Convair X-6
| X-6 | |
|---|---|
| Role | Experimental aircraft |
| Manufacturer | Convair |
| First flight | Not flown |
| Status | Canceled |
| Primary user | United States Air Force |
| Number built | none |
| Developed from | Convair B-36 |
The Convair X-6 was a proposed experimental aircraft project to develop and evaluate a nuclear-powered jet aircraft. The project was to use a Convair B-36 bomber as a testbed aircraft, and though one NB-36H was modified during the early stages of the project, the program was canceled before the actual X-6 and its nuclear reactor engines were completed. The X-6 was part of a larger series of programs, costing US$7 billion in all, that ran from 1946 through 1961. Because such an aircraft's range would not have been limited by liquid jet fuel, it was theorized that nuclear-powered strategic bombers would be able to stay airborne for weeks at a time.
In May 1946, the Nuclear Energy for the Propulsion of Aircraft (NEPA) project was started by the Air Force. Studies under this program were done until May 1951 when NEPA was replaced by the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANP) program. The ANP program included plans for Convair to modify two B-36s under the MX-1589 project. One of the B-36s was used to study shielding requirements for an airborne reactor, while the other became the X-6.
The first modified B-36 was called the Nuclear Test Aircraft (NTA), a B-36H-20-CF (Serial Number 51-5712) that had been damaged in a tornado at Carswell AFB on September 1, 1952. This plane was redesignated the XB-36H, then the NB-36H and was modified to carry a 3 megawatt, air-cooled nuclear reactor in its bomb bay. The reactor, named the Aircraft Shield Test Reactor (ASTR), was operational but did not power the plane. Water, acting as both moderator and coolant, was pumped through the reactor core and then to water-to-air heat exchangers to dissipate the heat to the atmosphere. Its sole purpose was to investigate the effect of radiation on aircraft systems.
To shield the flight crew, the nose section of the aircraft was modified to include a 12-ton lead and rubber shield. The standard windshield was replaced with one made of 6-inch-thick (15 cm) acrylic glass. The amount of lead and water shielding was variable. Measurements of the resulting radiation levels were then compared with calculated levels to enhance the ability to design optimal shielding with minimum weight for nuclear-powered bombers.
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