Yes, yes, I know that this column is feverishly read with howls of approval by Fallopia Whynge and her chums in the Department of Queer, Equality, Multicultural & Feminist Studies, but today it comes with a health warning: my first diary of the year is going to indulge in an unprecedented orgy of wholly atypical laddishness.
Is there a single reader of this newspaper who has heard of, or is remotely interested in, the Convair B-36? What? No? In that case, this column is going to be read solely by our unfortunate night editor, as he pores over final proofs in his icy garret with candle and quill, while the gnarled but sturdy printers at their presses crack their ancient knuckles and utter a few impatient printerly oaths in Norman French.
Why the B-36? Because I began 2006 by dreaming of it, though I have - alas! - never seen one. It is perhaps the only bomber in the history of world military aviation which was apparently designed by comic-book illustrators. It was also the only aircraft ever to have atom-bombed Canada. Yes, atom-bombed Canada, and moreover, the bomb exploded. The things you didn't know.
But why the dream about the B-36, and why now? The internet supplied the answer. The 60th anniversary of its first flight occurs this year. And the greatest expert in the world on the B-36 is a Meyers K. Jacobsen, the first half of whose name is a slight anagram of my own name, my middle initial being "E". Destiny! Now, I know about the B-36 because I am a sad, socially dysfunctional nerd, and though such creatures might not have any friends, we do have lots of utterly useless information in our brains. So let me tell you about the B-36 bomber. It was originally intended in 1941 to fly non-stop the 5,000 miles from the US to Germany, drop a few tons of bombs there, and then return across the Atlantic.
It was easily the largest aircraft of its time. It originally had six piston engines, weighed 160 tons, and its main undercarriage wheels were each nine feet in diameter. Its wings were 230 feet across and seven feet deep at their roots: engineers could enter them from inside the aircraft and work on the engines while in flight. Those engines used 336 spark-plugs and needed 150 gallons of lubricating oil each.
Most crewmen were located in two compartments 80 feet apart within the 120 feet-long fuselage. These were connected by a two-feet wide tunnel, along which prone crewmen could travel on a little cart, which also linked with the galley and the urinal. (Sorry chaps, a urinal only, even though flights could last two days or more.) Other crew were located variously around the bomber, remotely controlling the eight defensive turrets which contained 16 cannon. Each flight was almost like the space shuttle: pre-flight checks involved 600 different steps.
(Yes, night editor, I know you're finding this all pretty tiresome - but it's still Christmas, and I'm having a whale of a time, which is really all that counts.)
The six piston engines, which were synchronised to minimise structural vibration, created an astonishing noise, as they drove the half-dozen propellers, each the size of a house. Later versions of the B-36 also had four jet engines. Even at 40,000 feet, the plane's din could rattle buildings to their foundations.
Now all this - a 10-engined, 160-ton bomber with a crew of 20 flying forward and back unrefuelled across the Atlantic carrying 40 tons of bombs - sounds like a lunatic cartoonist's preposterous dream that stayed on the comic pages. Not so. Hundreds of B-36s were built, though too late for the second World War, and many of their missions over the Soviet Union remain secret, even to this day. One served as a test-bed for a nuclear engine. Another carried a full-sized jet fighter in its bomb-bay, which it would release and later
retrieve, all in flight. A photo-reconnaissance version carried a vast camera which, loaded with a roll of film 18 inches wide and 1,000 feet long, once photographed a golf course from eight miles high. On the contact print, a golf ball can be clearly seen.
And 56 years ago next month, a B-36 dropped a Fat Man nuclear bomb - similar to the one which destroyed Nagasaki - on Canada. The US - understandably - was less than candid with its neighbour over the incident at the time: the last occasion they went to war with the Canadians, they lost. These little things rankle, you know.
In February 1950, a B-36 set out from Alaska for a mock attack on San Francisco, before flying on to Texas. But long before target-time, while over the Pacific, three engines caught fire. The pilot jettisoned his bomb over the sea, and in Canadian air-space, not far from the shore. It exploded in a fireball at 1,500 metres. However, because it lacked the plutonium core, this was not a nuclear explosion. The pilot - a Capt Barry, no doubt of Cork - then flew over Canada and told the crewmen to bail out. Twelve survived; five did not. But amazingly, the B-36 continued in flight for another 700 kilometres, before crashing near Alaska.
Thus the story of the war that never was, involving the most amazing plane that ever flew, and thus the end of my most enjoyable - well, from my point of view, anyway - diary ever. Wake up, the rest of you: a return to the usual dreary, feminist-loving, politically correct service tomorrow!