B-58 Hustler at Little Rock AFB

B-58 is coming to the Little Rock AFB static display park. From the story I hear it was one of the last at Little Rock and was recently found in a warehouse in Texas. The thing seems to be in remarkable condition for it's age which kinda backs up the story I heard. The wings and engine nacelles were in a parking lot with the fuselage when it first showed up last week but they aren't around right now.

I will try and take pics of the progress through to completion
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^^ This is one particular aircraft I would love to see fly once again. One of the most amazing supersonic bombers for its time in aviation history. This one in in my favorites list.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx-uZZVc0dE[/ame]

 

Excellent. Subscribed.

 

As part of an USAF review - listen to the shriek as it passes overhead.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmseXJ7DV4c[/ame]

 

Prob My favorite...Love everything about it. There is one at the Air museum in Galveston but it suffered some major damage in a hurricane a few years back.

 

That's one airplane I'm sorry that I never saw fly. This one is actually a TB-58 trainer, as noted by the larger windows for the second-seater.

 

I was kinda wondering about that. It says TB-58 right above the serial number in the one pic but I'm not all that familiar to know what the differences might be.

 

Love the J-79

 

Great airplane. I saw one in the museum at Chanute AFB, Illinois. Up until the late 1980's a B36 was also on display at the museum. That Convair B36 was taken apart and moved to California and is now on display. Amazing what they can move. I know the Convair XC99 was also moved from Texas to the Ohio Air Force Museum. Convair B58's are on display in both Indiana, Ohio, Kansas, Illinois and California and now Arkansas it looks like. Maybe a few more.

Tom Tanner/Ferrari Expo 2012-Chicago March 17th 2012

 

Haha... "Old Smokey"...

 

The 'TB-58' was the training version... they were modified from the prototypes to train pilots and crews. There were only about 10 of those.

The B-58 was not an easy plane to fly or land. For instance an engine out at supersonic speeds could make it almost uncontrollable.

Had a pretty high accident ratio.

 

Grissom AFB has one on display also. That thig is all engines and fuel tank.

 

That thing underneath was either a fuel tank or a weapons pod. To have either discounts the beautiful super sonic configuration of the basic airframe thus crippling the idea of the whole thing.

 

The two others I can think of are at Lackland/Kelly AFB in San Antonio, TX and Edwards AFB in SoCal. The one at Lackland/Kelly looks pretty lousy because they didn't have the engine nacelles and what they fabb'ed up look like oversize cigar tubes. The one out at Edwards isn't actually on display, it's a wreck out in the desert. The plane was some sort or radar testbed and I think it has "Snoopy II" painted on the nose if memory serves. I have pictures of both but it will take a few days to dig them up.

 

What an amazing plane. I can't imagine what it was like to fly at Mach 2 in those days.

 

If I recall corectly, it was both a fuel tank AND an atomic bomb in the same pod.

It had no internal bomb bay.

Gorgeous plane without the pod... but no pod, no range (fuel) or atomic bomb.

At altitude, it was suseptible to Soviet radar and ground to air missles. The only way to avoid those was to fly at low altitude. At low altitude it lost both its speed and range advantages.

It was pretty much obsolete while it was still being built. Only operational for 8 or so years.

I built a model of the Hustler when I was a kid... I left the ugly pod off.


BTW, they used the TB-58's to help train future SR-71 Blackbird pilots as it was only about 900 mph slower than the Blackbird... ha

 

I think there is one at Offutt AFB in Nebraska.

 

I forgot the one in Arizona near the Air Force bone yard.They were in service from 1960-1970 after wich they went into long term storage in Arizona. They started scrapping in 1974, when the Air Force was trying to get the B1A. Go to airliners.net to see color photos of them in the bone yard at Davis Monthan in various stages of being broken up. They were based in Indiana and Arkansas mainly while active.


Tom Tanner/Ferrari Expo 2012-Chicago March 17th 2012

 

Serial number 55-668 was the TB-58A hit by Hurricane IKE in 2008 at Lone Star Flight Museum, Galveston, TX.

Moved to Little Rock AFB this year...

 

Interesting to know where it came from since it is in remarkably good condition. A bit unfortunate that it couldn't have found an indoor museum home as all the outdoor display aircraft show the effect of elements.

 

The plane was in a hangar when Ike stroke. You can see pictures after the hurricane here :

http://www.lsfm.org/

 

Did a little research on this B-58. That hurricane really set it back some. This was one of the most pristine examples left.


BEFORE THE HURRICANE
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So was the B-58 able to go supersonic with the large belly pod in place? Or only without it?

 

With the pod otherwise the plane ran out of fuel in only 30 mn...

 

I read that it was both - the idea being that it had fuel for the outbound leg, and was discarded along with the weaponry at the strike point, leaving the plane cleaned up and on internal tanks to dash back. Someone also told me that there was an alternate pod which was electronic counter-measures without a weapon.

A friend of mine had one of the scariest take-off videos I have ever seen of a B-58 in which something went wrong with the gear (supposedly). He pulled it up too quickly and went into a wing-rocking pilot induced oscillation. 30+ degree banks left and right for the length of the runway, fighter plane fast. You just knew it was going to make a big ball of flames any second - but he finally got the nose down and got enough airspeed to fly off safely. The video he had did not show the landing.