B-58 Hustler Range

[Zipper730]

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...

Airframes , davparlr , drgondog , S Shortround6 , swampyankee

 

[davparlr]

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.

 

[Zipper730]

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.

 

[cvairwerks]

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,

 

[jmcalli2]

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...

Airframes , davparlr , drgondog , S Shortround6 , swampyankee

Hope this helps some.

 

[Hjalmar]

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...

Airframes , davparlr , drgondog , S Shortround6 , swampyankee

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.

 

[Zipper730]

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.

 

[Zipper730]

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.

 

[cvairwerks]

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.

 

[davparlr]

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

 

[Graeme]

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" - ?

 

[Zipper730]

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

1. Engine start-up, taxi & takeoff
2. Climb & acceleration to cruise-speed
3. Inbound cruise
4. Ingress: Pre-planned & evasive maneuvers
5. Bomb-run & post-target-turn
6. Egress: Pre-planned & evasive maneuvers
7. Outbound cruise
8. Potential need to divert and loiter
9. Approach and Land
10. 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.

 

[Frognot]

"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'm sure that's not what he meant. You want to make all of the refueling points with enough fuel to spare that if there are any difficulties, you won't run out before you can link up -- difficulties that sometimes happened during the Vietnam War and can still happen. Maybe the tanker is running late due to problems with one of its engines or navigational error. Trying to find a tanker in pre-GPS days wasn't *always* easy as it's a very big sky, and RF direction-finding equipment could fail.

 

[Frognot]

Hope this helps some.

View attachment 590248

That was an aircraft lovingly hand-tuned and prepped for that flight and carrying no 9,000-lb hydrogen bomb, just fuel. Most of the distance was spent in supersonic flight, most at Mach 2, but it had to slow down to subsonic (I'm not sure what speed most refuelings take place at, but the KC-135's top speed is Mach 0.9) for each refueling, then accelerate afterwards. So maybe 1600 miles with no payload, at high altitude where it was most efficient, and very likely stripped of any unnecessary equipment, as is common for record attempts. I would be surprised if it was carrying the M61 Vulcan tailgun and its radar unless it unbalanced the aircraft to a degreethat that it couldn't be compensated for, and certainly no ammo would've been carried. ECM gear might've been removed, etc. I know low-altitude flight, hugging the ground at high-subsonix until the final run in to and escape from the target cut the B-58's range considerably. I think it was Gen. Curtis Lemay who said, "The B-58 is a fine airplane -- if you want to bomb Canada." I really don't know what the range would be after the final refueling, carrying a nuke, and dropping to low-level well before entering Soviet airspace, especially including a supersonic dash near the target. Some targets may well have been one-way trips into the Soviet Union, trying to at least reach the most likely places they might find help to escape, as unlikely as that might have been. I don't know for sure if any targets would've had the KC-135s giving every pound of fuel they could to bombers and then go as far as they could back to await rescue in polar regions, but I know it was talked about. That was certainly the plan for France's Force de Frappe's Mystere IV bombers, who would reach the farthest targets using another Mystere IV carrying nothing but drop tanks and hose-and-drogue refueling gear. I can't remember if the crews of both would end up in Warsaw Pact counriies or not, but it was a most unenviable mission profile, but knowing that if you were flying it, deterrence had failed and that you almost certainly had no family to return to, anyway.