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Cool Plane
gesshots
Member Posts: 15,678 ✭✭✭✭
Convair B-58 Hustler, a mach 2 nuclear bomber
It's being willing. I found out early that most men, regardless of cause or need, aren't willing. They blink an eye or draw a breath before they pull the trigger. I won't. ~ J.B. Books
Comments
One of the most beautiful aircraft to ever fly!!
Built in Ft. Worth, TX
Henry J. Deutschendorf Archives - This Day in Aviation
The good major and his flight crew nailed 6 aviation records in one day. But more people know his son, Henry J. Junior.
Sweet
Are you referring to John Denver's father ?
I had no idea, thanks for a great post !
It was hampered by the very thirsty and less reliable engines of the day, but it was indeed a cool airplane. I got to sit in one as a Civil Air Patrol cadet and as small as I was then, was dismayed by how tight the ejection capsule was.
Watched ne doing touch and go landings one night in a snow storm at Bunker Hill ( now Grissom) air base. From a distance in the snow, the approach strobes looked like lightening.
Engines were the GE J79 which was used in a number of other planes - F-104, F-4, A-5, and the B-58.
Spent my first tour working avionics on the B-58, with the 43rd Bomb Wing at Carswell AFB in Ft. Worth and moved with the Wing to Jacksonville AFB in AR. You hear very little about the B-58 guess it wasen’t around long enough to be used in combat, the fact that at that time it only carried one bomb. B-58s set 19 world speed and altitude records and won five different aviation trophies. They have one on display at Wright Patterson AFB museum In OH or did several years ago.
I was never familiar with the B-58 but did some maintenance on the F-106 Delta Dart when I was stationed at Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Michigan. I worked mostly as a crew chief on F-4's during my active duty years. I found the Darts had a lot more "cool" factor than the Phantom "Hogs".
NYC to Paris ... 3,625 miles
Charles Lindbergh - flight time @ 92mph - 33.5 hours
SR-71 Blackbird @ Mach 3.4 - 1.653 hours
Convair B-58 Hustler @ Mach 2 - 2.74 hours ............. still no slouch !
😎😎😎😎😎😎😎
I talked to a crew member that I knew. He said one-in-three flights resulted in an emergency landing. Probably not every one real serious but still not a good record.
Brookwood, I spent 21 years at Selfridge in the AF Reserve after I left active duty . We did a lot of flying from there: Europe, South America aand US tactical missions. I was there from 1969 to 1990. Almost all my time was in C-130E. We got A models in 1972 and later converted to E models.
Lived near Carswell AFB in my youth and remember the daily sonic booms and knew pilots and mx people who flew and maintained them. They were dangerous to fly and had a poor safety record. IFEs were common. MX guys hated them.
If memory serves, the B 58 could carry a hydrogen bomb OR fly supersonic, but not both at once.
Back in 1969, I had a shop chief in the 48th FMS Electric Shop at RAF Lakenheath in the UK who would yell at you and say if you don't straighten up, you would be transferred to Minot AFB , North Dakota to rewire B-58's in the dead of winter.
From what I have read, it could fly well above Mach 1 with the combination weapons/fuel pod in place. As the original version had no additional hardpoints for weapons, if it couldn't reach speed with its primary payload, it made no sense to spend the money to design it for Mach 2.
An interesting airplane, but it was obsolescent by the time it entered service due to advances in surface to air missiles.
Doesn't look like a design that would do well in a low level penetration scenario.
Brad Steele