Convair B-58A Hustler
Convair B‐58A 59‐2447 RAPID RABBIT
43rd Bombardment Wing, Carswell AFB Texas, February 1962
The Convair B-58 Hustler, designed and produced by American aircraft manufacturer Convair, was the first operational bomber capable of Mach 2 flight. The B-58 was developed during the 1950s for the United States Air Force Strategic Air Command (SAC). To achieve the high speeds desired, Convair adapted the delta wing used by contemporary fighter jets. The bomber was powered by four General Electric J79 engines. Lacking a bomb bay, the aircraft carried a single nuclear weapon plus fuel in an unorthodox combination bomb/fuel pod beneath the fuselage. The B-58 was never deployed with conventional bomb loads.
The B-58 was operated by a crew of three: pilot, bombardier/navigator, and defensive systems operator. The crew were seated in three separate cockpits arranged in tandem. The space allocated to the crew, despite being roughly half of the fuselage’s internal volume, was typically considered to be cramped and claustrophobic. The electronic controls were advanced for their day, featuring wraparound dashboards with warning lights and buttons, and automatic voice messages and warnings from a tape system were audible through the helmet sets. Research during the era of all-male combat aircraft assignments revealed that a woman’s voice was more likely to gain the attention of young men in distracting situations. Nortronics Division of Northrop Corporation selected actress and singer Joan Elms to record the automated voice warnings. To those flying in the B-58, the voice was known as “Sexy Sally”. Later versions of the B-58 provided each crew member with a novel ejection capsule that could eject at an altitude of 70,000 ft (21,000 m) at speeds up to Mach 2. Unlike standard ejection seats of the period, a protective clamshell enclosed the seat and the control stick with an attached oxygen cylinder, allowing the pilot to continue to fly even “turtled up” and ready for immediate egress. The capsule was buoyant; the crew member could open the clamshell, and use it as a life raft.
The B-58 entered service in March 1960, and flew for a decade. The aircraft was designed to fly at high altitudes and supersonic speeds to avoid Soviet interceptors. However with the introduction of high-altitude surface-to-air missiles, the B-58 was forced to adopt a low-level-penetration role that severely limited its operational deployment. The B-58 was substantially more expensive to operate than other bombers, such as the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, and required more frequent air-to-air refueling. The B-58 also suffered from a high rate of accidental losses. These factors resulted in production of only 116 aircraft and a relatively brief operational career of ten years.
Two bomb wings operated the B-58 during its service with the SAC: the 43rd Bombardment Wing, based at Carswell, Texas from 1960 to 1964, and Little Rock, Arkansas from 1964 to 1970; and the 305th Bombardment Wing, based at Bunker Hill, Indiana from 1961 to 1970. The 305th also operated the B-58 combat crew training school (CCTS), the predecessor of the USAF’s current formal training units.
The B-58 set nineteen world speed records, including coast-to-coast records, and the longest supersonic flight in history. Several of these records were set by Lieutenant Colonel Henry J. Deutschendorf Sr, none other than folk singer John Denver’s father. In 1963, a B-58 crew flew from Tokyo to London (via Alaska), a distance of 8,028 miles (12,920 km) in 8 hours, 35 minutes, 20.4 seconds, averaging 938 miles per hour (1,510 kilometres per hour). As of 2021, this record still stands.
B‐58A 59‐2447 RAPID RABBIT was a casualty of the B-58’s poor safety record when its flight control system developed a Mach trim problem. All three crew members survived by ejection during an inverted spin, although the pilot, Major John Irving, was injured due to a loose seat harness. This was just one of six accidents in the B-58’s first 10,000 hrs of SAC service.
