A few years before it became the title of an Oscar-winning motion picture starring the late great Paul Newman as protagonist “Fast Eddie” Felson, the Hustler was the name bestowed upon the United States Air Force’s first operational supersonic bomber, the B-58 Hustler. The B-58 didn’t merely exceed the speed of sound; it doubled down on it, with a max airspeed capability of Mach 2.0.
To put that in perspective, the USAF’s currently operational Mach-busting strategic bomber, the B-1B Lancer, AKA the “Bone,” tops off at a relatively modest Mach 1.2.
B-58 Hustler Side View 19FortyFive.com Image
B-58 Hustler Bomber U.S. Air Force. 19FortyFive.com Image.
Arriving on-scene within the first half of the Cold War, the B-58 was state of the art for its time.
Yet, despite its awesome potential, it ended up with a fairly short and lackluster career. Why was this the case?
B-58 Hustler Initial History
The high-speed Hustler was built by the now-defunct Convair Division of General Dynamics, which also churned out the F-106 Delta Dart interceptor and the behemoth B-36 Peacemaker heavy bomber.
Intended as a replacement for the Boeing B-47 Stratojet—which made history in its own right as America’s first strategic jet bomber—the Hustler made her maiden flight on Veterans Day, 11 November 1956, and was officially introduced into operational service with the USAF on 15 March 1960.
A total of 116 B-58 airframes were built: 30 test and pre-production aircraft and 86 for full production.
B-58 Bomber. 19FortyFive.com Image from National Museum of the Air Force.
B-58. 19FortyFive Photo.
The warbird had a crew of three: the pilot, the radar navigator/bombardier, and the defense systems operator.
The bomber’s blazing speed was made possible by four General Electric J79-GE-5A afterburning turbojets; this was the first GE engine designed for supersonic aircraft and the most advanced turbojet of its time, generating up to 15,000 lbs. of thrust with afterburner.
In terms of armament, the B-58 had a payload capacity of 19,450 lbs. worth of bombs (1× Mark 39 or B53 or 4× B43 or B61 nuclear bombs) and a 20mm tail gun for self-defense against enemy interceptors.
The warbird also possessed distinctive features such as a delta-wing shape, a sophisticated inertial guidance, navigation, and bombing system, a slender “wasp-waist” fuselage, and extensive use of heat-resistant honeycomb sandwich skin panels in the wings and fuselage.
Operational History and What Went Wrong
Alas, as impressive as the Hustler looked on paper, the warbird never saw actual combat.
The bomber’s career growth was stunted by mechanical issues and a high accident rate.
B-58 Bomber. 19FortyFive.com Image from National Museum of the Air Force.
B-58 Bomber. 19FortyFive.com Image from National Museum of the Air Force.
B-58 Bomber. 19FortyFive.com Image from National Museum of the Air Force.
Just how high an accident rate? A whopping 22.4 percent, which in turn resulted in six major fatal accidents in its first 10,000 hours of Strategic Air Command (SAC) service!
To cite just one such tragic example, on March 5, 1962, a B-58 bearing AF Serial No. 59-2459 and belonging to the 43rd Bombardment Wing developed a severe flight control system failure that caused the jet to crash on takeoff from Carswell AFB, Texas, killing Captains Robert Harter and Jack Jones and 1st Lieutenant James McKenzie.
The mechanical issues were such that the plane required 35 hours of repair for every hour it flew.
Moreover, the bomber also needed to be refueled an excessive number of times, which was one of the reasons cited by legendary cigar-chomping SAC commander General Curtis LeMay as to why the B-58 was not combat-ready at all.
These issues made the aircraft substantially more expensive to operate than other bombers, such as the subsonic but devastating B-52 “BUFF.”
There were also the advancing capabilities of the adversary’s aerial defenses.
The phaseout of the fleet began at the end of 1965—as America’s involvement in the Vietnam War was heating up—when the Soviets introduced highly accurate surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), and it was feared that the Hustler’s high-altitude attack profile could no longer guarantee success against the SAMs.
As A result, the USAF retired the B-58 on 31 January 1970. However, during the plane’s short career, it set 19 world speed and altitude records, earning five different aviation trophies for the aircrews along the way.
Where Are They Now?
Eight B-58 specimens have been preserved for posterity, such as:
-Serial No. 59-2458, affectionately nicknamed “Cowtown Hustler,” at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB, in the vicinity of Dayton, Ohio; “Cowtown Hustler” set three speed records while flying from Los Angeles to New York City and back on 5 March 1962, earning her crew the Bendix and Mackay Trophies that year.
-Serial No. 55-0663, a TB-58A trainer version at Grissom Air Museum, Grissom Air Reserve Base, Peru, Indiana, the oldest surviving Hustler and the fourth one ever built
-Serial No. 61-2080, at the Pima Air & Space Museum, adjacent to Davis-Monthan AFB, Tucson, Arizona, the last B-58 ever to be delivered
-Serial No. 61-2059 “Greased Lightning” at the Strategic Air Command & Aerospace Museum near Ashland, Nebraska; this one imprinted herself in the pages of the history books by averaging 938 mph whilst flying 8,028 nautical miles from Tokyo to London in 8 hours and 35 minutes in October 1963.
Preserved for Pop Culture Posterity
If you’re more the moviegoing type than a museum aficionado, you also have options for admiring the B-58 from the comfort of your living room or your La-Z-Boy recliner, as the plane, for all of its real-world letdowns, did gain a wee bit of cinematic stardom.
First and foremost, there’s the 1964 nuclear war suspense thriller “Fail-Safe,” wherein the B-58 portrays the “Vindicator,” a fictitious bomber inadvertently tasked with dropping “The Bomb” on Moscow.
Meanwhile, unlike his iconic George Bailey character in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” who was medically disqualified from military service, legendary actor Jimmy Stewart was also a real-life U.S. Army Air Forces cum U.S. Air Force bomber pilot and war hero who ended up retiring from the Air Force Reserve as a Brigadier General.
Accordingly, Stewart flew in the back seat of a B-58 on a low-altitude attack demonstration in the Air Force documentary film “B-58 Champion of Champions.”
About the Author: Christian D. Orr
Christian D. Orr is a Senior Defense Editor. He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (with a concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He is also the author of the book “Five Decades of a Fabulous Firearm: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Beretta 92 Pistol Series,” the second edition of which was recently published.
