Anybody like Hustlers?

My feeling about the Hustler is that it was an airplane that was so challenged that it couldn't do its mission well. It was a magnificent success in pushing the envelope but simply negated its purpose. It was way ahead of its time but impractical.

 

The B-58 ranks #1 in terms of my all time favorite military aircraft. It is a real shame that more of them have not been preserved. The best one is at the USAF Museum in Dayton and perhaps the worst shape is the one at Pima in Tucson.

 

The "Hustler" was a genuine badass if there ever was one. I remember the sonic booms from my youth, a fond memory.
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My friend Dave Howard used to have a video (which was pirated from the FAA archives in Oklahoma City of aircraft crashes and near crashes) of the scariest takeoff I have ever seen...

B-58. It for some reason has some gear issues, and the pilot pulls it up a little before proper flying speed. He goes into a pilot-induced oscillation - the wings going hard left, hard right, hard left...you get the idea. At least, he holds perfect angle of attack, and finally the afterburners save his rotten tail.

Lordy. I really thought it was going to be the smoking hole - but it finally gets it together and makes airspeed.

 

When I was in tech school at Chanute (late seventies) there was a B58 (55-666) on static display outside. I used to make a special walk just to check it out. It was the most inspiring aircraft there for me. The 8-wheel bogies seemed tiny at the end of the substantial struts. I seem to remember the tires were run up to some incredible pressures.

Les

55-666
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It is still at Chanute but is now inside in a dark tiny corner at the Chanute Museum.

 

I think they have one at the SAC museum outside Omaha, Nebraska.

 

Yep........"Greased Lightning" is inside the hanger at the SAC museum in Ashland........saw it in 2007........the thing is much, much smaller in person than I had always assumed from photos.

I can imagine the flight crew tests they would have done for claustrophobia must have been pretty intensive. Only the pilot had any kind of cockpit room and decent windows.

 

Sure glad they finally got it inside - when I was there in the early 1990s almost every display was just weathering away in the hot sun...even their SR-71.

BTW, do they still have the Vulcan bomber?

 

Yep........the Vulcan could do with a restoration as well. Everything is inside one of two hangars now and the SR-71 hangs from the roof in the main entrance hallway. It has been beautifully refinshed.

 

I was on Galveston Island Texas in 2001 and there was a Hustler on static display inside the hanger. I was looking at the aircraft underneath the delta wing and it was so tall I did not notice it untill I saw an engine on display for it. Looked up and the "sky" was polished aluminum.
Magnificent war bird...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sq5QTpaa5wU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iOtw9aovGk

Great color video of Hustler's performing MITO (minimum interval take off) tests................

 

This crash sucks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M98KxB-vqPo&feature=channel