On Veterans Day, Nov 11th, 1956 Convair’s revolutionary delta wing B-58 “Hustler” supersonic bomber took to the skies for the first time, piloted by B. A, Ericson.
The first flight takes the aircraft to Mach 0.7 at 20,000′ and back down again without a hitch — and you’ll see it all in this memorable colour film with digitally restored audio and video.
A pilot once said of the Convair B-58, “She looked like she was breaking the sound barrier just sitting on the tarmac.”At Mach 2 +, the B-58 wasn’t just one of the fastest bombers of her day, she was one of the fastest military planes period.
A first cousin of the hot “century series” of fighters, the delta winged “Hustler’ medium bomber combined outstanding performance with a striking, javelin-like profile that spawned a mystique that survives to this day. In the early 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, in just two years the B-58 captured 14 speed and performance records, many previously held by Soviet aircraft.
She was not only capable of extended 700 mph on-the deck missions at 500 feet (then unheard of for a bomber and without the advantages of today’s ground hugging radar or fly-by-wire) she also set altitude and climb records. The B-58 was capable of doing whatever was necessary to invade enemy air space.
Source: YouTube