Convair's Mach 2 bomber: B-58 Hustler

Have you ever seen something that was beautiful and frightening all at once? Something that got your attention and commanded respect the moment you laid eyes on it.

Something seductive and dangerous-a mean machine. Convair's B-SX Hustler was just that. Its shapely, area-ruled fuselage and delta wing gave it a fluidity that was distinctive. Few who saw it ever forgot it.

Over the course of aviation history, aircraft with dashing good looks and an exciting presence have traditionally been small, sleek and rakish-generally fighters. Everyone knows that bombers, especially in the immediate postwar era, weren't in that league. Handsome? Perhaps. Increasingly large and long-ranged? Definitely. But sexy? No way. That is until the B-58. Born out of the Air Force's Generalized Bomber Studies of the late 1940s, the Hustler was Convair's answer to the service's requirement for a supersonic bomber. After a long and ambitious development program, a gorgeous airplane far ahead of its time emerged-a four-- engine nuclear bomber that could reliably strike targets a long way off at a pace nothing else in the sky could match. Speed was definitely on its side. Capable of maintaining speeds of Mach 2 and above, the slippery bomber was designed to dash over targets at a high altitude and rain down nuclear or conventional bombs on enemies before they knew what hit them.

Curiously, though, this striking aircraft has never been given much attention. The B-58 served just 10 years in the USAF from 1960 to 1970. Universally praised by the crews who flew it, the Hustler wasn't as popular in other quarters. Cost was an issue throughout its service life. The technological innovations that made it such a tremendous performer had take more time and expense to achieve than had been originally predicted. Funding had been difficult to procure, and budget battles in Washington and inside the Air Force had led to a relatively small purchase of B-58s (only 116 were built). Furthermore, the aircraft was expensive to operate, especially in comparison with its more traditional bomber counterpart, the Boeing B-52.

Additionally, the Strategic Air Command (SAC) was never very comfortable with the Hustler. It did not fit SAC's idea of what a bomber should be-big and long-ranged. The airframe characteristics that gave the B-58 its amazing speed limited its size and, therefore, its range and weapons-carrying ability. The aircraft was also at a disadvantage because the mission it had been designed for had changed. By the time it became operational, Russian surface-to-air missile (SAM) technology had progressed considerably. Flyin at a high speed and high altitude no longer guaranteed safety from SAMs, so the Hustler was sent in low. Though crews claim it did a very creditable job on the deck, this was an environment for which it was not optimized. Finally, the B-58 suffered from a rather inaccurate reputation as being dangerous; fact is, for the bulk of its service life, its mishap rate was quite comparable with those of other high-performance aircraft of its day. However, several well-publicized accidents during its development and early operational career did not endear it to the Air Force.

All of these factors contributed to its brief operational career. Perhaps that short tenure, combined with the fact that it never saw combat, is the reason the B-58 has often been overlooked in the annals of aviation history. Nevertheless, the B-58 was a history-making aircraft, and it is long overdue for a second look. In salute to that history, here are four stories about the history makers.

10:30 A.M., OCTOBER 16, 1963

Kadena AFB, Okinawa, Japan

Operation Greased Lightning

"We took off at about 10:30 a.m.; I was ready to go! The interesting thing was that I took off on October 16. Then we crossed the international dateline and I was back to October 15. Then later, over Greenland, I was back to October 16. saw the sun rise twice on October 16, 1963."

Maj. Sidney Kubesch had a grand view of those two dawns that fall morning. He was in the cat-bird's seat, flying as pilot in command of B-58A number 61-2059 from the 305th Bomb Wing, Bunker Hill AFB, Indiana. Along with him were his navigator, Maj. John Barrett, and defensive systems operator (DSO), Capt. Gerard Williamson. Like most B-58 drivers, Sid Kubesch was a talented and experienced pilot, having logged many hours in the Boeing B-47 Stratojet before being chosen as one of the first operational pilots to fly the Hustler. On this crisp October morning, Kubesch, Barrett and Williamson were about to make history. Their day began in Okinawa, Japan. It would end a record-setting 8 hours, 35 minutes later in England. Operation "Greased Lightning" was under way.

"Early on in the B-58 program, the Air Force wanted to show everyone just what we had in terms of capability. So they scheduled a series of record attempts for the airplane and began going after certain records. Being one of the first pilots through training in the Hustler, I was put on the Standardization Board as an instructor in the airplane, and I checked out the other guys. There had been several record flights already, and Carswell (43rd Bomb Wing at Carswell AFB) had been getting all the glory, so they thought they'd let the 305th have a try.