UAL T38 Phlyer

DAL:

The 880 and 990 used civilian-versions of the J-79 that started this whole thread.

The 880 was pure turbojet, like the J-79, but had no variable nozzle.

The 990 was an aft-mounted fan (I guess the shaft came out of the back of the engine) on the back of a J-79. Still no nozzle, and still smoked like an early Phantom (the F-4s I flew were smokeless J-79s). I remember wathcing TWA 880s and 990s out of OAK as a kid.

The names "880" and "990" were marketing ploys to advertise their top-speeds in feet per second.

The F-106 is still a sexy airplane. The B-58 was the best-looking bomber I've ever seen. The father of my backseater in the first Gulf War had been a B-58 WSO. He had over 1000 hours of supersonic time!

Their typical mission profile: takeoff from the west-coast. Go to the tanker and top-off. Climb to FL600 and cruise at Mach 1.4-2.0 to the east coast and "nuke" some city. Drop down into the 20s and go to the tanker; then climb to FL600 and go home.

Amazing. In 2300+ hours in the Phantom, I probably have less than 1-hour of supersonic time.

Dougdrvr

Back in the late 70's, one of my fellow sim instructors at Flight Safety was a former B-58 pilot. He was in "Dutch's" squadron (John Denver's old man). One of his favorite stories was, when they retired the airplane and he had to transition to the F-4, his instructor said "If the conditions are just right and we dive the airplane from altitude, we just might hit Mach 2.0 today".

And his response was " You mean to tell me that you have to dive this airplane at the ground to get it up to Mach 2 ??????"

III Corps

When we deployed to Thailand in '72 we had a bunch of U-2 drivers and crewmembers in the back of the tanker. I got to know some of the U-2 drivers, one who had come from the -58 community.

When McNamara and the USAF decided they had too many bombers and one had to go, the -58 was chosen. The -52 obviously still had a major role as the front line nuke carrier and in Vietnam. The -57 was being used in spook programs and recce. The -66 had been converted into RB and EB-66s. That left the -58 as odd duck.

Anyway, this guy had participated in a program to see if the -58 could be converted into an RB-58. The Navy had the A-5 but the prime recce for the USAF was the RF-4 and -101. So, this guy is out doing runs in the B-58 with the pod and said that 550-600+ was no real challenge. And at 500ft it was a real kick in the *ss to light off 4 J-79s and pull back on the stick. The altimeter was worthless and shortly after that you would be above 50,000.

I was on a cross country to then Little Rock AFB where there was a squadron of -58s. A few were in the pattern and with that long dangling gear they looked like wasps. They came into the pattern at *350kts*. Final was around 200kts.

Neat machine. Maint nightmare.

III Corps

I read the Hustler was actually a bit faster WITH the pod. It rode the mach wave off the tank and that improved the drag profile. (could be just old stories)

III Corps

I jumpseated Concorde twice. First time with a Capt that was in the first Concorde class. He had over 5000hrs above the Mach with more than 2000hrs above Mach 2.

tomgoodman

"Fitz" Fulton set a world altitude record (1962) in the B-58, more than 85,000 ft. Not bad for a big airplane with an 11,000 lb. payload. He later flew the 747 Space Shuttle transporter for NASA (among 200+ other types).

Convairator

You are speaking my language! I was fortunate enough to fly the airplane for some time, and loved every minute of it. The noise alone when firing up the GTC (modern day APU) was enough to make the hair stand up on my arms because it was soo loud. Love the noise, the smoke, and the power that those old allisons put out on the 580. The 240 was quite a treat as well, but not always ahead of the power curve with freight. I would still trade you for your current airplane however. Go buckeyes

dojetdriver

Thats what some guys tell me depending on what I ate the night before on the overnight.

I thought one of my College professors who was former Air Force said that if the B58 had to do an Alaska-Kamchatka bombing run that it would need to aerial refuel something like 5-6 times.

I'm sure that thing burned A LOT of fuel.

The Valkyrie is pretty cool to see. I knew the plane was big, but it was amazing how big it REALLY is in person.

Twin Wasp

UAL T38, it's a different world today. Growing up in Ft. Worth, it was nothing to hear sonic booms during the day. If the conditions were just right (I'm thinking an inversion with a SW wind) we'd hear engine slams in the evening and we lived 10-12 miles from FWH.