(^66) UNITED STATES
The need for speed
The Hustler’s performance was breath-taking. Lightly loaded it had a thrust-to-weight ratio of
almost one to one and a climb rate of 46,000ft/min. Top speed was Mach 2+ and service ceiling
was greater than 60,000ft. Numerous records were set by B-58s, some of which still stand. The
longest supersonic ight on record was set by a B-58 ying Tokyo to London (just over 8,000
miles) in 8hrs 35min.
T
he designers at Convair did not take
a subtle approach when tasked with
coming up with the world’s rst
Mach 2 capable operational jet bomber.
It all started out gracefully enough with
a sleek fuselage married to a pure delta
wing, then it turned all brutish when four
General Electric J79 engines were strapped
underneath. Aesthetically it should not have
worked, but somehow it did. The result was
a thunderous record-breaking machine that
had a propensity for sonic booms.
In 1953, the US Air Force awarded Convair
a contract to build a bomber designed to y
at high altitudes and at supersonic speeds
to avoid Soviet ghters. Just three years on a
prototype B-58 made its rst ight onConvair B-58 Hustler
11 November 1956 and ew supersonically a
month later. Distinct features of the Hustler, as
it was named, included a then-sophisticated
inertial guidance navigation and bombing
system and ‘wasp-waist’ fuselage. Extensive use
of heat-resistant honeycomb sandwich skin
panels was integrated into the construction of
the wings and fuselage for the necessary high
altitude, high-speed ight. The thin fuselage
provided some engineering challenges early
on as it prevented internal carriage of bombs
and the required amount of fuel to feed the
four afterburning J79 turbojets, thus restricting
operational ranges. As a result, a large external
droppable, two-component pod was added
under the fuselage and contained extra
fuel and a nuclear weapon along with othermission-speci c gear. The three-man crew of
pilot, navigator and defensive systems operator
sat one behind the other, each in their own
ejection capsule.
It was a demanding and dangerous machine
to y. Take-o and landing speeds were very
high and the tall, skinny landing gear was
delicate and nose gear failures were common.
The other big killer was losing an engine at
supersonic speed. The resulting departure from
controlled ight could be so violent that even
ejection was impossible.
The US Air Force contracted for 86 Hustlers
which were operational in the Strategic Air
Command (SAC). Despite its very impressive
performance numbers, the B-58 was a troubled
aircraft which contributed to its rather short
service life. Additionally, its very raison d’être,
the high-altitude bomber concept, had become
a thing of the past and the Hustler was not
particularly well suited to low-level operations.
After just 10 years it was withdrawn from
service in 1970.
Below: The B-58 Hustler, the world’s rst Mach 2
bomber, was tested at Edwards AFB, CA in the
late 1950s and early 1960s.