B-58 Hustler First Test Flight in Restored Color - 1956
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- Опубліковано 30 кві 2013
- On Veterans Day, Nov 11th, 1956 Convair's revolutionary delta wing B-58 "Hustler" supersonic bomber took to the skies for the first time, piloted by B. A, Ericson.
Zeno,
Zeno's Warbird Video Drive-In zenoswarbirdvideos.com
See this film and five more on our "Record Breaker: The B-58 Hustler Story DVD Volume 2" DVD bit.ly/TqefHs. Includes a TB-58 manual too!
You'll see both the low and high speed taxi testing, including front wheel lift off, that proceeded the B-58's first flight, delivering excellent footage of the silvery prototype from a number of angles. The first flight takes the aircraft to Mach .7 at 20,000' and back down again without a hitch -- and you'll see it all in this memorable color film I digitally restored the audio and video.
A pilot once said of the Convair B-58, "She looked like she was breaking the sound barrier just sitting on the tarmac."At Mach 2 +, the B-58 wasn't just one of the fastest bombers of her day, she was one of the fastest military planes period. A first cousin of the hot "century series" of fighters, the delta winged "Hustler' medium bomber combined outstanding performance with a striking, javelin-like profile that spawned a mystique that survives to this day. In the early 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, in just two years the B-58 captured 14 speed and performance records, many previously held by Soviet aircraft. She was not only capable of extended 700 mph on-the deck missions at 500 feet (then unheard of for a bomber and without the advantages of today's ground hugging radar or fly-by-wire) she also set altitude and climb records. The B-58 was capable of doing whatever was necessary to invade enemy air space.
![ОРБАН приехал к ПУТИНУ и "отчитался" о поездке в Киев 😁 [Пародия]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/_0ukDovOWq8/mqdefault.jpg)
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The fact that the B-58 was one of the most beautiful looking and record-setting aircraft ever produced is even more amazing when you realize that only a little over a decade earlier, Convair was building the B-24 Liberator. Talk about a leap in design & technology!!!
Major Henry J. Deutschendorf (John Denver's father) set speed records in the B-58
A friend of mine went to school with John and sang in the choir with him in high school.
Went through an altitude chamber class with Deutschendorf in the '50s at Davis-Monthan. If any one ever exhibited the "personality" of the B-58 it was he.
Thanks for that Chip, I never knew that, and there’s his son died because he couldn’t reach the secondary fuel tank switch, life is stranger than fiction !
OMG! I did not know that and I am the smartest man I know but I am not saying I am the smartest man you know.
@@audimanuk
Yep. The switch was located next to the seat headrest not on the console. 😢
Always thought that the B-58 looked Bad Ass, like it was mean as hell and meant business! Great to see these old films!
I remember building a B-58 Hustler Model as kid. It flew around my house more than it was ever on display.
Me too!
1964 or so..our family was stationed on an Air Force base in central California. I saw this plane flying overhead, and asked my dad what it was. He said "B-58." I responded, the "Hustler." Don't know how I knew that..but this little 8 year old boy won him some dad points.
I met chief test pilot (Beryl Erickson) at his house in Grand Junction 15 or so years ago. A true gentleman, very modest, downplayed his exceptional career in flight test. Hell of a guy, old school. GREAT stories.
My Dad worked at Convair from 1950 until he retired in 1982. He was so proud of everything they built and loved the company. He wasn't above bragging. He thought that their only mistake was the ill fated Sea Dart. I grew up listening to all of his stories about every aircraft they produced during his time there. RIP Dad.
Good for you. God bless your dad. Von Kleiga
You should write all those stories and share them with us! At the same time you will be honoring his memories!
God Bless your dad , I help build the F 4 Phantom , the company that built the F15 and F 18 hornet . McDonnell Douglas . In St. Louis MO.
I was stationed at Ramey Air Force Base from 1972 to 1973. I had the privilege of being assigned to the Honor Guard at the Base. On occasion for ceremony and parades we would be ferried around the islands on an Air Force T-29, a Convair 440. It was a relic from the fifties but it still worked flawlessly. When the engines were first started you could bearly see the plane for oil smoke but when it warmed up it was another story. I remember on on such trip to St. Thomas and back, on the return trip we flew though the heart of a thunderstorm at an altitude of4000 ft, the plane held together and got us back safely (and the plane did everything except fly upside down). God bless your father and all the other dedicated people that built, worked on, and flew these planes.
I liked the Sea Dart on display in San Diego Park. Interesting airplane.
My dad worked on every last airplane in that stable. Assembly Fabricator, Integral Tank Sealer and Flight Line Mechanic. The airplanes weren't dependent on him alone, but he was a steady, interested and willing worker that completed every task as if he was going to fly in the airplane as were many of us that worked in the plant. We weren't all just marking time to retirement.
B-58 styling was so beyond futuristic.
If today you had a fully-functioning aircraft and refilmed it you could convince most Americans it just rolled off the assembly line to join the stealth fleet.
My Dad was a Command Pilot flying a B-36 out of Carswell AFB, whose runway was used by General Dynamics Fort Worth. The B-58 you see in the video was nicknamed (by all who worked at building it) "The Harry J.," because of our neighbor and it's Chief Engineer, Dr. Harry J. Hillaker. Harry, who never used the appelation - he was Mr. Hillaker to me until I was commissioned into the Air Force - was always "Hi, I'm Harry." He attended a reception for me after I graduated from Texas A&M, and six years later, my wedding reception.
I was in the AF in 1966 to 69 at Bunker Hill Indiana, and while I was there they changed to name to Grissom. I was an emergency electrician working in the control tower at the time, when one of the 58's crashed on a training mission during take off. I was sent to the runway and helped to put 2 pilots in body bags after the training pilot brought the nose up to early...Never will I forget that day...
I built a model of this aircraft when I was a little boy. Still to this day I think it is the prettiest and fastest looking plane that has ever been built.
In 1960 I was a radar maintenance tech at a new SAC Radar Bomb Scoring site we had just built on Matagorda Island, off the coast of TX. The site was mostly used for training bombediers on SAC B52s and an occasional but rare 36 or 47. We had never seen a bomb run made at over 450 knots until one afternoon in early fall, when our first B58 Hustler (I think from Bunker Hill AFB) called in from an Initial Point way up on the OK/TX line, asking for an RBS run against our site. I was plotting that day and couldn't believe my eyes when I laid the scale up on his his track and measured a ground speed of over1200 knots! Then came the sonic boom experience for the first time. What a plane! I don't remember what his score was but on later runs, some 58s scored shacks, bombing jargon for circular error of less than 300 feet. I've been retired for almost forty years now but I'll never forget that first supersonic run.
The 58s used to make electronic bombing runs over Houston all the time. You could count on at least one sonic boom almost every day. I was in junior high school at the time. One day, I was at the window of the classroom, when, for some reason a B 58 made a nose dive. When he pulled out of it, he was probably two to three hundred feet above ground. I don't know if he had mechanical problems or what. About fifteen years later, 1966, I was happy to have my picture taken, standing in front of a Hustler, at Chanute AFB in our graduating class photo. I still have that picture on my office wall.
John, as a 13 year old maniac, I climbed aboard what I think was a targeting SAC train sitting on side tracks in north Mississippi, Clarksdale to be exact. I took pictures all over with my new $18 Polaroid instant camera. My question to you is....what would they have done to me if I had been caught? I even climbed on top of it and took photos of all the radio, radar antennas that were up there. Thank you for a reply! I'm 70 now. My Dad jumped my ass about it when I got home! "Don't you ever do that again son!" I didn't.
@@billcallahan7468 Still have the pictures?
@@johnmallard9548 No John, lost them long ago. I doubt they would've done anything to a stupid kid other than confiscate my camera & tell me to get my ass out of there. They might've been having lunch. It was about that time. Did you guys man the operation during lunch time if no planes were inbound? It was a SAC train. Had the mailed fist logo on the side & I think "Stratigic Air Command."
I was at St. George bomb from 64 to 68. I remember a shack job to be 50' or less. That's what I remember. Being 76 now might be a factor. 🙄🤕🤪
The legendary Col. Fitz Fulton, literally the best multi-engine pilot in the world in his day (even acknowledged by the Soviets as such), always said the B-58 Hustler was his favorite aircraft to fly. My grandfather, Vic Horton, made many YF-12 and SR-71 Blackbird flights with Fitz for NASA and also was on the original crew of the 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft with him.
It's hard to believe this stunning airplane first flew barely 11 years after the end of WW2! Amazing!
And they didn't get much faster in the next 62 years.
nd scrapped 5 years later
My late uncle Lloyd was a flight engineer in this plane.. I wish I had heard more of his stories about it…was a awesome plane..
It was cool to see B-36’s parked behind the B-58 at the hangar.
The 36's are my personal favorites, movie Strategic Air Command was reason for it.
My favorite plane growing up... absolutely beautiful... a piece of "mid-Century modern" art that flies! When I started building model kits in the mid 1960s (following in my big brother's footsteps) the Lindberg Line B-58 Hustler was my first one. A few years later, I did Monogram's larger scale version. One of the all-time coolest warbirds. Thanks for posting!
I too built B-58 plastic plane when I was a child. When I went into the Air Force little did I know that at the age of 19 (1964) straight out of Tech School I would be crewing the chase TB-58 for the X-B70 at Edwards AFB. OMS 6515th that was 1965. Those tires had to be changed every 7 landings even if they looked good due to the heat generated during landing. Used to sit under the wing leaning on the main gear reading Tech orders learning the airplane. Those where the days I enjoyed most in the Air Force. Went on to be a crew chief on C-141A's and C-130 E's and left in 1990, still miss those days. Being a civilian has been really boring compared to military service on these great airplanes. Now 73 and still miss those days under that delta wing.
Same here MKIVWW1. Think my first B-58 kit was from Revell. Sure wanted to see it in real life.
My older brother built that very model. The shape and color scheme really caught my eye.
Remember Funk&Wagnals had a picture of a B-58 in beginning of the "A" book sold @ supermarkets loved it!!.
neat had a blessed career Thanks.
Beautiful aircraft. It was nice to see the B36 on the taxiway as well.
Couple of em👍🏼
As a kid I had a model b-58 Hustler..always my favorite!
This will forever be my favorite airplane of all time. I actually got to see on first hand in Arizona a couple of years back. It is much bigger than one would assume by the pictures and film coverage. What a gorgeous machine.
I worked at GD Ft. Worth (formerly Convair) from 65 to 67 in the antenna group. B-58s were being brought in for rework prior to being retired in 70. I remember being amazed at how tall they were as I walked by them out in the main plant. So much fun watching them take off and land.
I'm 74, Both my parents worked for Convair in San Diego in the early 50's. Both worked on the B-36 project. Now I have a nephew who is a engineer working for NASA in Texas on the deep space probes project. Very cool stuff. Never saw the Hustler but I did have a model of it when I was about 10.
There's one in Pima and Dayton Air Force Museums.
There's one parked near a hanger at Meecham Field in Ft Worth.
@@michaelallen1396 Thanks Michael, I'll have to check out Pima. I live in Phoenix.
@@michaelallen1396 I also assembled a model of the B-58 when I was a kid in the early 60's. My brother retired from the Air Force when based in Tucson and we have visited Pima. I now have a picture of myself standing next to a full-sized authentic B-58. Visiting Pima and the boneyard were amazing adventures!
I always thought this was the coolest looking plane I’ve ever seen.
This was only eleven years after WW2. The advancement in flight technology starting with the Wright brothers is nothing short of phenomenal! It was only 13 years later when men walked on the moon!
The three or four decades after WW2 saw a massive boom in technology. Look at the Naval fighters in 30 year brackets. In 1945, the best Naval fighter in the world was the F4U Corsair with a top speed of just over 400 mph. 30 years later the best naval fighter in the world was the F-14 Tomcat that could fly twice the speed of sound and hit targets over 100 miles away. 30 years after that, the best fighter in the world was still the Tomcat.
Yeah, the Me 262 was the basis for all our jet technology
My Dad knew a person at Convair,and he dragged me and Mom to the bay to watch the test flight day !!! We sat there 3 hours !
When are we going home? When are we going home?, Can I have an ice cream? Da-aad, da-aad when are we going?
I want to go. I'm going- bye!
The most beautiful plane ever built !!
My Dad was a crew chief on B-58's for a short time. Hated that thing. He said 40 hours of maintenance for every hour in the air. Landed so fast, it blew tires all the time.
Such a beautiful aircraft built with cutting edge tech for the day. True craftsmanship in that generation.
Just think 11 years prior to this, the B-17 was the main bomber of the Army Air Forces with the B-29 closing the gap. Amazing.
Barely a decade after the end of WWII... This thing was ahead of its time
My father loved this airplane. In the late-'50s he bought an injection molded plastic model B-58 Hustler which was about three feet long; that's from memory when I was almost four years old. My father launched the model by hand while standing on the porch of our home and the aircraft went thirty feet or so in a somewhat stable fashion.
Had the opportunity to see the B-58 fly during cold weather testing in 1959 at Fairbanks, AK. Then, in 1963, was able to refuel in flight one of them from a base in Indiana. The Hustler was a beauty to watch. Boomer.
Boomer, I was giving weather briefs to KC-135 alert crews via CCTV in 1976-77 at Grissom. A B-58 was on static display at Chanute where I took my weather training. She was and is still a thing of beauty.
Amen, brother.
Sooner
@easyjack, Was it tested out of Fbks or actually Eielson AFB, I'm a little younger, thus witnessed the winter testing of the F15 @ Eielson!!👍🇺🇸
The cold weather testing was done at Eielson AFB. I was there in Feb. 1959 to see some of the flights, as well as static testing.
Interesting factoid. One instance of testing was how the airframe and access panels reacted to extreme weather changes. The B58 sat in a hangar (at +57° F) for a day or so. An access panel, about 14" by 24", was removed and the plane towed outside into -30°F and sat for 24 hours. The access panel was then taken out to be installed in its proper place but it would not fit. It was too large, due to it not contracting while in the "heated" hangar.
It was a beautiful aircraft, but a maintenance nightmare.
I grew up just a few miles from Bunker Hill AFB. B-58s flew over our house daily. Sonic booms were common in those days. Absolutely beautiful aircraft.
One of my favorite aircraft of all time...
My dad worked in avionics at Little Rock Air base in 1964-66. What a beautiful bird. My mom still has matching ear rings and necklace of a silver B-58 silhouette on a dark blue background. Dad said it was his favorite. Keep 'em flying.
This is facinating to see this bird during its initial testing thank you Zeno ,as a 9-10 year old in the early sixtys I remember talking my dad out of enough money to buy a cool B58 Hustler model which he helped me build those were the days :)
Still have a model, have yet to build it.
What an absolute beast of a plane.
To me this is one of the most attractive planes I have ever seen backed up by incredible performance.
Always loved that jet! Beautiful!
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Nice trip to nostalgia land, I remember watching the first flight go over our house. But I have to complain about an omission/error in the narration. The narrator says that the extremely long landing gear were there to deal with the angle needed at takeoff. That completely ignores the real reason! (I wrote to Zeno about this and he pointed out that the narration was written by the DoD, so this is not his fault!)
Remember this was a bomber: What significant bomb of that day could have been carried in such a narrow-bodied plane? (Look at how the area-ruled fuselage narrows down between the front and rear aerodynamic surfaces.) Weaponry was to be carried in the external "pod" below the belly of the plane. Naturally there was no weapons pod on the plane for that first test flight.
The pod was large, as big as the fuselage of many fighters then and now. There were to be different pod designs for different kinds of munitions and even for non-weapons tasks such as data gathering. The plane had to be able to roll on the landing gear with the pod installed, for takeoff clearly but even for landing in the case of some applications such as reconnaissance. With shorter landing gear the pod would not have fit under the fuselage. Without it, no weaponry, not a bomber.
Space for the pod was the real reason for the long gear. Other planes have had enough power to use a similarly steep angle at takeoff. That must have had no major part in the need for the long landing gear, as claimed in the narration! My father was involved in B-58 design, although in the electronics. Sadly he is no longer available, otherwise I would ask him!
This was a military promotional movie, no doubt, at the time it was made, there was no desire to show people how the aircraft would be used. Saying that the undercarriage was long for that reason might have given unwanted eyes a peek under the kimono!
Had many Revell models of this beauty in the 60s. Thanks for the vid.
I was born on Carswell Air Force Base in 1954. We stayed there until 1960. The body of water was Lake Worth.
The B58 had a timeless look just like the B52 F104 T38 and others.
I always liked the B58 from my childhood and model building.
Hadn't realized it had 3 canopies before. A rather special look with all 3 open.
PasswordB, my dad flew the B-36 from about 1949 to 1957, and then worked for Convair for a couple of years! I don’t know which division, though. I got to see one ‘58 in flight in 1967. What an absolutely gorgeous bird! 🤙🏼
Great video! Kind of makes me sad that the days are gone when people would happily vacuum up movies like this, full of cool tech and lots of detail. Now, if you don't entertain them within the first 10 seconds, they're gone.
The music just makes my heart pound for this sexiest of airplanes that I loved as a kid and still do, never mind its problems. This is the 'Vindicator' bomber of the movie Fail Safe.
If you compare the trucks and cars that we had in 1956 versus the advanced look of the B-58 you can imagine that the ground crew was pretty amazed at seeing this thing fly.
You see where B-1 bomber got a start, especially the fuselage.
When we were stationed at Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque, every plane ever made I think would fly in and out of there for the special, secret stuff they did there. I vividly remember seeing several of these coming and going. We were kids and had a great place we would go and watch the planes land and takeoff. So incredibly loud! BTW, first model airplane I ever built.
............ I seen one B-58 fly overhead while at the Zion School in Pewaukee, WI at recess time. I brought it to the attention of our teacher and the rest of the class, it was probably the only time we ever had to witness the might of the military at that time which was in the year 1958 I believe.
In 1957 I was 12 years old and lived in Dayton, Ohio. I earned extra money cutting yards for my some of my Dad's friends. One of his friends had all girls and in those days girls didn't cut grass. My Dad was at that time a Navigator in the USAF at Wright Patterson AFB. The name of My Dad's friend was Major James Zwayer ( i hope I spelled right). He was a test pilot on the B-58. I mention this because while flying the "Hustler" he had to eject at a high rate of speed. Unfortunately when he ejected from the Plane, his head/helmet was caught by the blast of wind and this snapped his neck. Men who gave their lives in the service of their Country should not be forgotten even in peace time. I'm 74 and though this happened over 60 years ago, I still remember Maj. Zwayer and his family.
He was flying in an SR-71.."On January 25, 1966, Lockheed test pilot Bill Weaver and backseater Jim Zwayer suffered a flameout in their SR-71’s right engine and immediately lost control. “I didn’t think the chances of surviving an ejection at Mach 3.18 and 78,800 ft. were very good,” Weaver said. “…I learned later the time from event onset to catastrophic departure from controlled flight was only 2-3 sec. Still trying to communicate with Jim, I blacked out, succumbing to extremely high g-forces. The SR-71 then literally disintegrated around us. From that point, I was just along for the ride.”
Weaver’s pressure suit inflated, preventing his blood from boiling and the wind from tearing him apart. Because of the thin atmosphere at its operating altitude, a Blackbird flying faster than 2,000 mph encounters wind force equivalent to about 460 mph down below, but the air is also too thin to prevent a parachutist from spinning or tumbling so fast as to suffer injury. With Weaver unconscious, his Lockheed RQ201 seat automatically deployed a drogue chute to prevent spin, and popped the main chute at 15,000 feet just as Weaver came around. Unfortunately, Zwayer died of a broken neck during the aircraft breakup."
@@oxcarthabu Thanks for setting the record straight. I plead youth and second hand information. In those days I don't think most people even knew the SR-71 existed. Again thanks for correcting my memory.
This first flight was made on the day I was born!
We went from 1918 flying wood, Wires and Canvas airplanes flying at 120 mph at around 18,000 ft to 1,000 mph at around 68,000 ft. , with no parachutes to escape capsules capable at mach 2 in 38 years! WOW, now that's what I call AMAZING! What was even hard to do before the 1920's was common place in civil aviation just 30 years later.
Thanks for sharing Best Wishes n Blessings. Keith Noneya
A couple of years ago I met a man that had been a crew chief on a B 58. He told me if one of the engines had gone out it would spin out of control
Quite Amazing.
Who cares that it was a nightmare to maintain and that in the end it was not that effective of a bomber ... it is still the most awesome looking bomber ever built!
Still one of my top 5 favs. Beautiful lines scream power and speed.
I saw them take off overhead from a parking place on the south end of the runway, off base at Bunker Hill AFB. Later Grissom AFB. Totally awesome
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Dad worked for the phone company,and wasn't "supposed" to know,but somehow, our family of 3 just "happened" to be driving slowly past Convair as that first flight was made. MAN, as soon as the model came out I had one hanging from 10lb mono from my ceiling !!! Later in life I was blessed to work with a few of the women welders at Solar,SD that had built the original after-burner prototypes. Back when it was a company that cared about its employees.
I still think the hustler and Boeing’s B 47 are the most beautiful bombers ever created.
@@claytonbouldin9381 oh yeah the blackbird is legendary, still holds all the big speed records.
Pretty to look at, but awful flying characteristics.
Such rapid technical advancement in aviation in the 40's and 50'.
Amazing. And aside from necessity of cold war & ww2, made possible largely due to competition from a wide variety of independant manufactures, a situation no longer existing today...
This plane still has a modern look to it.👍
For some reason the first taxi maneuver (mentioned at the beginning of the clip) was televised, and I happened to be watching. I was 10 years old, and I was impressed. Later on they (and KC-135 tankers) were stationed at Bunker Hill AFB (later Grissom AFB), which lay right on US-31, the route between my home and Butler University. I saw a lot of them on the ground.
I love videos like this but the best part is looking at the planes in the background on this film ,B 36 etc'
One of the most beautiful and badass jets of all time!
I agree as a child I fell in love with it,such a sexy aircraft,,I love the B-1 lancer too but this my first love for aircraft's
Very true. I was at Chanute AFB in the mid-1970s and they had one on static display. Very nice.
Great video, thanks for posting it. The B-58 is such an attractive aircraft without its mission pod and rather menacing with it.
It must have been something see them take off. My dad was stationed in Indiana he was a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force I have a picture of Gus Grissom holding me I'm about 1 years old on the wing of a fighter plane. I was born in 64 so it had to have been 65 or 66
And, to see them land. Only one occasion I had while I crossed the southern east/west street of McConnell AFB in '59 or '60. I was driving a paint delivery for a company I worked for in college and heard, then saw a B-58 emerge from a fairly low overcast and cross over the street in front of me as it approached the southern end of the runway. It's angle of attack was alarming and it was going at quite a clip. Haven't forgotten that incident over the years.
Love this bird! I was born in 1957, and birds of this era inspired me to join the USAF in 1976.
I was born in 76. Because of heroes like you and my late Air Force Colonel and grand father, I was set to join the USAF and proceed with a career in with the elite!
Unfortunately my father passed away and my plans changed. His two tours in Vietnam with our US Army took it's toll on him and broke him. He could not live with the horrors he had seen and performed, his own written words, and eased his pain by taking his life.
I was mad at first but there are all types of losses when it comes to defending our country and it's citizens.
May our Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on ALL the people that were lost in on both sides of any conflicts we have been involved in!
Sorry if this turned emotional.....
Thank you.
One of the coolest looking planes.
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One of the most Bad Ass jets ever assembled.
To have been alive and served during the 1950s and early 1960s would've been incredible. We owe a lot to those guys who were prepared to do so much had the Cold War turned hot.
So many decades ago and I've not yet made up my mind. It's either the B-58 Hustler or the B-70 Valkyrie.
Wow what a pair!
I grew up near Wright Patterson Air Force base. they have the US Air Force Museum. Inside they have both of your airplanes completely restored, and they look awesome! The Valkyrie is in the Experimental hangar, and the Hustler is in the Cold War hangar. The best aviation museum in the world, with a special mention to the Smithsonian's, but the AF museum just can't be beat! It is open almost all year, and it is free to tour the museum. They also have one of the first IMAX theaters. I've been there over 100 times in 50 years.
@@3-2-1-. are you sure it's free. It'll cost every dime I have just getting there and I'd hate to come all that way and not get in.
@@3-2-1-. I would love to visit that museum. Last year I got a couple of hours at the Museum of flight in Seattle before my flight home to the UK.
We have a very good museum at Duxford with an entire hangar devoted to US planes containing a B52 and SR71 among others. It's a home for quite a few warbirds which fly regularly, including a Bearcat and of course you can ride in a Spitfire if you have deep pockets.
I built a 58 plastic model as a young kid late 50's, always loved the look of that plane, same with the 70.
had one land at an airbase where I was stationed. I saw it up close and personal and what an aircraft.
This is the first time I've seen a video of it flying "clean". Very cool.
What an incredible plane especially for 1956! Beautiful too
Dad was working almost every weekend both Saturday and Sunday back in 1956-58 on the airplane sealing leaking tanks. Flight test on weekdays and tank sealing on weekends. Apparently there were allot of fuel leaks.
I love watching this stuff.
That Gravelly Cigarettey voice is so soothing.
The Hustler always looked like it should be doing Mach 3 even when standing still.
Amazing to see those views north of Carswell before the land was overtaken by suburban sprawl.
If you look closely at one of the taxi tests (6:08) you'll see a big water tower. It was basically in my grandparents back yard. Yeah...amazing to see that at one time it was on the outskirts of Ft Worth. Now it's been surrounded.
My exact thoughts, I was checking out Lake Worth and some other land marks that still exist.
I grew up in Azle...moved there in 1965 when I was 3. I don't know what plane it was but I remember them flying over and hearing the sonic booms
@@dougiefresh2521 I remember seeing that plane plane there at Meecham
@@raymondblacklock They were loud!
Sexiest jet bomber ever made, in mho. Thanks for this one.
Lots of B-36 Peacemakers @ around 5:45. The 50's obviously, was a neat time to be alive if you loved cutting edge aircraft. So much advancement in such a small time. The B-58 was one of my favorite planes (model) that I "flew" around my yard as a kid. A a real looker.
So many experts.
The testing and development of a new aircraft is a long and expensive process.
Parts and assemblies are tested to destruction, long before an aircraft is built. When a complete aircraft is ready for it's first flight, engineers are rarely surprised at anything on the first flight.
In those days, everyone calculated with a slide rule and human brain power. I had an entire one semester college course on how to operate a slide rule.
Now, with computers and the ingenuous programs, every aspect of the aircraft is functionally tested before any thing is ever built.
I was involved a small way in the development of the Bell-Boeing V-22.
Few may be aware of an important role assumed for the B-58. USAF and NASA ran a series of flight research tests on the XB-70. The chase plane for the research flights was a TB-58. February 1969 the XB-70 escorted by the TB-58 and an F-104 was flown directly to Dayton Ohio at the U.S. Air Force Museum "where warbirds go to rest".
My first show at Edwards (1966) a B-58 flew chase on the XB-70. That was something I'll never forget.
Chanute AFB had one on static display when I was there in 1979 for Tech School. It was one cool looking bomber.
How much would it cost to buy one today for static display
Were are they now rooting in the desert
US had so many amazing planes in the1950s.
A few of the B-58 speed records have not yet been challenged. I heard one pilot who flew a speed run that it was likely able to make 2000 mph but the vibration from the engines was a concern so they kept the top end speed down by putting throttle stops in to prevent over speed. Air frame was a 2500 mph design with out the engine pods in supersonic wind tunnel test and table top calculations.
There was an unofficial run of 1834 knots in one during training. It melted the generator/alternator into a blob.
Cool! Lots of B-36's.
Mike M I live in San Antonio, TX and we used to have a plane similar to the B-36 in static display next to Kelly AFB. It was the XC-99. A prototype to the B-36. As a kid my dad would take me to see it and climb inside it. They charged $1.00 to go inside the plane. A grown man could walk inside the wings! The plane is no longer here in SA. It was taken to Dayton Ohio to be preserved which is a good thing.
My Dad worked for Lockheed on the P-38; then finished his engineering career with Convair/General Dynamics working on the B-36, B-58, and F-111. Lots of advances during that time.
My dad worked construction on the base during this time and actually got to see it fly for the very first time. He was part of a B-24 crew during WWII and was always fascinated by aircraft. The first model airplane he every bought me was a B-58. Great memories. Oh, there is one at the Air Flight Museum just outside of Houston, Texas. She doesn’t fly but she sure is beautiful...
My family got to see this plane up close at Grissom AFB at Bunker Hill in Peru, Indiana (SAC) in the late 60’s. One still sits outside right along Highway 31 in the outdoor museum. One of the largest planes on the display there.
Love this. Never realized there were three different access points for crew...
Yes that really looks cool.
The USAF aircraft that came out of the late 50's early 60's, like the B-70 and SR-71, were pretty spectacular in terms of performance. Designed around the idea of high altitude, high speed being the top priority, they certainly excelled at that. Unfortunately, advances in radar and the introduction of SAMs put an end to that design philosophies' relevance except for reconnaissance.
I wish we had a restored one in flying condition.
No, it has "tall landing gear" primarily because it NORMALLY carried a huge pod underneath it's fuselage, which contained a large, heavy thermonuclear bomb!
The similar but smaller pod for the A4D was highly classified so the one for the B-58 may have been too.
If Hot Wheels made airplanes, the Hustler would be one along with the Valkyrie and the Lancer. Most beautiful bad azz airplanes ever!
Really, I was thinking how fugly it was. This was at a time when the UK had the Valiant, Victor and Vulcan - works of art compared to this.
Dad worked at NACA and built the wind tunnel models on his lathe at Langley... As a WWII veteran he worked on several designs for their wind tunnel. A boy that grew up in Hampton with a dad at Fort Monroe in the Coastal Artillery. He was always proud of his work on the Hustler and the X15 before NASA was created and moving to Texas to build/open the manned spacecraft center. He retired after the Sky lab and did contract work for the Shuttle. Boy those "kids" that served in WW2 and then thru the GI bill built these birds.... just wow....
Thanks for posting this video! I remember my father telling me about this unusual and awesome bomber. I really liked it along with models I built of the XB-70.
An old squadron mate(Wild Weasel EWO) had 20+ hours of mach2 time in the Hustler.