Talk:Convair NB-36H

The ANP power plant

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-36_Peacemaker lists the nuclear power plant aboard the NB-36 was a 1 MW air-cooled reactor. This brings to mind two suggestions for the article:

1. 1MW = 1341HP (Compare that to the six 3800HP (2830kW) Pratt & Whitney engines).
2. There must have been some BIG radiators to get rid of all that heat when the reactor was running. Any details about those?

Hope this helps! Darci (talk) 01:13, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Disposition

The page needs the ultimate disposition of the craft and reactor, etc. Where are the pieces? Probably not the Museum at Weight-Patt or the Air and Space Museum for sure. 143.232.210.38 (talk) 20:55, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Particularly relevant to the NB-36:

One online source that is frequently referenced is [on Nuclear, The American Effort to Built a Nuclear Powered Bomber] and a companion page for the Soviet hemisphere of events [Experimentation with Nuclear Powered Bombers] These articles reference several different sources that have a strong focus on X-Planes.

Additional video commentary [That Never Flew 4 / 4: The Atomic Bomber] suggests several additional aspects about the overall effort. The article Resuscitating the Atomic Airplane: Flying on a Wing and an Isotope that poses a question about restarting a program with similar aims notes historical points regarding the program and this aircraft in particular.

The NB-36 was never nuclear powered in terms of propulsion. It really should not be categorized that way, especially since it was at most a precursor to something that never happened. It served only as a precursor platform for a potential nuclear propelled aircraft, tackling the challenges of transporting a live reactor by military plane, managing a live reactor aboard a military plane, and surviving the transportation of a live nuclear reactor as a critical crew member of military plane.

Upon cancellation and decommissioning, the NB-36 air-frame was supposedly dismantled, with any radiated pieces of the air-frame buried at an unspecified location. Some sources suggest the remaining air-frame eventually ended up in the hands of collectors as a show or museum piece. The name "Ft Worth" is mentioned, but it was not clear whether that was the plane's designation, or that was where the plane was last assigned when decommissioned and disassembled. Related articles might note that information.

Commentary on auxiliary aspects for perhaps direction on related page clean-up

It seems a lot of encompassing program information is repeated across this and closely related pages. Some of the following points might help someone expand and eventually organize the larger encompassing topic on the ANP program, and much of the related articles and this in particular do not apply in particular to the NB-36, as the NB-36 served only as an airborne carrier that monitored or managed a reactor, and never utilized the reactor for propulsion in any form. Most of this information is found on the main B-36 page under the "Operational History->Experiments" and "Variants" headings and again at through the complimentary topical page on the Convair X-6

- The X-6 page seems excruciatingly incomplete, inaccurate, and irrelevant at discussing or depicting the X-6 specifically. What is the authoritative source that shows

a) Convair was definitely selected as a designer, let alone builder for the X-6 (I don't believe the program got to that stage even though certainly design, prototype, testing, and production would have been ultimately part of the program outline). At most several sources have contributed their own concept art suggesting their personal vision of a design concept. Photos of the B-36 or variants on the X-6 page are extremely misleading.

b) Indication the HTRE3/GE variant engine was the front-runner or the selected engine and interface variant. Indication throughout this larger program topic on Wikipedia seems to indicate the GE version as preferred, but this might be in slight disagreement with video interview. The GE version was perhaps closest to deployable the earliest, regardless of other factors or consequences because it was perhaps simpler to implement from an effectiveness standpoint, however ultimately the Pratt and Whitney variant using indirect drive would be preferred for the safety and long term efficiency it could provide. P&W had made significant progress before the termination of the program, and likely would have overcome the technical hurdles relatively soon if they would have continued development, according to the video.

- A different and new air-frame, provided through an encompassing or complimentary Weapon System 125 (WS125) program was to be the intended recipient of the nuclear jet drive, but supposedly never got that far within the scope of this program.

- Several events led up to the decision, but the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) provided or managed development of the particular reactor designated for the targeted air-frame. It was not managed by the Air Force or any other DoD branch or office.

- The heat of the Heat Transfer Reactive Experiment (HTRE) reactor (variant 1, 2, or 3) would serve as essentially the energy for a more conventional jet. Parallel development of two jet engines and their interface variations would occur between GE and Pratt and Whitney. Not noted anywhere, but maintenance of either jet interface for either system configuration would be troublesome. The aircraft likely could not be ferried to and fixed at just any military aircraft shop.

- GE was developing a reactor (HTRE 3) to jet engine direct drive interface [and accompanying jet engine model?]. This approach was considered simplest to deploy, but more risky because of leakage and particularly leakage from wear and proneness to damage. The concern was not only for inadvertent irradiation of crew and support personnel servicing the air frame, but also irradiated exhaust spewing into the atmosphere.

- Pratt and Whitney was developing a reactor (HTRE 2) to jet indirect drive interface [and accompanying jet engine model?]. This method was considered safer to deploy, but significantly more complicated because of some kind of "liquid metal" needed to indirectly transfer the shielded, hot reactor energy to the jet.

The program was started, stopped, restarted, and accelerated before final cancellation. The following page seems to provides a summary timeline of WS125 events, however it is in French but seems to automatically translate fairly well. Supposedly several drivers energized and sunk progress on this effort. The prominent drivers as described in the video (and other likely many other sources) might be characterized as:

1. US Army Air Force/US Air Force desire for long range, long duration, heavy lift capability as in-flight refueling was either not particularly feasible or practical in all circumstances that they were interested in or were concerned about.

2. US Army Air Force/US Air Force cross-service jealousy of the US Navy's emerging pursuit of nuclear powered sea-traversing vessels (tech/propulsion-envy/rivalry). The USN pursued several nuclear powered variants around the same period as the USAAF/USAF WS125 program including a sea-plane, submarine, and more traditional boats).

3. Intra-government swaying trust of the military-industrial complex. This stemmed most notably from Presidents Truman and Eisenhower (who demonstrated it not only through the executive branch but also earlier through the legislative branch while as Senator). This carried over in some degree to the Kennedy/McNamara administration and era despite a brief loosening of the reigns surrounding certain events. This influenced not only the approved existence of the encompassing project, but how the project was structured and how certain aspects were carried out (ergo creation and endowment of responsibility with the AEC, followed by the the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and finally today, the Department of Energy (DOE)).

4. Geopolitical uncertainty in the technology of defense race - Cold War. Defense proponents desired to sustain or outpace hostile or adversarial political counterparts. Often there was no clear indication of where the counterpart was in the race.

5. Intelligence and disinformation including State (among many possible sources, including as mentioned in the video, U2 photography), commercial/industrial (Aviation Week[ly] article mentioned in the video [cited elsewhere on Wikipedia]), and speculative but authoritative individual sources (perhaps or perhaps not named in the Aviation Week[ly] article mentioned by the video or during the political fallout of the article cited in the video). The video discusses the aforementioned article, which was subject of great concern, and was eventually believed to be "proven" untrue through the course of some debate within the US government by legislators. However, after the collapse of the USSR, it was discovered to have been truthy, in the respect that the Soviets did engage in a nuclear propulsion program for an airborne platform similar to the US in a heavy aircraft development program. The Soviet program was comparatively short lived, probably a self-fulfilling prophecy, as if it wasn't for the article claiming they had it, spurring the Americans, the Soviets probably would not have pursued it, especially as vigorously as they did.

The Soviet's program essentially ignored concerns about irradiation of the crew forgoing adequate shielding of the crew (claim by someone interviewed in the video, which is in slight disagreement with the Wikipedia information and perhaps the current sources). The Soviet nuclear aircraft, initially in some way indicated by the Aviation Week[ly] article to be some variant of the M-50 or M-52 was not used for that purpose. However the air-frame that would see nuclear experimental duty was the Tu-95LAL. The Soviets had decided to pursue the a dual propulsion system: a pair of conventional jets or turbo-props along with a pair of nuclear direct drive jets, similar to the HTRE3/GE variant. The Soviet aircrew involved with that duty had a wide-ranging survivability, with some suffering horribly and surviving less than a handful of years after exposure, while others of the crew who were similarly unprotected survived several decades beyond their exposure and service.

6. Likely others, but likely more ancillary.

Among one of possibly many enduring consequences of this program's efforts, beyond the progress made towards the programs original and primary purpose and inescapable improvement of general nuclear reactor design knowledge, but in particular, improvement in knowledge of light[er] weight shielding, the concept of shadowed shielding that targeted filtration of particular radioactive emissions.

The video suggests both the programs of the US and the USSR had similar problems and pursued fundamentally the same approaches following largely similar time-frames. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.181.83.170 (talk) 06:50, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

File:NB-36H with B-50, 1955 - DF-SC-83-09332.jpeg to appear as POTD soon

Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:NB-36H with B-50, 1955 - DF-SC-83-09332.jpeg will be appearing as picture of the day on September 7, 2018September 14, 2018. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2018-09-07. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page so Wikipedia doesn't look bad. :) Thanks! MER-C 10:48, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Picture of the day

The Convair NB-36H (bottom) was a converted B-36 Peacemaker bomber, used to test the concept of nuclear-powered aircraft. Built as part of the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANP) program, the plane carried an operational 1-megawatt nuclear reactor, although this did not power the plane. The NB-36H flew 47 flights between 1955 and 1957, but the ANP program was ultimately canceled. In this flight, the NB-36H is shown shadowed by a Boeing B-50 Superfortress (top).Photograph: United States Air Force

Needs more explanation for why there are both jet engines and propellers.

The article doesn't do much to explain the combination of two different types of engines. I am assuming that the props are powered by the reactor, and the jet engines by ordinary jet fuel. Do the jets assist with extra thrust on takeoffs? Are they there to take over if the reactor fails? More info, please.

It has both, because the B-36 had both. That's covered in the B-36 article. It's also not exceptional: most large bomber or patrol aircraft of this period, if they still had piston engines, had some additional jet engines too.

As to the nuclear reactor, then it didn't power anything. That is explained here already. Andy Dingley (talk) 08:42, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, but I think it is not explained in the article. If you think there is a statement that the reactor was not used for propulsion, please give the location. But, firstly, the person who posted the query clearly did not get from the article that the aircraft was not nuclear powered. Secondly I came here because I read an article that was derived from this one that states the aircraft was nuclear-powered, so other people find it misleading too. Therefore I've added a clear statement to the first sentence, using wording derived from the source given (National Museum of the US Airforce). Strayan (talk) 01:36, 20 February 2023 (UTC)