‘B-58 Week’ Ends With A Thank You, And A Tribute

 This is the last post in ‘B-58 Week’, but you can be sure we’ll be talking more about this phenomenal aircraft in the future. 

 The Convair B-58 Hustler was the world’s first operational supersonic bomber.  It inspired allies with its awesome beauty and blistering performance, and it struck fear in potential enemies with its aggressive look and the fact that it represented an engineering capability that could not be surpassed.

 The airplane wasn’t perfect, in fact far from it.  It was very expensive, very demanding to fly, extremely complicated, difficult to maintain and had a high accident rate.  And, by the time the B-58 was operational, the surface-to-air missile (SAM) was showing itself capable of shooting down high altitude bombers, even of they were flying supersonic.  Originally the idea of flying high and fast was believed to be safe from enemy attack, but the SAM changed the game and the B-58 wasn’t the answer that many thought it would be.

 But the Hustler was still a watershed accomplishment.  The hard work and dedication that pushed for ways to make seemingly impossible things happen paved the way for advances in aerospace for years to come.  This is a good time to reflect on the people that made it all happen.  From the administration at Convair to the designers and engineers.  From the people on the factory floor that built the aircraft, to the test pilots and engineers who risked their lives and worked to solve complicated problems.  To the men who flew her operationally and the many that lost their lives in the process.  And the skilled maintenance and service people that kept her flying… the list of people who were part of the history of the B-58 is very large.  They worked hard to build, fly and maintain an aircraft meant to very boldly stand for freedom, and to be ready to fight for it if needed. 

 To all of them I say: Thank You.

 The following pictures are meant to be a small tribute to the people who made the B-58 one of the greatest and most memorable aircraft the world has ever seen.

May the true fight for freedom never end!

Grissom Air Museum And The B-58 Mower Shed!

B-58, F-102, A-10, C-47 tail, and C-119 at the Grissom Air Museum

B-25, C-47 nose, KC-97, U-3A, C-1 and B-17 at the Grissom Air Museum

Boeing B-47 at the Grissom Air Museum

 The one hour trip I made last Saturday from Warsaw down to Peru, Indiana to go to the Grissom Air Museum gave me a chance to get some great pictures of the oldest B-58 still in existence, aircraft #55-663 in the top picture above.  It’s also featured in this B-58 CoolPix from a few days ago which gives you a hi-res version to check the airplane out in detail.  As you can see in the pic above and the others with it, there are several other historical aircraft on display outside as well, including several more that aren’t shown in these pictures.  You can see all of the aircraft at this page at the museum website. It’s a nice collection that is holding up fairly well considering they are out in the weather.  I’m hoping someday there will be a way to get these airplanes inside.

 There is a 'building' at the museum, but it’s rather small.  The good news is that it’s filled with lots of interesting Air Force artifacts, and since Grissom AFB was one of only two bases that operated the B-58, they have several nifty Hustler items to see.  One that I thought was pretty interesting is pictured below.  It’s a shell in the shape of the B-58 cockpit section that housed a simulator of some sort used in pilot training.  There’s no simulator with it now, they’ve just got a TV set up inside with a few chairs, and whatever could be viewed on it was inop on the day I was there.  But there was a laminated card that told some really interesting history on that simulator shell. 

 When the B-58’s were taken out of service in 1970, leftover equipment related to the airplanes was sold to the public as surplus.  The shell that went with the simulator was one of the items sold.  In 2000, 30 years later, the shell was found by a museum volunteer in a backyard being used as a shed for a riding lawnmower!  What an unusual set of circumstances that led to the shell being found, then donated to the museum and then restored for people to see.  It’s the only known simulator cockpit to still exist.  In fact, it was believed that all of them had been destroyed until this one was stumbled upon.  I thought it was really cool that they had a picture of it when it was just a mower shed… and then I was surprised today when I realized that one of the pictures I took of it was almost the exact same angle.  So I put the two together in one pic to show it before and after : )

B-58 simulator shell as a mower shed, and as it is today restored in the museum

The shell housed a simulator used in pilot training

It's quite a story from simulator shell to mower shed to museum artifact!

Video: How To Make Good Landings In The Convair B-58 Hustler

 'B-58 Week' ends today, but not before we check out a few more cool details of Convair's Mach 2 Hustler.  This video is one of them.  This is basically a USAF training film that doesn't even have any sound, and it isn't fast paced.  Some of you will leave it right away, and boy will you be missing some cool stuff.  

 The cool stuff is the multitude of landings seen from behind the airplanes with a camera sitting near the end of the runway.  The lesson is about how to make good landings and what can be done to avoid a pesky rocking back and forth on the main gear during the touchdown.  Being a delta wing aircraft, the approach is flown at a high angle of attack... about 12 degrees.  This, coupled with a touchdown speed near 200 mph and a pretty stiff set of main gear legs made it easy to get this beast of an airplane rocking left and right on the gear.  Some of these landings look like a pretty wild ride!

 If you're anything like me, you'll find this some pretty fascinating stuff to watch and learn from : )

B-58 Proves Supersonic Ejection To Be Bear-able In 1962

 The Convair B-58 originally went into service in 1960 with standard ejection seats, but the possibility of ejecting at supersonic speeds and at extreme high altitude meant the crewman stood little chance of surviving these extreme conditions.  To deal with this situation, Convair worked with the Stanley Aircraft Corporation to develop an escape capsule.  The capsule is shown in the pic above, and it was an extremely interesting piece of equipment that actually closed clamshell doors over the crewman and then pressurized the capsule before ejecting out of the aircraft.

 The first live, inflight supersonic test of the escape capsule took place on March 21, 1962, but the body inside wasn't a member of the Air Force… it was a female bear name Yogi!  That's her in the photo above.  The bear most accurately represented the weight of a pilot, so they drugged her up, strapped her in, and then ejected her out of a B-58 at 35,000 and at a speed of 870 mph.  7 minutes and 49 seconds later, Yogi touched down under parachute, still inside the capsule doing just fine.  The Stanley escape capsule had proved to work great in protecting against the high wind blast, the extreme cold and the low air pressure.  About 2 weeks later another bear named Big John was ejected at 45,000 and at a speed over 1,000 mph!  Once again the capsule worked great and the bear reached the ground unharmed.

 This picture shows a B-58 ejection 'test sled' was used in the late 50’s and early 60’s.  It was mounted on a 4.1 mile track and used for early high speed ejection testing.  Shown here is an original style ejection seat just leaving the sled with a ‘dummy’ in the seat.

 Another ejection test shown in this picture using an actual B-58, but this time it’s one of the Stanley escape capsules.  In late 1962 they began retrofitting the B-58’s with the capsules.  All 3 crew locations were upgraded, but only the pilot’s capsule had a window in it as seen in the top pic.  It was possible to start the process by closing the clamshell doors and pressurizing the capsule while remaining in the aircraft.  The pilot was able to continue to fly the aircraft from inside the closed capsule.  This was useful in the event of a cockpit decompression or if smoke filled the cockpit.  If the full ejection was selected, the hatch would be jettisoned and then the seat rocket fired and sent the capsule on its way. 

 The capsules were designed to protection even after landing.  They included a variety of onboard survival gear and were also built to float.  Most important, the tests done with the bears proved that the system worked… in fact the Stanley ejection capsules had a working range of ground level at 120 knots all the way up to 70,000 feet and Mach 2.2.

 This picture gives a great view of the crew arrangement on the Convair B-58.  Pilot up front, bombardier/navigator in the middle, and the DSO (Defensive Systems Operator) in the back.

 I’ve got a couple more ‘B-58 Week’ posts to put up tomorrow as this special segment comes to an end… for now : )

Swanky Convair B-58 Derivative SST - Circa 1960

Convair Model 58-9 SST concept

 'B-58 Week' at AirPigz.com will be over soon, but there's still several posts yet to come:

 The first flight of the B-58 was in late 1956, and the airplane went operational with the USAF in 1960.  This first-ever supersonic bomber was expensive, complicated, and somewhat difficult to fly, but it was also a very successful hot rod in the rapidly expanding world of supersonic flight.  This put Convair in a unique position of having a proven basic design philosophy that could easily(?) be manipulated into creating a supersonic platform capable of carrying passengers.

 As these images show, the Convair 58-9 was a derivative of the B-58, with an extended fuselage and an added horizontal tail.  The smallish cross section would only allow for a 1+1 seating configuration for 52 passengers, and it would have likely been pretty cramped even then.  Imagine sitting in that last row looking up thru a really skinny aluminum tube!  But, a machine that could move your body at Mach 2 in the early 60’s would have been off-the-scale cool even if it was claustrophobic.

 It’s interesting to see that the concept clipped the wingtips and then added those straky winglets shooting out of the nacelles.  I gotta say that’s one of the sharpest looking design details ever!  Those outboard engines might have been one of the biggest drawbacks to the concept since there had been some serious troubles encountered on the B-58 when one of them would suddenly lose power for any reason while at supersonic speeds. 

 It appears that Convair had visions of using the 58-9 with the USAF to haul people, and for commercial airline use.  Most likely tho, the number of hurdles facing the concept from an engineering and operational standpoint, plus the overall comfort for the passengers both physically and emotionally pretty much meant that this was an airplane with nowhere to go.  The project never really got started, but it sure is great to be able to see from these images some of the ideas that were bouncing around the halls at Convair : )

CoolPix - Modern Military: B-58 Altitude Record of 85,360 Feet... In 1962!

(click pic for hi-res)

 You might be thinking this is just some old black and white photo of a guy wearing an odd looking helmet and flashing a cheesy 'ok' sign.  If that's what you're thinking, you are way wrong!  This is a very cool CoolPix indeed, and another in the recent string of B-58 hi-res photos during this special 'B-58 Week' here at AirPigz.com.

 I highly recommend you click the pic to get to the big version of it, and then take some time to soak up lots of small details as you look at Fitzhugh 'Fitz' Fulton sitting in the somewhat unusual cockpit of a Convair B-58 Hustler.  I find it fascinating that there are so many fabulous hi-res photos readily available from the U.S. Military and NASA during the 50's, 60's and 70's.  These photos do a great job of pulling us in a lot closer to see the people and the machines that were exploring the extreme world of flight and space exploration.

 This is one very special image for several reasons.

 For one, it's Fitz Fulton sitting in the cockpit.  Fitz spent 23 years in the USAF as a test pilot, and then worked from 1966 until 1986 as a NASA research pilot, followed by work as a test pilot at Scaled Composites until 1999!  During all those years, Fitz flew airplanes like the B-29 used to drop the X-1, the B-52 that dropped the X-15, the XB-70 at speeds up to Mach 3, the YF-12A as a project pilot, the 747 that dropped the Space Shuttle in the early glide tests, and as he is shown here, he was a project pilot on the B-58.  On September 8, 1962, Fitz set an altitude record with a 5,000kg payload (11,023 pounds) by flying a B-58 up to 85,360 feet!  And it appears that this record still stands today!  Fitz is an amazing man with an unbelievable amount of aviation experience, and this pic shows him sitting in an astounding aircraft.

 Given the video and podcast I posted recently that look at the U-2 flying at 70,000 feet, it pretty much boggles the mind to think that a B-58 carried such a heavy payload to over 85,000 feet way back in 1962.  The Hustler was expensive and somewhat difficult to fly, but you can't argue with the extreme capabilities that it exhibited so far back in time.

 I hope you take a few minutes to look closely at this picture and begin to feel just how big of an accomplishment the airplane was, and what a stunning time it was in the aerospace industry in the late 50' and 60's.

Video: Sukhoi Cobra Carrier Approach - Advanced Maneuver!

CoolPix - Modern Military: The Grissom Air Museum B-58 Hustler

(click pic for hi-res)

Here’s a second CoolPix already this week featuring Convair's awesome Mach 2 bomber!

 There are only 8 B-58 Hustlers still in existence today, and the oldest one happens to be sitting outside just an hour down the road from me.  It’s at the Grissom Air Museum which is on the old Grissom Air Force Base in Peru, Indiana.  The facility used to be called Bunker Hill AFB but was renamed Grissom in 1968 after Indiana native Virgil (Gus) Grissom perished in the Apollo 1 launchpad fire.  Today the base is known as the Grissom Air Reserve Base in conjunction with the Grissom Aeroplex. 

 The museum has a small building with several interesting artifacts, but the bulk of the displays are the airplanes sitting outside.  It’s quite a collection actually, including a B-47, B-17, B-25, KC-97, C-119, F-102, F-14 along with many others… and of course the B-58 shown in this picture that I took last Saturday.  As it sits, this is a TB-58A, the modified trainer version.  As the 4th airplane to come off the production line in Fort Worth, Texas, #55-663 was originally designated as a YB/RB-58A, one of the 11 pre-production aircraft.  116 Hustlers were built with the first one going into active service in 1960.  Interestingly, by early 1970, the B-58 was already being retired.  A lot of factors contributed to the relatively short service life of the airplane… I’ll get into that in another post.

 Only the 43rd Bombardment Wing (operating out of Carswell AFB in Texas and then Little Rock AFB in Arkansas) and the 305th Bombardment Wing at Bunker Hill flew the B-58.  That makes the stuff that went on just down the road from me a pretty huge part of U.S. Air Force history!  However, I was born in California in 1961 at the early part of the B-58 era, so I was a long way away from the Bunker Hill operations.  It wasn’t until I graduated high school that I would up in Indiana almost 10 years after the airplanes had stopped flying.  But I do remember being mesmerized by this awesome airplane as early as age 7, and I’m still very much stunned by her yet today!

 More 'B-58 Week’ coming soon : )

Video: Rotary Powered Sopwith Camel In Formation With A Spitfire

 If you're in a hurry, jump up to the 2:30 mark in the video to see the Sopwith's rotary engine started.  It's like a 160hp rabid animal attached to the front of the airplane!  You kinda get the feeling that the engine is the crazy master here, and the best you can do is not make it mad!  Actually it looks very cool, but you can sure see how much of a challenge operating an engine without a normal throttle is... especially one that weighs 345 pounds and spins with the prop!

 This nearly 9 minute video, from 2004, then moves on the show the WWI Sopwith Camel flying a pretty tight formation with Red Bull Air Race pilot Nigel Lamb in a WWII Supermarine Spitfire.  It's beautifully shot and is quite a treat to see these very different aircraft share the sky together.  It all comes from a group of people in New Zealand doing some amazing stuff building authentic World War I airplanes and engines.  Be sure to check out TheVintageAviator.co.nz website to learn more about their gorgeous work.

More Hustler Details As 'B-58 Week' Continues!

Convair B-58 Hustler

 I always find the ‘design process’ to be fascinating, and getting a chance to see what was in the mind of the designers along the way is very cool.  The graphic above shows some of the configurational concepts that were considered for the Convair B-58.  They’re all pretty similar to what was eventually selected, but they also show some definite differences.  As it often winds up in aircraft development, the final design is the one that really looks best overall, and I’d say that’s definitely the case with the Hustler.  The clean yet aggressive look of the 4 engines mounted in separate nacelles is pretty much perfect… and the coke-bottle fuselage shape is beyond awesome.  I’m thinking the look of the airplane alone was probably enuf to strike some serious fear in any potential enemy!

 The picture below shows a B-58 with all 3 crew hatches open.  This set up was a little different than typical bombers with a single pilot responsible for flying the airplane, much more like a fighter, and then 2 more crew stations mounted in tandem behind the pilot.  They each had a relatively small cockpit and had no way of seeing each other directly.  The 2nd seat was for the bombardier/navigator and the 3rd seat for the DSO (defensive systems operator). 

 Up front, the pilot’s seat was uniquely offset to the left so he wasn’t looking at the windshield center divider all the time.  He had great visibility thru the large windshield and side windows, but the other two guys only had small side windows for seeing out.  There was a ‘clothesline’ system that ran along one side of the crew compartment wall that allowed for the passage of paper or other small items, and of course they had radio com, but face to face communication simply wasn’t possible.  Given the radical nature of a supersonic bomber in the late 1950’s, coupled with the extremely complex nature of the airplane, I’m thinking it took some pretty wild individuals to sit in those back seats with hardly any view and trusting the guy up front as he guides this beast of an airplane that could climb at over 17,000 feet per minute at gross weight!

 More cockpit and crew details coming later, but one last point to make in this post.  It’s easy to overlook, but if you look at the nose gear in this pic, you might begin to wonder how that long leg could retract into the well when the very large weapons pod seems to be in the way.  If you look closely, you can kinda see a pivot point on the gear leg just above the point of the pod.  As the nose gear retracted, the upper part of the leg moved aft causing the lower leg with the wheels on it to pivot forward.  The rather complex arrangement allowed the entire assembly to collapse and fit right under the cockpit.  My research also indicates that the wheel wells (and the elctronics bays) were pressurized and air conditioned due to the extreme heat generated at Mach 2.  Can you even imagine the challenges faced in the late 50’s to make all these complicated systems work… it’s pretty amazing stuff.  More details later as ’B-58 Week’ continues!