At Consolidated Vultee's huge Fort Worth plant last week, a quiet ceremony hailed the last of a long line of famed warbirds. Out rolled the final production model of Convair's ten-engined B-36 bomber, the postwar workhorse of the U.S. Strategic Air Command. In all, something like 400 had been made.
When the big A-bomber first flew in 1946, it was the world's mightiest (wing span: 230 ft.; weight: 179 tons) and first intercontinental bomber. With six 3,800-h.p. Pratt & Whitney engines (plus four General Electric J47 jets), it can fly 10,000 miles with a five-ton bomb load, tote as much as 42...