Carl Bachhuber, an avid RC enthusiast, decided to go big or go home with a model plane he built over a number of years. It's modeled after a lesser known bomber called the Convair B-36 B Peacemaker and is larger than pretty much any car on the road today.
The B-36 was designed and built in the late 1940 as an intercontinental bomber. It has a total of six engines facing backward in a design very few aircraft have today. Even though Carl modeled his aircraft to 1:12 scale, the total wingspan of 19 feet or 5.8 meters means it's longer than a Mercedes S-Class.
I don't think there are any B-36 still flying in the world, and a few of them are probably rusting away in a Nevada field. The actual aircraft was conceived before America entered the war, and military officials were convinced at the time that Britain would lose. So the bomber needed to fly across the ocean and back again without refueling.
Just to give you an idea of the scale this thing was built in, the B-36 is about 50% larger than the B-29 that bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
What's cool about the model is that it's silver with red tips. Why is that? I thought military aircraft were supposed to be camouflaged. As far as I can remember, the US Air Force started painting P-51 Mustangs silver to challenge German and Japanese pilots and shoot them out of the sky with their superior numbers. Or it could just be that the B-36 flew so high it was hard to see anyway.
Although it never dropped a bomb in anger, the B-36 was the United States' strategic nuclear bomber. It could carry a maximum payload of 330 tons and travel for up to 10,000 miles (16 thousand kilometers). If that doesn't impress you, how about the fact that one unit cost $4.1 billion, which is more than all the Bugatti Veyrons ever made put together.
I don't think there are any B-36 still flying in the world, and a few of them are probably rusting away in a Nevada field. The actual aircraft was conceived before America entered the war, and military officials were convinced at the time that Britain would lose. So the bomber needed to fly across the ocean and back again without refueling.
Just to give you an idea of the scale this thing was built in, the B-36 is about 50% larger than the B-29 that bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
What's cool about the model is that it's silver with red tips. Why is that? I thought military aircraft were supposed to be camouflaged. As far as I can remember, the US Air Force started painting P-51 Mustangs silver to challenge German and Japanese pilots and shoot them out of the sky with their superior numbers. Or it could just be that the B-36 flew so high it was hard to see anyway.
Although it never dropped a bomb in anger, the B-36 was the United States' strategic nuclear bomber. It could carry a maximum payload of 330 tons and travel for up to 10,000 miles (16 thousand kilometers). If that doesn't impress you, how about the fact that one unit cost $4.1 billion, which is more than all the Bugatti Veyrons ever made put together.