... important PR for 'Operation Chrome Dome' ; keeping nuclear armed SAC aircraft aloft all of the time. This was a response to fear of a sneak missile attack. ( It is also the setting for both movies 'Dr. Strangelove' and 'Failsafe')
LINK
Showing posts with label Dr. Strangelove. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dr. Strangelove. Show all posts
1960 ... Nuclear Weapons are SAFE!
LINK
1964 ... Kubrick and Sellers.
1964 ... Miss Foreign Affairs
" ah- RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR - ah RRRRRRRRRRR [four engines takes a lot of breath] RRRRRRRRR..."
Airliner: Boeing- 377 Strato-Cruiser
And now a really ugly Cold War airplane. If "necessity is the mother of invention" than this is one of her more unattractive offspring!
Range, the distance your bombers and fighters could travel to a target and return, was everything. [This is also one of the reasons intercontinental ballistic missiles proved much more practical in throwing H-bombs at your enemies. No deposit, no return]
What we see in the gorgeous Academy Model painting at the top is the KC-135 Strato-Tanker.
What we see in the gorgeous Academy Model painting at the top is the KC-135 Strato-Tanker.
In the first years after World War II, Boeing's "Cadillac of bombers", the B-29 Superfortress saw prodigious service. She was the only bomber capable of lugging the very heavy, and few, atomic bombs that S.A.C. had. During the Korean War she saw a repeat of her service as a conventional bomber. Boeing took the basic wings, engines and tail of the B-29 and injected a bunch of steroids into the fuselage. This inflated Superfortress morphed into the C-97 military transport and the Boeing 377 Strato-Cruiser civilian airliner.
The C-97 morphed into the KC-135 tanker [after a night of hard drinking]. The Strato-Tanker had the modern "flying boom" innovation in the rear which an operator could guide into the opened receptacle of the waiting... hey, this is a family blog!
OK kids, look at the picture and you'll get the idea.
The KC-135 Strato-Tanker was a WWII airplane living in the Jet-Age. She roared along at full throttle while her trailing [er... suitors] fluttered about at near stall speeds. Often the KC-135 pilot would go into a shallow dive to gain more speed. Over 80 aircraft were even fitted with two outboard jet engines as seen in the painting.
The Stratotanker served all the way into the 1970's gradually being replaced by her faster all jet, and less dumpy, sister the Boeing 707 conversion with the same name. The last piston driven Strato-Tankers were phased out of Air National Guard service after they started wearing pasties and too much make-up.
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...gritty
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Soviet sailors didn't get much chance to serve aboard ships in a Navy that went kaputsky- so usually they are seen like this- serving as foot soldiers.
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I used to think that the big stars shown on Russian soldiers helmets were a bit of artistic license for the posters- but they really did that. Wonder if it made a good target. "Hey Comrade, hand me that sand paper!"
back to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
... meanwhile back in the U.S.A.
Lest we go astray from our important topic of the 'end of the world', I think it's important to insert a random post of a mushroom cloud and... OH THAT'S JUST SILLY!
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"Casandra Carsons of Las Vegas was voted Miss Atomic Test by the 350th Bombardment Group. 'Now that's a special weapon I'd like in my bomb bay' said an unamed S.A.C. spokesman. Miss Carsons said she'd gladly give her all for her country and volunteered to
have her mega-tonnage dropped on any enemy target. Gdansk and Leningrad have asked to be first strike options!"
juggernaut of people's press rolls forth more uplifting posters of socialist triumph !!!
all images- Right click- open in New Window= super colossal size!
early Soviet posters
Giant Stalin and other guy balloons float over Thanksgiving Day parade. Worlds largest paper mache tanks pass in review.
Lenin does interpretive dance- has anyone ever seen this guy smile?
In the color and font division of the propaganda war the Soviets had us beat hands down.
"That's straight tens for the Russians on modernist, negative space usage. Bad news for the Americans who seem to be stuck in colloquial realism. Boy,that's gotta hurt!"
"That's straight tens for the Russians on modernist, negative space usage. Bad news for the Americans who seem to be stuck in colloquial realism. Boy,that's gotta hurt!"
Russia was soooo into Red
I love propaganda art. East or West. But the Communist Block nations had stuff that was so over the top it makes us "dirty capitalist swine" look lame in comparison. Much of Western propaganda came in the more subtle from of the biggest brother of the capitalist system- advertising.
all images- Right click- open in New Window= super colossal size!
1969 ... meanwhile in Red China
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Those aren't pixels kids, those are thousands of people holding placards, each with a tiny part of the huge picture to form. Busby Berkeley would be thrilled.
all images- Right click- open in New Window= super colossal size!
breakthrough bomber- BOEING B-47 STRATOJET
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The Boeing B-47 actually first flew in 1947 - just two years after the end of WWII.
It was a huge jump in aviation design. The thin wings had a radical 35 degree swept back angle and the engines were slung under those wings instead of buried in the fuselage. The B-47 was the prototype for most of the jet designs today.
Instead of heavy drag inducing machine gun turrets it had only a tail gun and relied on it's amazing speed for defense. She flew faster and higher than any Soviet fighter of the time.
The B-47 was the first purpose built nuclear bomber in the U.S. inventory. Although it was classified as a medium range bomber it worked well with the new technology of mid-air refueling and therefore could reach any enemy target in the world. Most of the 2,000 bombers built were "forward deployed" in locations close to the USSR such as the United Kingdom, and Greenland.
During the early 1950's, when our deterrent was almost completely reliant on bombers, the B-47 gave the U.S. and NATO overwhelming atomic superiority.
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note: it's fun to post links to videos but the cable channels get a lot of facts wrong- the first video on this list makes 3 mistakes in the first 30 sec- do these people stop to think that they are making a documentary?
all images- Right click- open in New Window= super colossal size!
"...who forgot to pack the Twinkies!"
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"Which one of us ejects DOWN?!?"
Although from the outside the nose of the B-47 resembles a jet fighter- on the inside it's your typical Jules Verne nightmare! The pilot and co-pilot sat in ejection seats on top of a big central pedestal. The navigator-bombadier was wedged up forward in the nose on a lower platform. A narrow catwalk ran on either side below the pilots and to port there was a hatch and ladder down to the ground. Got that straight?
In the event that it was time to leave the aircraft in a big hurry the pilots could be ejected out the top after the very big and heavy canopy was blown off. But because of his position in the nose the navigator-bombadier had to be blasted out of the aircraft downward through an explosive trap-door. All of this while you're going 600mph, on fire, upside down..... a walk in the park!
"Which one of us ejects DOWN?!?"
Although from the outside the nose of the B-47 resembles a jet fighter- on the inside it's your typical Jules Verne nightmare! The pilot and co-pilot sat in ejection seats on top of a big central pedestal. The navigator-bombadier was wedged up forward in the nose on a lower platform. A narrow catwalk ran on either side below the pilots and to port there was a hatch and ladder down to the ground. Got that straight?
In the event that it was time to leave the aircraft in a big hurry the pilots could be ejected out the top after the very big and heavy canopy was blown off. But because of his position in the nose the navigator-bombadier had to be blasted out of the aircraft downward through an explosive trap-door. All of this while you're going 600mph, on fire, upside down..... a walk in the park!
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for a better view send out for "Strategic Air Command" with Jimmy Stewart- and watch out for that tomato soup, it's hot!
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fever dreams of VTOL
We may note that the Navy conservatively held onto prop driven aircraft because they were proven and more fuel efficient than those new-fangled jets. It wasn't until those British invented steam catapults and angled carrier decks that the Navy gave up on wonderfully impossible designs like these.------------------------------------------------------------
top- a real budget-buster from Leifpeng's flickr site
middle- XFY Convair "Pogo"
bottom- XFV-1 Lockheed "Salmon"
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note for all the non-geeks out there- VTOL= vertical take-off and land
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Another Cold War benefit of VTOL is you don't need to rely on airbases with their miles of concrete runways; with a big bulls-eye painted on them. Imagine how cool it would be to have one of these stationed in the backyard next to your swing-set! "Hey mister, you want some lemonade!"
"ooooooh pretty!"
The French make the prettiest hydrogen bombs. C'est Oui! The big donut is due to the very high humidity of the atmosphere in beautiful French Polynesia where this test took place.
Spectacular but relatively small and practical- 1 megaton range. (Like their cars.)
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Strangely, I remember this was a common poster in head-shops of the 1960s.
"ooooooh look at the colors!"
all images- Right click- open in New Window= super colossal size!
"...please stand by."
Ah yes, our founding fathers...
Is it possible that Stanley Kubrick and Peter Sellers did more to avert the end of the world than all of the politicians and test ban treaties combined?
The genius of "Dr. Strangelove" is how it captures both the grim reality and the wild absurdity of Mutual Assured Destruction. It gave the "unthinkable" a human face. If we dared to laugh at the end of the world, then maybe we could stop it,
or maybe it wouldn't happen at all.
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Dr. Strangelove makes his entrance- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTstgN8ReTo
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