MIflyer
1st Lieutenant
A gentleman I worked with was an engineer at Convair at Ft Worth, TX, when the B-58 was developed.
Only a few B-58's had been built and testing was proceeding quite slowly. Convair had a special heavily instrumented B-58 but on a typical test flight they would return to find that only 20% or less of the instrumentation had worked. The analysis team was starving for data.
Then came the day when an Air Force crew came out to fly a B-58 for the first time. But the airplane they were supposed to fly broke down and so Convair had no choice but to give the USAF people their precious instrumented bird to fly. They cautioned the Air Force team that the flight envelope had not been fully explored and to take it easy. Do not stay in afterburner more than 30 sec, just enough to get off the ground. Stay subsonic. Do not exceed 30,000 ft.
The Air Force crew fired up the B-58 and took off.
They stayed in afterburner and climbed to 50,000 ft. They leveled off and even stayed in afterburner for a while. They wrung that airplane out thoroughly, doing things that Convair had not yet attempted. All the while the Convair people screamed over the radio, "No! No! Not that! Don't do that! Stop!"
Finally the overwrought Convair engineers were relieved to see their precious airplane land safely. They rushed over, wanting to throttle the Air Force people and began to scream about their reckless disregard for the limitations they were supposed to observe.
Then they checked the instrumentation. Something like 90% of it had worked. The flight program instantly went from being far behind to way ahead.
They took the Air Force crew out and got them the best steak dinner Texas could produce.
Only a few B-58's had been built and testing was proceeding quite slowly. Convair had a special heavily instrumented B-58 but on a typical test flight they would return to find that only 20% or less of the instrumentation had worked. The analysis team was starving for data.
Then came the day when an Air Force crew came out to fly a B-58 for the first time. But the airplane they were supposed to fly broke down and so Convair had no choice but to give the USAF people their precious instrumented bird to fly. They cautioned the Air Force team that the flight envelope had not been fully explored and to take it easy. Do not stay in afterburner more than 30 sec, just enough to get off the ground. Stay subsonic. Do not exceed 30,000 ft.
The Air Force crew fired up the B-58 and took off.
They stayed in afterburner and climbed to 50,000 ft. They leveled off and even stayed in afterburner for a while. They wrung that airplane out thoroughly, doing things that Convair had not yet attempted. All the while the Convair people screamed over the radio, "No! No! Not that! Don't do that! Stop!"
Finally the overwrought Convair engineers were relieved to see their precious airplane land safely. They rushed over, wanting to throttle the Air Force people and began to scream about their reckless disregard for the limitations they were supposed to observe.
Then they checked the instrumentation. Something like 90% of it had worked. The flight program instantly went from being far behind to way ahead.
They took the Air Force crew out and got them the best steak dinner Texas could produce.
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