Life Magazine May 21, 1951 "Camera Records Big B-36 Crash"

Life Magazine May 21, 1951 "Camera Records Big B-36 Crash" Cover

Life Magazine ran a piece with still shots of the B-36 that Hazard shot on his home movie camera. It was somewhat controversial as the camera was initially seized by the Feds but presumably released later.

Life Magazine May 21, 1951 "Camera Records Big B-36 Crash" Pages 40-41

Transcript:

Camera Records Big B-36 Crash

High, gusty winds swirled the dry earth into a stinging dust storm at Albuquerque, NM. on Sunday last week as one of the world's biggest Bombers roared low over the city and lumbered into its final approach for a landing at Kirtland Air Force Base. It was a B-36D, three hours out of Fort Worth with 25 aboard, Wheels down, it settled gently toward the ground. Suddenly the right wing dipped, and the right outboard propeller and jet engines near the wing tip struck the ground with a screeching crash, At full throttle the 10-engined plane bounced into the air, made a clumsy climbing turn to the right, fell off on one wing and smashed into the ground in a blast of orange flame and thick black smoke. In this wreckage 23 airmen lost their lives.

This whole quick tragedy, as it happened, was recorded step by step on film. Near the field lived Allyn Hazard (right), who had recently bought a movie camera. Hearing the roar of the big plane, he called a friend, jumped into a car and made the pictures shown above while the friend drove toward the field. He was winding his camera when the plane first struck and missed the first step of the accident. But his film will help the Air Force find the cause of the crash.

In five years of flying its huge and complicated long-distance giants, the Air Force has lost four other B-36, one only a few weeks ago when it was rammed by a fighter plane. The first three were lost from engine failure, pilot error on take-off and ice in a heavy storm. The probable reason for this one: the pilot misjudged his approach in the gusty wind, tried to pull up and go around again, was too late.

"HAP HAZARD, who shot the crash, is an engineer, inventor and a dianetics auditor.

Images sent to me by a retired researcher in Santa Fe working on a space archeology project back in 2019, Ross Deforest Sackett. My heartfelt "Thank you!" goes out to him for this and other contributions.

All images, captions and content are Copyright © 1997-2025 John Eaton unless otherwise stated. If there are any comments or objections, please contact John Eaton, by clicking here.

Life Magazine, April 27, 1962

Life Magazine, April 27, 1962 Cover

More than likely, the cover of this issue of Life, which features the bell-like Moon Suit, was the inspiration to Mattel for the Major Matt Mason accessory. The cover story is "Man's Journey to the Moon" and some of the interior stories follow this theme. At some point I'll take new images of the cover and entire article and provide a transcript.

Inside, another photo of the suit with the caption "Moon Suit. Testing a moon suit mock-up, Inventor Allyn Hazard stands in a lava crater on the Mojave Desert. Suit carries own oxygen, food." The accompanying article has "As for protecting the men themselves, at least one company - California's Space-General - has already built and is trying out a very early model moon suit.

Life Magazine, April 27, 1962 2-Page Image

It carries food, water, a radio, a tiny stove and air conditioning to insulate its occupant from the 300 degree fluctuations of lunar temperature. Its weight of 200 pounds, unwieldy on earth, should be no problem on the moon where things weigh six times less." Below the article are photos of various moon vehicles...one looks a little like the Major Matt Mason Space Bubble. 

Further on there's this spread of proposed lunar vehicles including one (in bold - transcript below) by the Space General Corporation.

A Model Menagerie of Moon Vehicles (image by Paul Vreede)

 Transcript:

A Model Menagerie of Moon Vehicles

Eight bizarre vehicles, models built by U.S. companies to test various concepts of getting about on the moon, sit on a simulated bit of lunar landscape. The models, most of which actually work, are (front row, left to right) an RCA six-legged walker carrying a drill in its red head for taking geological samples; a General Motors screwlike vehicle designed to worm its way through lunar dust; another RCA walker with rubber-covered leg joints, a radio antenna on its head. In the second row are a Bendix vehicle which unfolds from a rocket, then crawls about on sagging and flexible yellow wheels; a GM vehicle with six grapefruitlike wheels designed for traveling in very soft dust. In the back row are an RCA balloon vehicle, powered by a disk of solar-charged batteries on top (the actual one could stand 100 feet high and roll gently around on its soft plastic body); another variety of RCA walker, this one four-legged; an elaborate Space-General walker with a roof of solar batteries, three pairs of legs and a TV camera and mechanical hand on its outstretched mechanical arms.
(image by Paul Vreede from his great Triang/SpaceX site.

All images, captions and content are Copyright © 1997-2023 John Eaton unless otherwise stated. If there are any comments or objections, please contact John Eaton, by clicking here.