Another story on the road to work in 1957...

Driving from Stockton to work at the Standard Station in Cordelia Junction was generally boring- sit back and enjoy the farm landscape. But one time was very interesting.

On that trip in summer 1957 I had passed through the delta as usual. As I approached Travis AFB just east of Fairfield I spotted a huge B-36 bomber about to land. The B-36 was a post WW-II bomber with 6 engines (I thought the production version had 8 turbo prop engines, not just 6 as this X-version below has... ??). It turned out the one I was watching land had a very special situation. When I looked at the huge rudder (called the vertical stabilizer) I saw that most of it was missing- literally ripped off with shredded metal visible to me over a mile away on Hwy-12! The plane was on final approach and was just about to touch down. Then it was out of view leaving me to speculate. No smoke. No flying parts from a crash. Just... gone.

An XB-36 similar to the B-36 I saw. The line I marked indicates where the damage/loss of the vertical stabilizer occurred. (Ignore the tracks installed in place of the usual wheels- this one will be used for
test-landing on snow)

It didn't take long after I got to work before a civilian customer came in for gas. He worked near Travis and blurted out "Did you hear about...?" He could hardly wait to tell anyone willing to listen his story. He said a B-36 had been hit by a smaller USAF plane- I'll speculate it was a fighter flying cover. The impact removed a huge portion of the vertical stabilizer and most importantly the rudder. Without the rudder the big B-36 had no left/right steering and with no vertical stabilizer it would be inclined to swing left/right as the wind forces dictated. It would have been very, very difficult to control the flight path of the bomber. The pilot had to fly the plane by using more power on the left or the right to control direction while at the same time reducing power in order to land. 

That pilot apparently did a masterful job of flying the damaged bomber. He ultimately landed without injury to any of his crew. I doubt the smaller plane that hit the vertical stabilizer was as lucky! The incident even managed to get a story in local papers.

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