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English: 330-PS-7946 (155227A.C.) First Picture of Nuclear Test Airplane. The Convair NB-36H, a vital new national defense role for the Convair B-36 international bomber is pictured here for thte first time, as the world’s first aircraft to fly with an operating atomic reactor onboard. Shown are the vapor trails streaming from the NB-36H’s six pusher engines indicate its great altitude during a typical test flight somewhere over the Southwestern United States. On such flights, the “hot” reactor does not power the NB-36H. The low-powered NB-36H is high over an unpopulated area, and then only to obtain a side variety of data. Methods of shielding the flight crew, reactor operators and electronics devices from radioactivity are tested and new types of nuclear instruments are checked out. The NB-36H’s dark blue nose differs sharply from that of a conventional type and the huge vertical tail carries an orange radiation symbol that distinguishes this aircraft from all others. Photograph released August 6, 1956. (2/11/2015).