.
The IPMS/Quarterly of Spring 1974 has a set of detailed drawings of various areas internal to the B-36. Included is a deailed drawing of the gun bay including the ammo tracks and the internal wiring. This information was taken from the Dash One and the Weapons Manual so I think it is accurate. The article is 4 pages long and includes 43 profile drawings of B-36’s. If interest in a copy of the pages drop me a line with your mailing address at mats.man@cox.net.
Richard
Check out a CD-ROM disc called B-36:Moving The Last Peacemaker. This is an 875 image slide show that shows the effort expended over a nine-year period when the aircraft was dismantled, moved, reassembled, dismantled, moved and reassembled again. In the process, the forward fuselage collapsed off it’s supports, crushing a Ford Ranchero (the only victim any B-36 ever claimed). While lying on it’s side, several photos were taken of the open forward gun bay, as well as close-up photos of the windshield wipers. All photos are black-and-white. Throughout the disc, you will find many detail shots of areas that would never been visible had the aircraft not been disassembled twice. You can find the disc and full ordering information at http://scalepublications.freeyellow.com/avhisref4.html. Hope this helps y’all.