B-36 Crop duster- Finished *image reload last page*

[Weaver]

It's looking great!  

Jeepers, but that thing's HUGE!  

So are American Farm's !  

So are American houses: I'd need planning permission to build one of those.

[sandiego89]

I haven't given up...yet!   

Will be using airfoil shaped aluminum tubing for the sprayer bars.  Sourced from the RC section at the hobby shop.   Starting to think about placement, just a trial- they will likely be slightly swept.  Needs to clear the landing gear and jet pods, and come up with bracing....



Will use wind driven impellers to turn pumps for the spray system.  Poor locusts.....

DH 88 propellers being sacrificed (pulled off my WHIF augmented powered Horsa).  You can see the engine/prop by the forward bomb bay.   



Seems the B-36 props are a little larger than the DH88.....



-Dave

[Gondor]

May I suggest that your spray bars be mounted behind the undercarriage but in front of the flap hinge line so that nothing from they will get ingested by the engines.

Gondor

[PR19_Kit]

That just HAS to be the first kitbash ever to use B-36 and DH88 bits in the same build! 

[sandiego89]

May I suggest that your spray bars be mounted behind the undercarriage but in front of the flap hinge line so that nothing from they will get ingested by the engines.

Gondor

Thanks- the spray bars will be swept much like the leading edge and will be well behind and below the 4360 intakes on the leading edge.  Will be under the wing about where the underside of wing transitions to the anti-flash white.  I tried behind the gear, but that got too close to the props and flaps.  

[Captain Canada]

Epic. What a beauty giant you're creating !

[kerick]

May I suggest that your spray bars be mounted behind the undercarriage but in front of the flap hinge line so that nothing from they will get ingested by the engines.

Gondor

Thanks- the spray bars will be swept much like the leading edge and will be well behind and below the 4360 intakes on the leading edge.  Will be under the wing about where the underside of wing transitions to the anti-flash white.  I tried behind the gear, but that got too close to the props and flaps.  

You don't want to get the spray chemicals on the airframe. Could be corrosive.

This has to be one of the strangest Whiffs out there and I love it!

[KiwiZac]

Quite right, kerick - I worked at an aerial agriculture company and the aircraft all had a special coating on the lower fuselage to prevent the fertiliser etc from damaging it. Note the grey strip along the bottom, helpfully indicated by me:


Amazing stuff, and I love the spray motor!

[zenrat]

I found these pics of a Norseman 'duster being refilled.  Have you given any thought to how they'd fill a B-36?  You'd need a substantially bigger truck...


http://www.goodall.com.au/australian-aviation/norseman/norseman.htm

[Old Wombat]

Quite right, kerick - I worked at an aerial agriculture company and the aircraft all had a special coating on the lower fuselage to prevent the fertiliser etc from damaging it. Note the grey strip along the bottom, helpfully indicated by me:


Amazing stuff, and I love the spray motor!

Pity they forgot to coat the wings & tail section.

[Mossie]

Glad to see your still going with this one, looking great!

I found these pics of a Norseman 'duster being refilled.  Have you given any thought to how they'd fill a B-36?  You'd need a substantially bigger truck...

A permanent station with a tank farm or given the nature of Sadiego's backstory all happening in one summer, a fleet of large articulated tankers.  Both these approaches are used in aerial firefighting.

[jcf]

Nah, just taxi up to a fixed tank or silo. 

[sandiego89]

Mossie has it right, liquid insecticide loaded loaded via trucks....lots of them.  I have given the loading a bit of thought.  

I believe Zenrats photos show the Norseman being loaded for a more solid/dry type aerial application, with a gravity feed hopper type arrangement.  I do not see liquid spray bars on the Norseman, so perhaps this is a "dry" crop duster.  I am aware some crops dusters can carry various dry or liquids or a slurry.  Happy to be corrected.  

Jon, I do like the idea of pulling under a big tank and filling up  

So I am thinking a pesticide/insecticide dissolved in a water "carrier" solution.   So how much pesticide/insecticide?  Later versions of the B-36 could carry about 36,000 gallons of fuel.  There was a wide array of bomb bay tank configurations through the program, some later deleted, and some sources say all four bomb bays could hold auxiliary fuel tanks, but a 3,000 gallon tank in bomb-bay number 3 was common and is often referenced.  So I figure at least this tank and some other bomb bay tanks could be converted for liquid insecticide- or some of the regular fuel tanks (especially the later 4,000+ gallon wing tanks added later).  I figure you would be out of insecticide long before fuel (I don't imagine 48 hour dusting sorties  ) so less fuel could be carried.  Max payload often referenced as 72,000 pounds, but lots of variables with different fuel loads, etc.

10,000 gallons of insecticide would weigh around 83,000 pounds (using water weight- have not calculated specific gravity...)    

Thanks for the tips on underside corrosion protection- the antiflash white could help here.  But this was a "crash" program, so long term corrosion was not a top concern.  

So in conclusion- lot and lots of liquid insecticide.  

Thanks for the comments and interest!   Dave          

[kitnut617]

Considering it would only be able to operate from a very few airfields (for weight restrictions), why not just have a underground piping system and just pump it into the holding tanks from the apron it would park on.  ---

[zenrat]

Airbourne refilling?