# B-58 Hustler Range



## Zipper730 (Jul 25, 2020)

I remember hearing a figure of the B-58 having an operational radius of action of 1740 miles. I'm curious if that range was supersonic or a mix of subsonic and supersonic, and whether that was statute or nautical miles?

I wanted to see how it compared to the B-47, so...



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## davparlr (Jul 27, 2020)

The B-58 was a beautiful aircraft, I chose it as one of the most beautiful aircraft. It had a reputation of being a difficult aircraft to fly. I suspect that when everything is working it would be no harder than an F-102 or F-106 to fly. However, initially it did have a fatal flaw. When flying supersonic if an engine failed the instantaneous yaw would cause the plane to disintegrate. This was fixed by automatically shutting down the engine on the other side when the failure was detected. Quite a few years ago I worked with a man who had flown both the B-36 and the B-58, I don't remember him saying the B-58 was particularly hard to fly.

As far as range goes, it is often difficult to compare aircraft and the data often does not contain the conditions in which the data collected. 
For instance, one source defines the B-47 weapons load but does not provide any data for that for the B-58. That said, USAF Museum states that the range, not radius, of the B-47 was 3935 miles and the B-58 was 4400 miles. No load factors were provided. Another source stated that B-47 with associated weapons load, 10k lbs, was 2315 mile, and the B-58 radius was 1740 miles but no load factor was given. All the miles are statute miles.

Combat performance for the B-58 would be for cruise speed, .91 Mach, about the speed of a modern airliner,, and then Mach 2 for weapon delivery. Supersonic cruise in this error required a significant amount of thrust that's only provided with afterburner which is a voracious consumer of fuel. If I remember correctly, in the T-38, if you used the afterburner all the time, which we did on what we called a burner flight, flight time was about 15 minutes. We would take off, climb to altitude, fly and arc supersonic to the inbound course and land.

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## Zipper730 (Jul 28, 2020)

davparlr said:


> The B-58 was a beautiful aircraft, I chose it as one of the most beautiful aircraft. It had a reputation of being a difficult aircraft to fly. I suspect that when everything is working it would be no harder than an F-102 or F-106 to fly.





> However, initially it did have a fatal flaw. When flying supersonic if an engine failed the instantaneous yaw would cause the plane to disintegrate. This was fixed by automatically shutting down the engine on the other side when the failure was detected.


Actually, from what I remember, that was caused by the design of the tail and an aeroelasticity problem that set-up. From what I recall, they fixed that by the time it entered operational service.


> As far as range goes, it is often difficult to compare aircraft and the data often does not contain the conditions in which the data collected.
> For instance, one source defines the B-47 weapons load but does not provide any data for that for the B-58. That said, USAF Museum states that the range, not radius, of the B-47 was 3935 miles and the B-58 was 4400 miles. No load factors were provided. Another source stated that B-47 with associated weapons load, 10k lbs, was 2315 mile, and the B-58 radius was 1740 miles but no load factor was given. All the miles are statute miles.


Okay, 1740 statute miles.


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## cvairwerks (Jul 28, 2020)

With respect to significant yaw due to engine failures....Depends on the speed and which engine fails. We (Convair, now LM) lost a crew and aircraft during the inflight engine shutdown tests. At Mach 1.0, there was no problem with sudden stoppage of #1 or 4. When the crew preformed the same test at Mach 1.2, the aircraft turned sideways all most instantaneously and came apart, with the loss of all 3 crew members. From what friends that worked the program told me, the debris field was over 50 miles long,

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## jmcalli2 (Jul 30, 2020)

Zipper730 said:


> I remember hearing a figure of the B-58 having an operational radius of action of 1740 miles. I'm curious if that range was supersonic or a mix of subsonic and supersonic, and whether that was statute or nautical miles?
> 
> I wanted to see how it compared to the B-47, so...
> 
> ...



Hope this helps some.

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## Hjalmar (Jul 30, 2020)

Zipper730 said:


> I remember hearing a figure of the B-58 having an operational radius of action of 1740 miles. I'm curious if that range was supersonic or a mix of subsonic and supersonic, and whether that was statute or nautical miles?
> 
> I wanted to see how it compared to the B-47, so...
> 
> ...


The following book gives performance data on the B-58: Holt Jr, George. The B-58 Blunder: How the U.S. Abandoned its Best Strategic Bomber . Col. George Holt Jr. Kindle Edition.

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## Zipper730 (Aug 2, 2020)

Hjalmar said:


> The following book gives performance data on the B-58: Holt Jr, George. The B-58 Blunder: How the U.S. Abandoned its Best Strategic Bomber . Col. George Holt Jr. Kindle Edition.


I read the book, I don't remember seeing it, but I'll take a look again.


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## Zipper730 (Aug 2, 2020)

This might sound like a silly question: How much fuel / range does a plane have when it undergoes a refueling? You'd instinctively think "running on fumes" but there seem to be cases where it doesn't seem that extreme.


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## cvairwerks (Aug 4, 2020)

Zipper730 said:


> This might sound like a silly question: How much fuel / range does a plane have when it undergoes a refueling? You'd instinctively think "running on fumes" but there seem to be cases where it doesn't seem that extreme.


Depends on a number of variables, but most receiver aircraft can tank up to an absolute full fuel load. During testing, we had F-16's that took on more fuel than they could launch with, due to various factors. It felt weird to lock out, or low lock drop tanks, gas the bird and launch it for a tanker hit prior to flying the test.


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## davparlr (Aug 4, 2020)

I think this was common practice. I did hear that the F-106s would max out in weight with bombs and with just enough fuel to catch a tanker then off to N. Vietnam. I suspect it was true with the F-4s


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## Graeme (Aug 4, 2020)

Zipper730 said:


> This might sound like a silly question: How much fuel / range does a plane have when it undergoes a refueling? You'd instinctively think "running on fumes" but there seem to be cases where it doesn't seem that extreme.



I was thinking if you're loaded with a nuclear weapon on your mission to annihilate the "enemy", you would want to make absolutely sure you did not reach the final pre-strike refuelling - "running on fumes" - ?


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## Zipper730 (Aug 6, 2020)

Graeme said:


> I was thinking if you're loaded with a nuclear weapon on your mission to annihilate the "enemy", you would want to make absolutely sure you did not reach the final pre-strike refuelling


I figure if you were loaded with such a weapon you _would_ want to make absolutely sure you made the final pre-strike refueling so you _could _deliver your weapon...

I figure there are variables that have to be accounted for in a flight such as

Engine start-up, taxi & takeoff
Climb & acceleration to cruise-speed
Inbound cruise
Ingress: Pre-planned & evasive maneuvers
Bomb-run & post-target-turn
Egress: Pre-planned & evasive maneuvers
Outbound cruise
Potential need to divert and loiter
Approach and Land
Taxiing once on the ground to shut-down
I figure the basics for ferrying are 1-3, 7, 9-10, so the biggest variables would be 4-6, then 8.


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