Why the futuristic B-58 was useless before it even took to the sky...

thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring this video the cold war is about to heat up with a new quick shadow in the sky but this was more than an ordinary bomber it was an aircraft Revolution it had supersonic ejection pods that were tested with live bears and it could fly beyond the speed of any enemy aircraft while it rained down nuclear hell on the enemy with its five nuclear missiles thanks to its oppressive plane and pod design it carried more nukes than any other bomber that came before and was able to strike with deadly Precision in making carpet bombing a thing of the past but it only served in the Air Force for 10 years and the incredible range of future Evolutions from spy planes to commercial passenger versions never happened this is the bomber that was beyond its time and built for a nuclear Armageddon that never happened this is the b-58 Hustler [Music] the b-58 bomber was an elegant looking design that was a huge departure from any aircraft made before its Coke bottle waste allowed it to take full advantage of the area rule principle flying at a speed unmatched by either the Soviets or the Europeans its skin was that signature shiny aluminum with bits of Steel for the sections that experienced the most high friction traveling at twice the speed of sound able to reach temperatures up to 325 degrees it would require three crew members to fly it with a pilot radar Navigator and a gunner that's right this supersonic bomber had a tail gun for defense and let's talk all about those weapons with five nuclear warheads on board it was able to easily Reign total Destruction across a vast enemy landscape and bug out long before they could ever catch up but this version of The b-58 Hustle was a far cry from the original designs that were initially pitched the birth of the b-58 program actually happened a good 10 years before the end of World War II and like all Aerospace projects in this era its roots can be traced back to Mad Nazi scientists well that's it always the Nazis the Nazis had been experimenting with delta wing aircraft and have found that this simple design performed much better than the traditional aircraft at high speed whilst the Nazis couldn't see to the conclusion of their Ramjet delta wing dream among other nightmares of theirs the American Engineers pouring over the designs at the end of the war saw a whole new realm to exploit in 1946 convey were tasked to come up with a new strategic bomber as part of the vast generalized bomber study dubbed gebo the first of many designs they came up with and many considered to be the first inkling of the b-58 was the convair gebo it was a supersonic jet bomber that had a very large bomb fuel pod and would be carried to the Target by a larger b36 the Pod was massive to carry the fuel and simultaneously carry the very large nuclear weapon on board remember this was designed to deliver a single nuclear warhead which back then was absolutely massive it would actually use the Delta shape that had been popularized before in the war and you can see why this was chosen this all made perfect sense at the time because supersonic flight was short and sweet engines were not fuel efficient enough to really go for more than 30 minutes hence the parasite design was key once close enough to the Target the Pod and the manned component would detach and power up its three turbo Jets breaking the sound barrier the bomber then would only be used for nuclear delivery and wouldn't have any defenses flying at the incredible speed of Mach 1.3 in 1949 it was inconceivable that there would be any intercept that could match it let alone shoot it down once within range the bomb would be dropped from the Pod at the time it would be a standard little boy implosion bomb with no additional power and then the jet would scream away with the manned component also detaching and limping home at a more traditional speed the fuel pod itself would simply tumble away with no control surfaces or any remote control ability both the Navy and the Air Force were interested in this first design with the former planning to use the gebo as a carrier-launch nuclear delivery option with a landing gear added alas the insane costs in developing this concept and the logistical challenges of training Crews on an aircraft that literally fell apart in the sky May convert return back to the drawing board and it's this second version that they got right the b-58 was considered a One-Shot super weapon of nuclear delivery something that would totally overwhelm any competition now this begs to question if you yourself want to go nuclear with your own business then the b-58 equivalent would be none other than Squarespace but hold on don't skip this part as I'll have some sneak previews for future videos hidden in this program so what exactly makes Squarespace so damn good well it starts with a best-in-class website template with drag and drop technology for desktop and mobile so it automatically makes a site that works on all devices you can stretch your imagination online with their Squarespace fluid engine that's built in and ready to go with any new site plus that's not all every Squarespace website has a built-in shop to start selling e-commerce right away and you can use the campaign marketing tools to start driving business to your site seriously Squarespace is the secret source that even use for found and explain dot shop my online merch store so thanks Squarespace if you want to support the channel and see more videos just like this one and also get 10 off your first site and domain on Squarespace go to www.squarespace.com found I'm excited to see what you do with it and a special thanks to all of those who click the link and keep helping make videos just like this conveyor went back to the drawing board and poured over a thousand different configurations to come up with the gebo 2 Arrow while this aircraft was still carried to the war theater by a bigger parasite bomber aircraft it was also far bigger and carried a massive pod it was also recognizable as the halfway point towards our Beloved b-58 the jet now had a swept back wings that looked like an arrow with three engines two on the wings and one in the tail the bot itself only had a single jet engine a six thousand pound bomb and a radar allowing it to continue under its own power after release and track to a target with its own control surfaces the mission would allow it to loiter around an area either to engage or self-destruct without nuclear activation something that was much more threatening than a single fire and forget-missile these larger underwing engine narcels the bomber aircraft were also Expendable detaching after the Pod had been delivered to the Target and the gebo 2 would limp home on the slower single jet engine in its tail this was a massive cost in terms of expensive jet engines but since this was their nuclear Mission the engineers figured that it would only fly a single sortie following this convair reworked another 10 000 configurations to redefine their design with the number mx1626 showing the most promise this version shared a lot of similarity with the gebo too but returned to the highly swept Delta Wings it had two crew members and had a huge pod underneath and we have to point out this plane was pointy as heck with its nose sticking away out gone were the slung under engines although they will be back so don't be too sad and in return it had two engines integrated into the wings to reduce drag the powder under the jet also had a single turbojet engine and was either equipped with a nuclear warhead or spy cameras yes this was now also a spy plane and it's rather clever during a mission the Pod would take photos and then send them up to the cockpit and then when it was time to bug out the pilots would simply detach the actual cameras and fly home with the photographs it would be deployed from a yb60 bomber which was another conveyor prototype under development and likewise fly to the mission area but unlike the other versions before this one didn't actually need to have a Mothership aircraft it could take off from a Runway to a severe Mission range penalty they tried to make it lighter by ejecting the landing gear when it took off but to be blunt this was kind of rubbish the ground clearance was also so small that even a scrape on the runway would have gone straight into the engines and down the Prototype aircraft nonetheless the military was excited by this version and did a full slew of wind tunnel tests including both at NACA and navy testing as well they even Built Metal versions and fired them off the tips of rockets to see how they performed at supersonic flight alas they came back disappointed with only a top speed of Mach 1.5 it quickly turned out to be a rather lame design and the big wigs in Washington were quickly shutting the book on convair's wild ideas that is until one new invention saved the entire program air-to-air refueling to refuel a bomber in mid flight was a breakthrough no longer did an aircraft need a Mothership or need to be carried to the Battle Zone they could be self-sufficient and simply stop at a flying gas station on the way convey took their previous version and then redeveloped it into the MX 1964 removing the engine from the Pod including a new third crew member to mend the new defensive systems and I'll get to that in a moment and brought back the four underslung engines in Siamese narcel's configuration which is such a satisfying sentence its wing was now even more swept back halving the amount of drag at supersonic speeds this aircraft now had a built-in landing gear as well and can also do the distance flying from home soil with the tanker aircraft the b60 and Performing its own mission alone if need be but the Pod lost its engine as it was deemed too expensive and heavy and the new clear Warhead was replaced with a shiny new hydrogen bomb in a weird twist the Pod also contained the radar and weapon targeting systems the engineers figured that once the Pod was deployed the plane didn't need a radar or targeting its only job was to get the heck out of there before the world collapsed in nuclear Fury and boy The Lads in Washington were impressed and by 1952 it was given the official working title the b-58 conveyor was given the green light to develop and build a prototype so they pulled out their pencils and started working on what would become the Prelude to the production version the delta wing itself was redeveloped with high speed in mind thanks to the development of the f-106 Delta Dart the supersonic fighter capable of Mach 2.3 Converse slapped this onto the b-58 design and it greatly reduced the drag even more their Siamese narcels were also removed and two engines were moved back up on top of the wing but this proved to be a mistake the higher engines would be more complicated to maintain and cause the aircraft to have worse handling the engine exhaust acting right on the elevons so the engineers had to return to the slung under Siamese narcels for the b-58 Prototype known as configuration 2 this version got the theoretical top speed of Mach 1.7 with a complete mock-up completed their speed was no longer considered invincible and the engineers decided to sacrifice some weight to include a third crew member Manning the guns literally this version had a defensive system a 30 millimeter remote gun in the tail with 400 rounds for a quick 30 second battle which is kind of hilarious imagining a dogfight at Mach 1.4 but it's that number that continued to cause a headache at convair the military wanted Mach 2 and just like Daddy's girl on a sweet 16th birthday party what the generals wanted they got so convair went one last time back to the drawing board they overhauled the Pod making it smaller and more missile-like they moved the radar weapon targeting systems back up to the b-58 and swapped out that 30 millimeter gun for a small 20 millimeter one and those Siamese narcels had to go as during wind tunnel tests they finally realized that it caused drag issues Beyond Mac 1.6 so configuration 3 was ready and hit that Mac 2.0 with flying colors theoretically the military approved and it was time to build the first actual b-58 Hustler and this would be easier said than done convert managed to put together a b-58 prototype in August of 1956 whilst it did have its trademark 4 engines typical delays to the general electric engine program meant that the second airframe prototype only had two engines despite these setbacks the jet did take to the air for the first time by the end of the year and went supersonic on December 30th just before New Year's to allow convair to celebrate its style however the military wasn't impressed whilst the jet had reached all the initial metrics set out the generals of Strategic Air Command had decided to change the program General Curtis LeMay wanted further range for his bombing aircraft he pondered that since the B-52 bomber was a catch-all global bomber with a significant payload the b-58 should be much the same something that this design was not capable of thanks to its emphasis on speed over distance simply put he didn't want the b-58 and thought it was a waste of resources this resistance would continue throughout the testing period and result in some further complications in the development aluminum was chosen not because it was the best material at the time because titanium able to sustain much higher temperatures was pretty much unotavian in this era and couldn't be sourced in any significant way to try and manage the military's expectations to meet these new Range goals its ability to refuel in flight was Paramount fortunately this was a huge success with the b-58 passing with flying colors during tests with the tanker aircraft as it was even more stable than other aircraft including the darling B-52 however the engineers were the most nervous about the incredibly large payload that fuel pod that the b-58 carried underneath and this would prove to be a major headache called the ma1 it was more than just a bomb essentially it was a small rocket aircraft with its own payload and control surfaces it would have 160 miles of range and fly on its own full power for 65 seconds before a controlled Glide to the destination but I can already see you writing in the comments this thing was huge expensive and heavy weight and resources that could be devoted to the actual b-58 aircraft itself so they had to return to the drawing board during the testing phase and rebuild it from scratch with a new version called the mb1 this version was much simpler it only had fuel for the b-58 and a 3.8 Megaton Warhead it would have some control surfaces but no on-board navigation nor rocket engine but again this had huge flaws the first was that the fuel would be used up long before the b-58 would reach the target meaning a massive empty pod was being dragged around all over southeast Asia by the b-58 jet the second was that the fuel tanks kept leaking into the nuke breaking down its Electronics not ideal so thinking third time's a charm they dropped everything and started from scratch yet again creating the two component pod it would have a double bubble cross-section that stopped fuel leaking into the nuke and it had a jettison section that once empty the tank would be dropped leaving just the bomb fixing both the floors the drawback would be a small Nuka of course but it's a nuke for God's sakes and the military was pleased but I bet you're asking yourself what would it be like to fly this foreign was designed to have a crew of three there would be a pilot who would also act as the aircraft Commander then a radar Navigator who would also operate the bombs and then a defensive systems operator who would obviously provide the defenses on the mission each would be located in a separate pressurized cockpit in Tandem and wouldn't move for the duration of the flight despite being nearly half the fuselage of the main plane many considered the experience a grueling cramped and claustrophobic they were so busy throughout the flight that there was no time to rest and it was a highly stressful experience the systems were considered highly Advanced for the age with voice messages playing for various warnings the voice was chosen as a female actress because the military deemed that it would be more likely to gain the attention of the young hot-headed men flying the plane rather than some old man she was later given the name sexy Sally hydraulic system failure generator abnormal but this is where it gets cool the pressurized pods that they're all sitting in were rejectable including the controls and seats meaning that they could keep flying the plane until the last possible moment and then eject flying at Mach 2. these cockpits would separate from the aircraft at an altitude of 70 000 feet and safely deliver the Airman to the ground but you're probably wondering how did they know that these were safe well they tested them with live Bears that's right over North America the U.S Air Force was dropping supersonic bears from near Earth orbit down to unsuspecting civilians with the testing completed it was actually time to build the production version and see how it would operate in the open Battlefield with thoughts towards Vietnam conveyor would build a total of 116 b-58s during its production run and they would be given to two Strategic Air Command bombarded Wings the 43rd and 305th respectively the U.S Air Force was Keen to show off its new toy and entered a single b-58 into the sac combat competition in Bergstrom it proved to be utterly Superior beating off the Boeing B-47 stratojets and even the B-52 in its bombing exercises but despite this the Air Force was reluctant to move it to an actual combat zone its Mission dropping nukes didn't really apply much to Vietnam and they wanted to keep it ready just in case the Cold War got hot with the Soviets although there was a camo version painted or at least designed for Southeast Asia but it never saw service essentially The Hustler was purpose built to deliver nuclear weapon happens period conventional bombs were considered and tested on the b-58a and rejected this bomber simply wasn't the right platform hold on that isn't exactly true hi future Nick here I have to make a little correction and tell you a little bit more about this top secret project Bullseye the actual plan to deploy the b-58 in Vietnam project Bullseye was a highly classified program directed by the US Air Force Chiefs of Staff General Jack Ryan to test the feasibility of the use of the b-58 as a Pathfinder for the F4 and the f-105 in an attempt to prove that bombing accuracy of these aircraft on selected Targets in North Vietnam you see so far in the mid 60s the loss rate of these aircraft had been staggering as they had to climb in altitude to identify targets and then dive Bop down so why not use the impossible to hit B e58 as a scout essentially the Air Force would send out the b-58 with a squad of chicks smaller fighter bombers on its wings the b-58 would go first flying low and fast before climbing rapidly to help paint targets and see the enemy's defenses before commanding the bombing run as each jet had its own radar jammers they could confuse the Sam sites without interfering with the b-58's more powerful larger radar the bullseye project was a complete success with testing bombing results at the lowest altitudes better than those at high altitudes detection was minimal and mutual ecms proved extremely successful the Air Force signed off on the program and the b-58 was painted in the Vietnam green with flight Crews expected to be deployed to Thailand at a moment's notice however they never actually got their orders it was later divulged that Mr McNamara felt it would not be politically a good move and could result in a demoralizing public outcry if a b-58 were to be lost in combat it was also felt that it would provide the enemy with a rallying point if they were able to capture a crew member from the cream of the crop of American aircraft the engineers were not resting idle however and came up with several upgrades first why just carry one nuke when it could carry five two pilots when added to the end of the lower wing on the sides of the Pod they would have small 70 kiloton tactical nukes allowing the jet to perform missions striking multiple targets without returning to base making the aircraft far more versatile and it was this idea that convert started to run with rolling up their sleeves and not only proposing a 2.0 version but five of them yeah with the success of the program and operational in the US Air Force it wasn't long before the British Came Calling for their own version they were interested in replacing their Canberra bombers with something like the Vulcan but they became concerned about survivability and thus the b-58 was now on the table this version would have been more conventional with its bombing capability with multiple 12 500 pound bombs with the underbelly fuel tank replaced with additional ornaments the British simply needed to put it in order for the next generation and conveyor thought if they were going to do this they might as well do it for the U.S military as well and this is what they called the b-58b this was an improved version with longer fuselage more powerful engines and was nuclear weapon capable the Air Force loved it and placed an order for 185 aircraft but this wasn't only the Next Generation version proposed with convey coming up with an additional four other aircraft there was the b-58c dubbed the advanced Sac bomber it had a bigger range and could fly up to Mach 2.4 and then there was the b-58d and E the first was a long range Interceptor for the Air Defense command it would only have two engines in a much shorter range of 1 000 nautical miles but it would be able to fire up to six air-to-air missiles to a huge altitude of seventy thousand feet the second one the b-58e or model 16 was a tactical bomber it would use the same twin engines as the Interceptor but a shorter range to be used for small missions around Vietnam it wouldn't use the Pod design and operate ground scanning radar for bombing missions now conveyor would also take a moment to outline a few other use cases for the b-58 fuselage that were more than just bomber aircraft the first was a Minuteman carrier yes as in the nuclear icbms or in this case air-launched ballistic missiles naturally the b-58 would struggle with such a large missile and thus the third crew member and his equipment would be gone replaced by additional fuel additionally the plane would also be extended by five feet and additional modifications for a shift in the weight such the program would require plentiful money to realize and the military was not budging and then there was also the Spy program conveyor envisioned that instead of a pod there would be a spy plane can carried onto an eighth this would be called the super Hustler and the convair fish and this would be a direct competitor to the SR-71 and potentially massively better something that I've already covered in depth right here on the channel that you can watch after this video but I think it's the last version that was by far the most interesting it was the passenger version this was totally a huge other topic and something that I'll dedicate a whole nother video so if you want to see it let me know in the comments so it looked like the future was golden for convair but then all five were canceled the b-58c was replaced by the xb70 and the D was replaced by the f-108 and the E never even got a shoe in so why did this bomber consider the most advanced in the world only operate for 10 years and not even see any actual military operations the war changed the b-58 was made for a mission that no longer existed even just a decade later from before let me explain the use of this aircraft was to fly high fly fast and hit the enemy hard with a few precise strikes however the enemy air quotes had started to develop counter measures such as the Soviet sa-2 guidelines surface-to-air missile used over Vietnam this new surface-to-air missile was capable of reaching the b-58 in flight and was much more cheaper to produce than these expensive aircraft thus the military decided that all aircraft in the theater would now need to fly low and fast ducking below the radar and avoiding the samsites but because the B-52 was a more traditional plane it was able to change its Mission Doctrine quite easily and still be an effective tool for the region but the b-58 not so much thanks to the low altitude thick humid air the b-58 would burn more fuel and struggle to fly in a straight line and barely avoid these new pesky Sam sites the b-58 was essentially obsolete as soon as it arrived on the scene and any marginal use cases were scrapped plus there were also some other major flaws with this design of the 116 b58s built 26 were lost during testing or Patrol flights that's a disastrous accident rate that 22 percent attrition rate was unsustainable for the Air Force 36 crew members were killed something that weighed heavily on the engineers and the brass commanding this aircraft to fly the US military simply didn't have the experience it has today in building and maintaining or even flying Mach 2 aircraft on the regular and those materials the science and mines behind it couldn't foresee all of the issues that plagued such first generation programs and speaking of being a floor program we have to mention the cost three billion dollars 22 billion today this was an unfathomably expensive program compared to the other bombers at the time especially considering its low capacity and range in addition was the cost of maintaining these Jets it cost 1440 to fly per hour compared to only 361 dollars for the b47 yikes with the cost of rising fuel in the 1970s the government issued the fleet to be grounded by the end of the decade in that order for the B version thrown away with the bath water the b-58 only got 10 years in the sun it would have never fly again with the fleet being scrapped by 1977. the b-58a served from 1960 to 1970. it set 19 world speed records including a window rattling and perhaps even shattering New York to Los Angeles Ram trip in 4 hours and 41 minutes and then in 1963 it flew the longest entirely supersonic flight across the world on that flight major Sydney kubich piloted grease lightning from Tokyo to London which is 8 000 miles in only 8 hours and 35 minutes averaging 938 miles per hour and in today's day and age This Record still stands beating off many of the other attempts by the SR-71 Blackbird and speaking of the Blackbird the pilots were moved from the b-58 to the SR-71 program as they had the most experience flying at Mach 2 and above and its Design Concepts were translated into a slew of delta wing aircraft that we know and love today the b-58 Hustler may have not hustled its way to the end of the world over the USSR but it certainly hustled its way into our hearts thanks for watching

Channel: Found And Explained

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Length: 30min 51sec (1851 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 05 2023