William Adkins wrote:

Paul,

Just have to get in on this fairy tale stuff.

I remember when going thru A&E school at Sheppard AFb, one of the students
asked the instructor if it was true that they could change a engine in
flight  on a B36.
With a crane from the fuselage.  The reply was "Absolutely not, they can
only change
jugs".

Wellllll, I became a instructor on that aicraft a few months later and all
the stories were
proved false.  One could, in fact walk out to the cooling air tunel for
engine #3, then had
 to duck under and crawl to the cooling duct of #2. Then wiggle your way to
duct for #1.
One day did in fact wiggle on my belly out to the fuel lines going down to
the left jet engine
pods.  Almost got stuck.

Take a good look at a picture, or the one at the Air Force Museum and you
can see that
to remove any of the cowling to get to any portion of the engines in flight
was impossible.

The only thing that could even be touched during flight was the alternators
on the 4 inboard
engines, and they were notorious for failing in flight.  They were a
combination of hydaulic
pump and hydraulic motor all in one housing.

Impossible to change in flight, and  a bitch to change on the ground.

By the way, getting past the gear when retracted was really fun!

All this recall is making my head hurt!

Fly fast, land slow.
Bill

 
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