DAL4EVER

Hustler at the Dayton Air Museum.

HSLD

Amazing how much noise came out of such a small nozzle.

Superpilot92

an awesome airplane indeed. I only wish i could have seen it fly.

DAL4EVER

I could only imagine. The sound of freedom. I wish Wright Pat would do an engine runup once a year on the Hustler, Blackbird and Valkyrie.

hotshot

Is that a B36 Peacemaker in the back?

DAL4EVER

C97 I believe. The Pacemaker is in there behind the Hustler. Another awesome plane!

tomgoodman

KC-97. Clues: 4 "tractor" props instead of 6 "pushers", Ohio Air Guard logo, and fuselage shape.

They did make a cargo version of the B-36 -- sort of. Put its wing and engines on a fat fuselage and called it the XC-99. It reportedly did well in tests, but didn't go into production. One may still be on static display between Lackland and Kelly AFBs.

Mitragorz

From Wikipedia:

"A lightly loaded Hustler would climb at nearly 46,000 ft/min "

That's pretty damn cool.

UAL T38 Phlyer

Tom:

The XC-99 could carry about 400 troops, or a couple of trucks, or one tank. That was a huge jump in an era of C-47s and DC-4s.

I looked this up and am correcting my previous: the USAF flew the airplane for 10 years as an "X" airplane, including extensive use in the Korean war. Apparently, the real reason they didn't buy more was they thought it was just too big.

The airplane sat in pieces for years at Kelly. You could see it across the runway from Base Ops. I didn't know this until I just wikipedia'd it, but it has now all been moved to Wright-Patt, and is awaiting restoration. Convair used significant amounts of magnesium in the structure, and a lot is corroded badly. The Museum says they will manufacture a new wing spar (!!) and ultimately it will be displayed indoors. In the current budget crunch, no timetable has been set, and I think this is a pretty expensive proposition.

There was a B-58 on display at Kelly near the front gate. Some years back, it got flipped on its back by a tornado. It languished in a hangar behind Base Ops for years. "Being restored," I was told. It was a wreck and I figured there was no way it would ever look the same.

Last time I went through Kelly, it was back at the front gate, and looked great!!

BTW, looking up the tailpipe of the J-79 on the Hustler brings back plenty of memories for me....makes me think I was #3 in a 4-ship line-up on the runway. And yes, the sound of freedom IS loud!

Hustler Trivia:

John Denver's father set a low-altitude speed record in the B-58. Approximately 650 kts at 500 ft over a closed-course.

The external fuel-tank was also the nuclear weapon. Difficult maintenance, but fascinating concept: all other bombers carried their bombs inside. This meant when they were weaponless, they still had the drag of a cavernous fuselage.

So, Convair put the nuke and the fuel in one pod. Fuel would be used enroute to Russia. Toggle the bomb, and now you are basically a 4-engined F-106, and can run like hell!

DAL4EVER

I can't think of a single airplane that Convair built that I haven't loved. Everything they did were man's planes in every sense of the word. I think I recall hearing that Convair was mentioned in Man Law. Ingenious airplanes and built to run like mad and take the field IFR at every departure! To bad they never went past the 990 with civilian birds.