page_title: Convair B-36 Peacemaker
section_title: Surviving aircraft
hierarchical_section_title: Convair B-36 Peacemaker / Surviving aircraft
caption_attribution_description: English: DAYTON, Ohio - B-36 on display in the Cold War Gallery at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. (U.S. Air Force photo by Ben Strasser) http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/web/061228-F-1234P-001.jpg
context_page_description: The Convair B-36 "Peacemaker" is a strategic bomber built by Convair and operated by the United States Air Force from 1949 to 1959. The B-36 is the largest mass-produced piston-engined aircraft ever built. It had the longest wingspan of any combat aircraft ever built, at 230 ft. The B-36 was the first bomber capable of delivering any of the nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal from inside its four bomb bays without aircraft modifications. With a range of 10,000 mi and a maximum payload of 87,200 lb, the B-36 was capable of intercontinental flight without refuelling.
  Entering service in 1948, the B-36 was the primary nuclear weapons delivery vehicle of Strategic Air Command until it was replaced by the jet-powered Boeing B-52 Stratofortress beginning in 1955. All but four aircraft have been scrapped.
context_section_description: Only four complete B-36 type aircraft survive (As of 2004), from the original 384 produced.
  YB-36/RB-36E
  AF Ser. No. 42-13571 was 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 AFB. When the museum's current location at Wright-Patterson was being developed in the late 1950s, the cost of moving the bomber was greater 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 August 1972. Instead of being completely disposed of, Soplata bought it and transported the pieces by truck to his farm, where it sat until 2019, where it was bought by Planetags, and has since been cut up for tags. 
  RB-36H
  AF Ser. No. 51-13730 is at Castle Air Museum at the former Castle Air Force Base in Atwater, California. It was previously displayed at the former Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul, Illinois from 1957 to 1991.
  B-36J
  AF Ser. No. 52-2217 is at the Strategic Air Command and Aerospace Museum, formerly located at Offutt Air Force Base, and now off-base near Ashland, Nebraska.
  AF Ser. No. 52-2220 is at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, formerly the U.S. Air Force Museum, at Wright-Patterson. 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) lower main gear strut, single wheel and tire that was used on the original XB-36.
  AF Ser. No. 52-2827 is at the Pima Air and Space Museum, adjacent to Davis–Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona. This aircraft was the final B-36 built, named The City of Fort Worth, and lent to the city of Fort Worth on 12 February 1959. It sat on the field at the Greater Southwest International Airport until that airfield was closed and the property was redeveloped as a business park adjacent to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Some attempts were made to begin restoration at that location through the early 1970s. It then moved to the short-lived Southwest Aerospace 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 NMUSAF retook possession of the aircraft and it was transported to Tucson for loan to the Pima Air and Space Museum. It was fully restored and reassembled at that museum, just south of Davis–Monthan AFB, and is displayed at that location.
caption: B-36J AF Serial Number 52-2220 on display in the Cold War Gallery at the National Museum of the United States Air Force
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