During 1949-50, we lived on Lake Worth -- squarely across the lake from the main runway at Carswell AFB. They were building B-36s at the Convair plant and flying them out of Carswell -- directly over our house.
Giant machines with six props and four jets, they oddly sounded like a giant swarm of hornets. Their low-pitched hum would actually vibrate dishes out of the cabinets in our kitchen.
We got so used to the incessant "buzz" they made that we paid it no attention. Then, one night, it...stopped. All of us came alert and ran to the back of the house. And, there, immediately off our dock was a B-36...in the lake, burning, her back broken.
We later discovered that something had gone wrong on takeoff and the crew had taken it into the lake, rather than try to keep it airborne. Just a few seconds more and they'd have come down squarely on top of us.
My recollection is that most of the crew died in this crash.
God bless our servicemen.
Delaware Trail here. Maybe you were on Cahoba Trail.
Sounds like we were neighbors once.
/john
/john