On Wed, 20 Dec 2006 11:25:14 -0700, Jay Beckman wrote:

Didn't the USAF take a working (albeit small) reactor aloft in a B29 "back
in the day?"

It was a B-36, not a B-29. One B-36H was modified to carry a 1
megawatt air-cooled nuclear reactor in its aft bomb bay. The
aircraft (redesignated NB-36H) made 47 test flights between
1955 and 1957, totalling 215 hours of flight time, with the
reactor critical for 89 of those hours.

The reactor did not provide power to the aircraft -- the
purpose of this program was to test shielding and radiation
effects on aircraft systems, and to demonstrate that it was
possible to fly a nuclear reactor around without irradiating
the aircraft's crew or the surrounding area.

The NB-36 was scrapped in 1958 after the USAF's nuclear-
powered aircraft program was abandoned.


ljd