Convair NB-36H

The Convair NB-36H, nicknamed the Crusader, was an experimental aircraft that carried an operating nuclear reactor to test crew radiation shielding, though the reactor did not power the aircraft. It was a B-36 bomber damaged by a tornado at Carswell Air Force Base in 1952 and converted for the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion programme, with an 11-ton lead and rubber crew section and a one megawatt air-cooled reactor hung in the bomb bay. It made 47 test flights totalling 215 hours between September 1955 and March 1957 over New Mexico and Texas, 89 of those hours with the reactor operating. Tests showed the shielding protected the crew. It was scrapped after its flight tests, and the programme ended in March 1961.