page_title: 7th Bomb Wing
section_title: B-36 era
hierarchical_section_title: 7th Bomb Wing / History / Cold War / B-36 era
caption_attribution_description: English: Arrival of the first B-36A at Carswell AFB, Ft. Worth, Texas, June 1948
context_page_description: The 7th Bomb Wing is a United States Air Force unit assigned to the Global Strike Command Eighth Air Force. It is stationed at Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, where it is also the host unit.
  The 7 BW is one of only two B-1B Lancer strategic bombardment wings in the United States Air Force, the other being the 28th Bomb Wing at Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota.
  Its origins date to the 1918 establishment of the 1st Army Observation Group, one of the 15 original combat air groups formed by the United States Army before World War II.
  The 7th Operations Group carries the lineage and history of its highly decorated World War II predecessor unit. It operated initially in the Philippines as a B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber unit assigned to Fifth Air Force but after the fall of the Philippines in early 1942, operated primarily with the Tenth Air Force in India as a B-24 Liberator unit. Active for over 60 years, the 7 BW was a component wing of Strategic Air Command's heavy bomber deterrent force throughout the Cold War.
  The 7th Bomb Wing is commanded by Colonel Brandon Parker. Its Vice Commander is Colonel David Doss. Its Command Chief is Chief Master Sergeant Raymond "Kenny" Mott.
context_section_description: On 17 November 1947, the 7th Bombardment Wing, Very Heavy was organized at Fort Worth Army Air Field, Texas  as part of the United States Air Force's wing base reorganization, in which combat groups and all supporting units on a base were assigned to a single wing.  The wing mission was to organize and train a force capable of immediate and sustained long range offensive warfare and operations in any part of the world. The 7th Bombardment Group, flying Boeing B-29 Superfortresses became its operational component. The wing's mission was to prepare for global strategic bombardment in the event of hostilities. Under various designations, the 7th Bomb Wing flew a wide variety of aircraft at the base until it moved in 1993.
  Starting in June 1948 the wing received the first five Convair B-36A Peacemakers. The B-36As were delivered unarmed and were used for training and crew conversion.  The first B-36 was designated the "City of Fort Worth" (AF Serial No. 44-92015), and was assigned to the 492d Bombardment Squadron. When the wing base organization was made permanent in 1948, the wing was redesignated as the 7th Bombardment Wing, Heavy on 1 August.  In November 1948, B-36B aircraft began to join the B-36As.  On 7 December one of the new B-36Bs flew a nonstop simulated bombing mission to Hawaii, dropping a 10,000 lb simulated bombload in the ocean.  The flight took over 35 and a half hours and covered more than 8,000 miles.  The wing's last B-29 was transferred on 6 December to the 97th Bombardment Group at Biggs Air Force Base. For 10 years, the "Peacemaker" served as our nation's major deterrent weapons system.
  The 11th Bombardment Group was activated on 1 December 1948 with the 26th, 42d, and 98th Bombardment Squadrons, Heavy assigned.  The 11th Bomb Group was assigned to Eighth Air Force, but attached to the 7th wing and was also equipped with B-36As for training.  A five ship B-36 formation was flown on 15 January 1949, in an air review over Washington, D.C., commemorating the inauguration of the President of the United States, Harry S. Truman.
  By December 1950 the wing and its attached groups had 38 B-36s on hand, including several B-36Ds with four General Electric J47 jet engines augmenting its six reciprocating engines and its B-36Bs began to be upgraded to B-36D standard.  In January 1951, the 7th took part in a special training mission to the United Kingdom. This was the first flight of B-36s outside the continental United States since the simulated mission to Hawaii. The purpose of the mission was to evaluate the B-36D under simulated war plan conditions. Also, further evaluate the equivalent airspeed and compression tactics for heavy bombardment aircraft. The aircraft, staging through Limestone AFB, Maine, would land at RAF Lakenheath, United Kingdom, following a night radar bombing attack on Helgoland, West Germany. From there the bombers would conduct a simulated bomb run on the Heston Bomb Plot, London, finally landing at[RAF Lakenheath.  This was the first deployment of wing and SAC B-36 aircraft to England and Europe. For the next four days the flight flew sorties out of England. The aircraft redeployed to the states on 20 January arriving at Carswell on 21 January.
  By September 1952, the B-36s assigned to the 7th Wing and its companion 11th Wing comprised two thirds of SAC's intercontinental bomber force.
  On 1 September 1952, what was then thought to be a tornado rolled across the Carswell flight line, with winds over 90 miles per hour recorded at the control tower. By the time it had passed "the flight line was a tangle of airplanes, equipment and pieces of buildings."  None of the 82 bombers on the base escaped damage, and SAC declared the entire 19th Air Division at Carswell non-operational.  Maintenance personnel of the 7th Wing went on an 84-hour weekly work schedule and began work to restore the least damaged aircraft to operational status.  More heavily damaged aircraft were worked on by personnel from the San Antonio Air Materiel Area, where the depot for the B-36 was located.  The planes that had been 
caption: Arrival of the first B-36A at Carswell AFB[note 1] in June 1948 along with a 7th Bomb Wing B-29.
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