RB-36H located at Castle Air Museum in Atwater, California. The Castle Air Museum is located near Atwater, CA, on the grounds of the now closed Castle Air Force Base in central California.

The Peacemaker was originally on display at Chanute AFB in Illinois. This huge airplane was disassembled and shipped by rail to Castle AFB, where it was reassembled and put on display at the museum. There was talk of trying to get it airworthy for a ferry flight, but even if the airframe hadn't been sitting outside exposed to the elements for decades, it would still have been a daunting challenge to get such a complex machine back in working order. It just wasn't worth the cost or risk for a one-time flight.

Prior to being retired, this B-36 was assigned to the 28th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, 718th Bombardment Squadron, at Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota. It was designated as a RB-36H-30-CF. The aircraft carried a crew of 22 in that configuration.

This view of the B-36 shows the starboard wing with its three pusher propellers and twin jet engines located in a nacelle near the end of the wing. The photo below is a closer view of the jet engines.

The photo above is the nose of the B-36. The photo below was my only photo for this aircraft for many years. Not the B-47 in the foreground, but rather, the engine nacelles that can be seen just under the nose of the B-47. The B-36 was gone from Chanute when I visited in the early 1990's, but the aircraft had not yet been reassembled when I visited Castle shortly after it arrived.