B-58 Hustler

[Boz330]

Thought you guys might enjoy this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEKyTxnrXIc&feature=youtu.be

Bob

[fecmech]

When I was stationed at Little Rock AFB in the early 60's we had them come in occasionally from Carswell. I remember one night working on the ramp and hearing a hellacious roar and looked up to see 4 white streaks of fire from the afterburners as one went over us and then the streaks turned to white dots as he climbed out. They weren't in service very long, I believe due to high maintenance problems.

[dagger dog]

The Hustlers were built to deliver our nuclear bombs before our ICBM's came on line, after that the Hustler wasn't needed.

[williamwaco]

WOW.

I did not remember that.

I am getting too old.

[Hawkeye45]

I was privileged to be stationed with the 827th medical group, 305 bomb wing at Bunker Hill AFB (now Grissom AFB) in 1968, after coming back from VN. The most awesome sight in the world has to be to watch the B58 take of in a MITO minimum interval takeoff. One every 15 seconds. The entire ground shakes around you. Totally awesome.

Mr. Ed

[phonejack]

My son in laws father flew one of those.

[monadnock#5]

Read the novel Fail-Safe for a rivetting account of how these bombers would have been employed. Spine tingling, literally.

[richhodg66]

Read the novel Fail-Safe for a rivetting account of how these bombers would have been employed. Spine tingling, literally.

Haven't read it, but the movie made me real uncomfortable and I didn't sleep well that night. Talk about a spooky scenario. We have a generation of adults now who have no appreciation for what the Cold War was now. I think they called the planes "Vindicators" but all the footage was B-58s.

[Boz330]

As a kid I remember them going over every afternoon at 3PM and you would hear the sonic boom. There was an article in the paper letting people know about it so they wouldn't panic. They must have been really high since all that it did was rattle the windows a little.

Bob

[Gar]

My first duty station was Little Rock AFB. The 43th Bomb had B-58 there until the end of 1969 when they were phased out of service, cool looking plane but very high maintenance.

[fecmech]

My first duty station was Little Rock AFB. The 43th Bomb had B-58 there until the end of 1969 when they were phased out of service, cool looking plane but very high maintenance.
When I was there (62-64)we had B-47's and KC-97's.

[509thsfs]

My Father-in-Law was a B-58 pilot

[frankenfab]

Really cool to hear of you guys who were at LRAFB. They have great air shows there. I lived really close to the base for a while, and one of the fighters had run out and turned around by my house. They won't let them fly supersonic, but I still remember thinking, "Man was that thing ever going fast" when it went over.

The whole C-130 thing is interesting and amazing as well, I have watched and heard those things fly over my house my entire life.

[Echo]

We have the last one made (out of 116 produced) at our Pima Air & Space Museum. They were a high-speed, high-altitude penetration bomber, and the Rooskies came up with higher-speed, higher-altitude interceptors, so that, coupled with the need for about 100 hours of maintenance for every hour of flight, led to it only being operational for about 10 years, while the B-52 soldiers on. Set MANY records during its tenure...

[Boz330]

We have the last one made (out of 116 produced) at our Pima Air & Space Museum. They were a high-speed, high-altitude penetration bomber, and the Rooskies came up with higher-speed, higher-altitude interceptors, so that, coupled with the need for about 100 hours of maintenance for every hour of flight, led to it only being operational for about 10 years, while the B-52 soldiers on. Set MANY records during its tenure...

Back then aviation was advancing so quickly that many aircraft were obsolete before they got online. But there were so outstanding aircraft designed that stood the test of time. The B-52, F-4 Phantom, U-2 and the SR-71 just to name a few.

Bob

[Don Purcell]

Born beautiful, lived fast and died young.

[JeffinNZ]

Sure pleased I didn't have to pay for the Jet A-1!

[sleeper1428]

IMHO, one of the most beautiful mission specific bombers ever produced. One of those planes that look as if they're going about Mach 3 just sitting on the tarmac! And as Richhodg66 correctly pointed out, this was the plane that was referred to - and pictured - as the 'Vindicator' in one of the greatest Cold War movies ever made, specifically, 'Fail Safe'.

sleeper1428

[monadnock#5]

The movie was good, but ya gotta read the book. I give Wheeler and Burdick as much credit for doing their research as I did Tom Clancy. They may have been called "Vindicators" in the book, but 3 man crew, mach 2, individual clamshell escape capsules, weapons pod, 2 twenty megatonners....
The book as a whole is very good, but with me at least I was flipping pages as fast as I could to get to the next segment about the bombers.

[sleeper1428]

The movie was good, but ya gotta read the book. I give Wheeler and Burdick as much credit for doing their research as I did Tom Clancy. They may have been called "Vindicators" in the book, but 3 man crew, mach 2, individual clamshell escape capsules, weapons pod, 2 twenty megatonners....
The book as a whole is very good, but with me at least I was flipping pages as fast as I could to get to the next segment about the bombers.

Agree 100%!! It's on one of my many bookshelves and I've read it at least a half dozen times. It should be required reading for today's students because I don't think they have any idea of what it was like to live in an era when there was a real threat of global nuclear warfare that could erupt from nothing more than a mistake in judgement or the failure of one or more simple mechanical/electrical parts. The same holds true for another great book - and subsequent movie - "Seven Days in May" authored by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II. Considering present day electronics and surveillance techniques, today's students would find such a potential covert takeover of our government by a strong, well connected military leader highly unlikely but in those days, before the computer revolution, the advent of the 'Net and NSA's wide spread monitoring of all communications, such a scenario was indeed possible as was acknowledged by many in our government, including JFK who was President in the year the book was published, 1962. In fact, the Pentagon was against publication of the book due to the fact that its premise was all too possible given the state of communications, especially between services, at that time.

sleeper1428

[monadnock#5]

A belated tip of the hat to the OP. There may have been others as devoted to Wings on the Discovery Channel, but none more so than myself. The one installment that I very much wanted to see was on the B-58. No such luck though, the B-58 was referenced several times, but never featured.
Although I would like to know a lot more about it, the video link provided lots of good info. The fact that it was hosted and narrated by an American Hero, a Brigadier General and one of the best actors ever all rolled into one made it even better. Good job.

[popper]

My older bro. was to fly them but couldn't fit under the canopy so he bailed from AF ROTC. Didn't want to fly a 130.

[dagger dog]

The largest group of '58's were stationed in England at several bases there. Made for a short hop for them to get off and drop their "eggs" on Soviet targets. This was still in the late Eisenhower era, before the "minute man" rocket silos bloomed throughout our nations interior.

Does anyone here remember the duck and cover drills that were taught in our schools, during the early to mid sixties ? By then the Hustler and it's speed was out dated, the " missile gap" was an all important fact in the cold war, the launching of Sputnik One in '57 brought fear to all Americans, the thought of the "Red's" being able to penetrate the USA over the pole, brought on the DEW line, constantly manned.

SAC units with their bombers ,47's medium 58's light and 52 heavies, along with the out dated Connie 36's, sat and watched as the Vanguard rockets exploded on the launch pads, until finally Von Braun, and the rest of the rocket scientist got their heads together and developed our first ICBM's.

[popper]

DaggerDog - not quite correct on the Vangard. VonBraun was working Atlas program, vangard was an old navy rocket re-tooled to only put 'something' in orbit. Ruskies beat us cause they had a better motor design which we would not copy - they learned a lot from the V2 they swiped. So much for German engineering.

[Bad Water Bill]

Not just the rocket went to Russia but many "P O W" scientists vanished behind the iron curtain never to be seen or heard from again.

[zardoz]

When I was seven years old, 1963, Mom took me into the Woolworths one day. Of course, I ran back to the toy department, and there was this red plastic airplane. It read "Convair B-58 Hustler". Very accurately modeled. The four engines were removable. Mom bought it for me. I have fond memories of that toy, as it gave hours of supersonic fun.

Go forward 15 years. I was sitting in a Flight Stability and Control Systems class at the University of Kansas. The instructor, Dr. Jan Roskam always started a class by putting up a few different aircraft on the overhead projector, and asked the class to identify the plane. One day, another student belted out "B-58 Hustler" in a split second. But then Dr. Roskam said "Correct. But what company built this plane?" Stony silence. After a few seconds, I just said "Convair". Dr. Roskam then says, "Only one of you knows about Convair?"

Little did anyone know, that I only knew that because of a red plastic toy I got in 1963. Wish I still had that toy plane. Sort of my "Rosebud" sled in many ways.

I believe they have the real thing on display at the Grissom Air Museum up near Peru, Indiana. At least they did 10 years ago. Sent shivers up my spine, the awesome power just oozed out of it just sitting still.

Now, it is one of the planes I have in my Flight Simulator collection of aftermarket software plug-in models. As close as I will ever get to flying one I guess.

[dagger dog]

popper,

I stand corrected, and after your post I remember that it was the Navy project !

[Kraschenbirn]

Back in the mid-70s, I worked (as a civilian) at Chanute AFB, Rantoul, IL and one of the speed-record (I don't recall which record) B-58s was on static display in front of the HQ building. The story was that after it's sustained speed run, cracks were found in both main wing spars and the aircraft was 'retired' to Chanute as a 'trainer' for maintenance personnel. When the B-58s were phased out and their tech training discontinued, the airplane was cleaned up, its markings repainted and it was placed on static display until the base was closed in 1992 when it was transferred to the Chanute Aerospace Museum collection. Currently, it's on display along with a couple dozen other '50s-60s USAF aircraft...all former 'trainers' left behind when the base was closed.

Bill

[horsesoldier]

I watched Failsafe on youtube the other day after reading this and man, did I get the chills

[WILCO]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_B-58_Hustler

[GabbyM]

Before this thread I thought the B 58 was a small program.
Way it looks now is the B58 hung in there until the F111 took over the high speed trip from England.
Very interesting stuff. We also had the F101 Star fighter in the hands of European forces carrying a single bomb as a one way cruse missile. Since the mission often does not require that you return alive.

[abunaitoo]

Mr. James Stewart.
A true American.
I wonder if they'll ever be another one like him???

[FergusonTO35]

I love those planes of the 50's and 60's. My second cousin gets to fly F-100's as a contractor for the Navy.

[richhodg66]

Mr. James Stewart.
A true American.
I wonder if they'll ever be another one like him???

He was the real deal, I read a biography of him and another that just focused on his war experiences. He was quite a man and no, I don't think there will be another one like him.

[MtGun44]

B-58 had 4 J-79 jet engines, the same ones as in the F-4 Phantoms that my Dad and brother flew. I
think they cruised supersonic, they had a huge belly fuel pod/nuke that was dropped at the target and
they would return on internal fuel, I am guessing subsonic for added range.

Awesome aircraft. A friend was a mech on one, said it was a giant PITA to work on. It had a crew ejection
capsule, basically the whole cockpit went off under a parachute. He said a lot of electrical stuff was under
the capsule and when it needed work (too often!) they had to safe the explosives/ rockets and pull the
whole capsule about 8 hrs work to get access to the electrical stuff, then 8 more to put it back. Not exactly
"user friendly".

Still, it apparently was an awesome plane. I never saw one fly, sad to say.

Bill

[fecmech]

LOL they still have one on Static, pass it when I go to the commissary. Cool plane

Do they still have the B-47 on static display or did they replace that with the B-58? I remember towing B-47's to the Alert Pad with full fuel loads on board (114,500 lbs of fuel). At certain points on the taxiway when the front main gear would go on to the next piece of concrete (18" thick!) water would squirt up between the two pieces! Talk about a heavy footprint.

[AggieEE]

I remember hearing in collage one of Paul Harvey's broadcasts that John Denver's father, Col. Duesendorf (sp?) my appoligies to the Col., set a speed record in one of the 58's. Yes I remember the duck and cover drills in elementry school. The funny thing was we were about 2 miles from Kelly AFB/Lackland AFB and I lived about 3 miles from Kelly. Kelly was a major repair depot and Lackland is the "gateway to the Air Force" according to the sign over one of the gates. San Antonio might not have been a tier 1 target but was probably 2nd strike. Either way I had lake front property after the boom.

[dagger dog]

Yes I remember the duck and cover drills in elementry school. The funny thing was we were about 2 miles from Kelly AFB/Lackland AFB and I lived about 3 miles from Kelly. Kelly was a major repair depot and Lackland is the "gateway to the Air Force" according to the sign over one of the gates. San Antonio might not have been a tier 1 target but was probably 2nd strike. Either way I had lake front property after the boom.

Ft. Knox was close enough to my house , we used to fish the many lakes and ponds on the reservation and even use the shooting ranges when open to the public. I don't know for sure if Knox was a 1st priority but that close proximity was enough to make my parents very nervous.

One of my buddies who was 25 years my senior, helped maintain the B-58's on his first tour fresh out of the IN Air Guard, he went from Mustangs to Hustlers, went on to 1 tour in Korea and 2 in Vietnam. He really re-energized my interest in aircraft that was so much a part of my pre teens.

Guys like my friend as well as my uncle a WWII USAAF vet, along with high profile USAAF-USAF vets as J. Stewart ,all deserve more than the American public could ever repay.

[trooperdan]

In the early '60's I was a fire control repairman on BIRDIE AN/GSG -5 stationed with the 3/69ADA Minneapolis defense. We had 4 batteries of Nike-Herc and Ajax missles with nuke warheads. We would score AF making runs against us with radar bomb scoring.
When the B-58 ran against us, he would release his external bomb pod nearly outside our engagement range, 75 miles!

[Bad Water Bill]

I just realized what a great time that I was in naval aviation.

I checked in to a squadron of Cutlasses. Yes it was allowed to fly if it lost LESS than a gallon of hydraulic fluid when sitting on the deck OVER NIGHT.

I went to electricians school and worked on the AD 1.

Returned to the squadron as we were transitioning to the A4D.

In the transition our pilots were trained in F6F.F9F and the FJ4 before we got our first A4D. Yes I did had to remove dog tags and all other objects before sliding into the starboard intake to adjust the voltage regulator (while the jet was running). Yes you had to trust the guy holding onto your feet.

Then we took the A4 to the med for its first cruise.

In the reserves I logged in many hours as flight crew of an OLD 4 engine transport A/C. It was so tired that on one flight a coke bottle actually rolled under the hatch and fell out somewhere over Lake Michigan. Bet those fish were surprised.

[LeftyDon]

Before we moved back to NY we lived west of Edwards AFB and when the Shuttle came in the house would shake twice from the twin sonic booms when it passed over the house, our pet cats would freak out as the windows rattled. ;) Early one morning the house nearly came apart with a single sonic boom, much worse than a Shuttle boom, wife nearly had "the big one" and I had no idea just *** was going on. No shuttles were up at the time. Just then the local radio station kicks in with, in case you were just woken up, the SR-71 just passed over the coast and the Kelly Johnson Skunk Works in Santa Clarita on the way to DC and into retirement. LA to DC 1 hour 4 minutes 20 seconds. The company that I worked at the time was one of the contractors that supplied systems on this plane, the Shuttle and many others. That too was quite a plane. The Kelly Johnson works is now an industrial park and what's left of the original Skunkworks in Burbank is too.

http://www.wvi.com/~sr71webmaster/972record1.htm

I must add, never was a pilot, just a glow in the dark Navy Nuke.

[Bret4207]

The Hustler was way cool, but there was another one called the Valkyrie, IIRC, that was waaaay cooler but never went into production I don't believe.

http://www.unrealaircraft.com/classics/xb70.php

[Boz330]

The Valkyrie was a test bed more than anything. I was working at the GE jet engine division during that time. It had the most powerful engines of the day. I believe that the B-1 came from a lot of the stuff that they learned from the Valkyrie. It was also supposed to be a fore runner for an American made SST, but Congress shot down the funding. At the time the US, USSR, and France were competing to build an SST. Of course Concord was the only viable version to make it to the market.

Bob

[snuffy]

The Valkyrie was a test bed more than anything. I was working at the GE jet engine division during that time. It had the most powerful engines of the day. I believe that the B-1 came from a lot of the stuff that they learned from the Valkyrie. It was also supposed to be a fore runner for an American made SST, but Congress shot down the funding. At the time the US, USSR, and France were competing to build an SST. Of course Concord was the only viable version to make it to the market.

Bob

Bob, that may be true, but I'd say it was a test bed for the SR-71, which came about before the B-1. I thin k they learned their mistake about using stainless steel for the body skin, switching to titanium for the SR.

That article about the Valkyrie was very interesting. I had heard of it, and after reading it, I remembered the accident. As an inactive commercial pilot, I'm interested in aviation, so it was fun to read. Thanks Bret foir the link!

I loved watching Jimmy Stewart in the B-58 movie. Well I loved watching ANY of his movies. A genuine American hero that also was a great actor.

[Boz330]

Bob, that may be true, but I'd say it was a test bed for the SR-71, which came about before the B-1. I thin k they learned their mistake about using stainless steel for the body skin, switching to titanium for the SR.

That article about the Valkyrie was very interesting. I had heard of it, and after reading it, I remembered the accident. As an inactive commercial pilot, I'm interested in aviation, so it was fun to read. Thanks Bret foir the link!

I loved watching Jimmy Stewart in the B-58 movie. Well I loved watching ANY of his movies. A genuine American hero that also was a great actor.

The SR-71 was in service while there were only 2 of the XB-70s still in testing. Plus they were built by 2 competing aircraft companies. XB is experimental Bomber as opposed to SR which is reconnaissance. The XB also had the tilting nose like the Concorde. The Air Force might have been looking at the similarities but I doubt that the competing aircraft companies would share that info.

Bob

[monadnock#5]

The USSR spent a gazillion dollars designing, building and deploying the MIG-25 Foxbat. The Foxbat was developed as a high speed (mach 3 dash speed) high altitude inteceptor. You know, just the ticket for countering a squadron of A-12's.

Whether by accident or on purpose, the US caused the Russkies to spend a lot of their wealth uselessly. I for one would like to think it was on purpose.