- Holt, George, Jr.
The B-58 Blunder.
Randolph, VT: George Holt, 2015.
ISBN 978-0-692-47881-3.
-
The
B-58 Hustler
was a breakthrough aircraft. The first generation of U.S. Air Force
jet-powered bombers—the
B-47
medium and
B-52
heavy bombers—were revolutionary for their time, but were
becoming increasingly vulnerable to high-performance interceptor
aircraft and anti-aircraft missiles on the deep penetration bombing
missions within the communist bloc for which they were intended. In
the 1950s, it was believed the best way to reduce the threat was to
fly fast and at high altitude, with a small aircraft that would be
more difficult to detect with radar.
Preliminary studies of a next generation bomber began in 1949, and in 1952
Convair was selected to develop a prototype of what would become the
B-58. Using a delta wing and four turbojet engines, the aircraft could
cruise at up to twice the speed of sound (Mach 2, 2450 km/h) with a
service ceiling of 19.3 km. With a small
radar cross-section
compared to the enormous B-52 (although still large compared to present-day
stealth designs), the idea was that flying so fast and at high altitude, by
the time an enemy radar site detected the B-58, it would be too late to
scramble an interceptor to attack it. Contemporary anti-aircraft missiles
lacked the capability to down targets at its altitude and speed.
The first flight of a prototype was in November 1956, and after a protracted
development and test program, plagued by problems due to its radical design,
the bomber entered squadron service in March of 1960. Rising costs caused
the number purchased to be scaled back to just 116 (by comparison, 2,032
B-47s and 744 B-52s were built), deployed in two
Strategic Air Command
(SAC) bomber wings.
The B-58 was built to deliver nuclear bombs. Originally, it carried one
B53 nine
megaton weapon mounted below the fuselage. Subsequently, the ability
to carry four
B43 or
B61 bombs
on hardpoints beneath the wings was added. The B43 and B61 were variable
yield weapons, with the B43 providing yields from 70 kilotons to 1 megaton
and the B61 300 tons to 340 kilotons. The B-58 was not intended to carry
conventional (non-nuclear, high explosive) bombs, and although some studies
were done of conventional missions, its limited bomb load would have made it
uncompetitive with other aircraft. Defensive weaponry was a single 20 mm
radar-guided cannon in the tail. This was a last-ditch option: the B-58 was
intended to outrun attackers, not fight them off. The crew of three
consisted of a pilot, bombardier/navigator, and a defensive systems
operator (responsible for electronic countermeasures [jamming] and
the tail gun), each in their own cockpit with an ejection capsule.
The navigation and bombing system included an
inertial
navigation platform with a star tracker for correction, a Doppler radar,
and a search radar.
The nuclear weapon pod beneath the fuselage could be replaced with
a pod for photo reconnaissance. Other pods were considered, but never
developed.
The B-58 was not easy to fly. Its delta wing required high
takeoff and landing speeds, and a steep angle of attack (nose-up
attitude), but if the pilot allowed the nose to rise too high, the
aircraft would pitch up and spin. Loss of an engine, particularly
one of the outboard engines, was, as they say, a very dynamic event,
requiring instant response to counter the resulting yaw. During
its operational history, a total of 26 B-58s were lost in accidents:
22.4% of the fleet.
During its ten years in service, no operational bomber equalled
or surpassed the performance of the B-58. It set nineteen speed
records, some which still stand today, and won prestigious awards for
its achievements. It was a breakthrough, but ultimately a dead end:
no subsequent operational bomber has exceeded its performance in speed
and altitude, but that's because speed and altitude were judged
insufficient to accomplish the mission. With the introduction of
supersonic interceptors and high-performance anti-aircraft missiles
by the Soviet Union, the B-58 was determined to be vulnerable in its
original supersonic, high-altitude mission profile. Crews were
retrained to fly penetration missions at near-supersonic speeds
and very low altitude, making it difficult for enemy radar to
acquire and track the bomber. Although it was not equipped with
terrain-following
radar like the B-52, an accurate radar altimeter allowed crews
to perform these missions. The large, rigid delta wing made the
B-58 relatively immune to turbulence at low altitudes. Still,
abandoning the supersonic attack profile meant that many of the
capabilities which made the B-58 so complicated and expensive to
operate and maintain were wasted.
This book is the story of the
decision to retire the B-58, told by a crew member and Pentagon
staffer who strongly dissented and argues that
the B-58 should have remained in service much longer.
George “Sonny” Holt, Jr. served for thirty-one years in the
U.S. Air Force, retiring with the rank of colonel. For three years he
was a bombardier/navigator on a B-58 crew and later, in the Plans Division
at the Pentagon, observed the process which led to the retirement of the
bomber close-up, doing his best to prevent it. He would disagree with
many of the comments about the disadvantages of the aircraft mentioned
in previous paragraphs, and addresses them in detail. In his
view, the retirement of the B-58 in 1970, when it had been originally
envisioned as remaining in the fleet until the mid-1970s, was part of
a deal by SAC, which offered the retirement of all of the B-58s in return
for retaining four B-52 wings which were slated for retirement. He
argues that SAC never really wanted to operate the B-58, and that they
did not understand its unique capabilities. With such a small fleet,
it did not figure large in their view of the bomber force (although with
its large nuclear weapon load, it actually represented about half the
yield of the bomber leg of the
strategic triad).
He provides an insider's perspective on Pentagon politics, and how
decisions are made at high levels, often without input from those
actually operating the weapon systems. He disputes many of the
claimed disadvantages of the B-58 and, in particular, argues that it
performed superbly in the low-level penetration mission, something for
which it was not designed.
What is not discussed is the competition posed to manned bombers of all
kinds in the nuclear mission by the
Minuteman missile,
which began to be deployed in 1962. By June 1965, 800 missiles were on
alert, each with a 1.2 megaton
W56 warhead. Solid-fueled
missiles like the Minuteman require little maintenance and are ready
to launch immediately at any time. Unlike bombers, where one worries
about the development of interceptor aircraft and surface to air
missiles, no defense against a mass missile attack existed or was
expected to be developed in the foreseeable future. A missile in a
silo required only a small crew of launch and maintenance personnel,
as opposed to the bomber which had flight crews, mechanics, a spare
parts logistics infrastructure, and had to be supported by refueling
tankers with their own overhead. From the standpoint of
cost-effectiveness, a word very much in use in the 1960s Pentagon, the
missiles, which were already deployed, were dramatically better than
any bomber, and especially the most expensive one in the inventory.
The bomber generals in SAC were able to save the B-52, and were willing
to sacrifice the B-58 in order to do so.
The book is self-published by the author and is sorely in need of the attention
of a copy editor. There are numerous spelling and grammatical errors, and
nouns are capitalised in the middle of sentences for no apparent reason. There
are abundant black and white illustrations from Air Force files.
May 2016 