CoolPix - Modern Military: The Grissom Air Museum B-58 Hustler

(click pic for hi-res)

Here’s a second CoolPix already this week featuring Convair's awesome Mach 2 bomber!

 There are only 8 B-58 Hustlers still in existence today, and the oldest one happens to be sitting outside just an hour down the road from me.  It’s at the Grissom Air Museum which is on the old Grissom Air Force Base in Peru, Indiana.  The facility used to be called Bunker Hill AFB but was renamed Grissom in 1968 after Indiana native Virgil (Gus) Grissom perished in the Apollo 1 launchpad fire.  Today the base is known as the Grissom Air Reserve Base in conjunction with the Grissom Aeroplex. 

 The museum has a small building with several interesting artifacts, but the bulk of the displays are the airplanes sitting outside.  It’s quite a collection actually, including a B-47, B-17, B-25, KC-97, C-119, F-102, F-14 along with many others… and of course the B-58 shown in this picture that I took last Saturday.  As it sits, this is a TB-58A, the modified trainer version.  As the 4th airplane to come off the production line in Fort Worth, Texas, #55-663 was originally designated as a YB/RB-58A, one of the 11 pre-production aircraft.  116 Hustlers were built with the first one going into active service in 1960.  Interestingly, by early 1970, the B-58 was already being retired.  A lot of factors contributed to the relatively short service life of the airplane… I’ll get into that in another post.

 Only the 43rd Bombardment Wing (operating out of Carswell AFB in Texas and then Little Rock AFB in Arkansas) and the 305th Bombardment Wing at Bunker Hill flew the B-58.  That makes the stuff that went on just down the road from me a pretty huge part of U.S. Air Force history!  However, I was born in California in 1961 at the early part of the B-58 era, so I was a long way away from the Bunker Hill operations.  It wasn’t until I graduated high school that I would up in Indiana almost 10 years after the airplanes had stopped flying.  But I do remember being mesmerized by this awesome airplane as early as age 7, and I’m still very much stunned by her yet today!

 More 'B-58 Week’ coming soon : )

Video: Rotary Powered Sopwith Camel In Formation With A Spitfire

 If you're in a hurry, jump up to the 2:30 mark in the video to see the Sopwith's rotary engine started.  It's like a 160hp rabid animal attached to the front of the airplane!  You kinda get the feeling that the engine is the crazy master here, and the best you can do is not make it mad!  Actually it looks very cool, but you can sure see how much of a challenge operating an engine without a normal throttle is... especially one that weighs 345 pounds and spins with the prop!

 This nearly 9 minute video, from 2004, then moves on the show the WWI Sopwith Camel flying a pretty tight formation with Red Bull Air Race pilot Nigel Lamb in a WWII Supermarine Spitfire.  It's beautifully shot and is quite a treat to see these very different aircraft share the sky together.  It all comes from a group of people in New Zealand doing some amazing stuff building authentic World War I airplanes and engines.  Be sure to check out TheVintageAviator.co.nz website to learn more about their gorgeous work.

More Hustler Details As 'B-58 Week' Continues!

Convair B-58 Hustler

 I always find the ‘design process’ to be fascinating, and getting a chance to see what was in the mind of the designers along the way is very cool.  The graphic above shows some of the configurational concepts that were considered for the Convair B-58.  They’re all pretty similar to what was eventually selected, but they also show some definite differences.  As it often winds up in aircraft development, the final design is the one that really looks best overall, and I’d say that’s definitely the case with the Hustler.  The clean yet aggressive look of the 4 engines mounted in separate nacelles is pretty much perfect… and the coke-bottle fuselage shape is beyond awesome.  I’m thinking the look of the airplane alone was probably enuf to strike some serious fear in any potential enemy!

 The picture below shows a B-58 with all 3 crew hatches open.  This set up was a little different than typical bombers with a single pilot responsible for flying the airplane, much more like a fighter, and then 2 more crew stations mounted in tandem behind the pilot.  They each had a relatively small cockpit and had no way of seeing each other directly.  The 2nd seat was for the bombardier/navigator and the 3rd seat for the DSO (defensive systems operator). 

 Up front, the pilot’s seat was uniquely offset to the left so he wasn’t looking at the windshield center divider all the time.  He had great visibility thru the large windshield and side windows, but the other two guys only had small side windows for seeing out.  There was a ‘clothesline’ system that ran along one side of the crew compartment wall that allowed for the passage of paper or other small items, and of course they had radio com, but face to face communication simply wasn’t possible.  Given the radical nature of a supersonic bomber in the late 1950’s, coupled with the extremely complex nature of the airplane, I’m thinking it took some pretty wild individuals to sit in those back seats with hardly any view and trusting the guy up front as he guides this beast of an airplane that could climb at over 17,000 feet per minute at gross weight!

 More cockpit and crew details coming later, but one last point to make in this post.  It’s easy to overlook, but if you look at the nose gear in this pic, you might begin to wonder how that long leg could retract into the well when the very large weapons pod seems to be in the way.  If you look closely, you can kinda see a pivot point on the gear leg just above the point of the pod.  As the nose gear retracted, the upper part of the leg moved aft causing the lower leg with the wheels on it to pivot forward.  The rather complex arrangement allowed the entire assembly to collapse and fit right under the cockpit.  My research also indicates that the wheel wells (and the elctronics bays) were pressurized and air conditioned due to the extreme heat generated at Mach 2.  Can you even imagine the challenges faced in the late 50’s to make all these complicated systems work… it’s pretty amazing stuff.  More details later as ’B-58 Week’ continues!

Video: B-58 Hustler - First (And Most Awesome) USAF Supersonic Bomber!

Red Bull 2010 Season Opener Highlight Video - Brits Take 1st & 2nd!

CoolPix - Modern Military: The NB-58A, Hustler With A 5th Engine!

(click pic for hi-res)

 It’s been a very B-58 weekend for me.  It’s pretty common for me to do a little googlin’ of the Convair B-58 Hustler on a regular basis, but this weekend I lit the afterburners.  As a result, this week’s gonna be ‘B-58 Week’ at AirPigz.com.  In addition to at least 1 regular post a day, you can expect 1 Hustler post a day as well.

 I’m kicking it off here on Sunday night with this CoolPix in the Modern Military category.  At first glance it looks like your run-of-the-mill B-58 (ha, like a B-58 could ever be called rotm!), but it’s far from it.  That’s not the traditional fuel tank/weapon pod hanging under the airplane, it’s a 5th and even more powerful turbojet engine!  The GE J93 to be exact.  That’s the engine that was specifically designed for use on the Mach 3 XB-70.  The engine was ready to fly before the XB-70, so it was decided that some inflight testing would be a good idea.  Thus the NB-58A was born.  BTW, I've removed a lot of the scratches and other blemishes from this old original pic so it's sure to look good when you check out out super sized.

 The standard GE J79 turbojet engines on the B-58 developed around 15,000 pounds of thrust with afterburner, but this extra J-93 engine was rated around 28,000 pounds with afterburner!  Just imagine an airplane like the B-58, which was already capable of flying at 60,000+ feet, able to go Mach 2, and had a gross-weight rate of climb of over 17,000 feet per minute... just imagine what a 28,000 pound kick in the butt would do.  Well, interestingly enuf, imagine may be exactly what we have to do here.  My research indicates that the funding for this research project was cancelled the day before the first flight.  (you gotta be kidding!)  Ground runs had been made, but it appears that the NB-58A never actually flew with the J-93 engine installed.

 The airplane pictured is #55-662, the 3rd B-58 to be built.  First flight was on May 6, 1957.  Can you even believe that?  Here’s an airplane that looks like it coulda been designed and built just yesterday, yet it was in the air when Chevy was building the iconic 57 Bel Air!  No matter how you look at it, the B-58 is a stunning accomplishment of design and engineering.

 Tho #55-662 never flew with that J-93 engine, it was later one of the 8 aircraft converted to the TB-58A, the trainer version that added an instructor seat behind the pilot, and it then spent some time as a chase plane for the XB-70.  This airplane set a record of 256 sorties flown without a missed or late takeoff… pretty impressive  It’s also special to me in that it was one B-58’s from the 305th Bomb Wing that operated out of Peru, Indiana at Bunker Hill AFB (later Grissom AFB), which just happens to be an hour down the road from me.  That made it pretty easy for me just yesterday to go get a load of pix of the 4th B-58 to be built, aircraft #55-663, which is on outdoor display at the Grissom Air Museum.  It’s one of only 8 B-58’s that still exist.  You'll see some of those pix later in ‘B-58 Week’ : )

Luscious Beech Starship Video - Wow!

Video: Virgin Galactic WK2/Enterprise 'Captive Carry' First Flight

Retro Design Contest! Draw A 4-Engine Prop Airliner Circa 1949 - Ends 4.8.10

Vote until 4-16-10 in the Retro Airliner Design Contest

Calling all dreamers!  You’ve got 2 weeks to draw up the perfect 4-engine (piston) airliner for today, as tho it was 1949 all over again. 

All it takes is one simple drawing to enter, and then a poll after the deadline will determine the winner!  (full rules below)

 The really awesome video of the Constellation engines breathing fire that I posted a couple days ago (2nd post down from this one) has sparked a crazy idea.  What if it made sense to build an updated and fully modern radial engine, something like the huge Wright R-3350 or the Pratt & Whitney R-4360, and then put 4 of ‘em on a thoroughly modern airframe… what would that look like?

 At first thought it seems silly, but the more you realize how much cheaper those engines would cost, it might not be all that crazy.  Plus, as I’ve said before, it seems a lot of people would ride in a 400 mph airliner if it was significantly more comfortable than the cattle cars of today.  Ok, it's still probably a crazy idea, but it might at least make for a really interesting design exercise. 

 I’m really hoping there’s some dreamers out there that’ll play along with this.  You can be sure that I’ll have an entry, but I really need some more doodlers to join in.  If all you can do is draw on a napkin, that’s cool… and if you’re a hot shot with graphics or CAD - go for it!  This is for anyone and everyone to get in on.

 The Constellation, DC-7 and the Stratocruiser are all pictured here to give a little historical reference.  YOUR design might pick up on 40’s era design cues, or you might wanna go off in a totally different direction.  But, to win, you’re probably gonna want to design a truly beautiful airplane.  In that sense, the Connie is definitely the mark to hit.  An airplane that inspires people to want to ride in it is what I’m hoping for.  But again, YOUR design should be nothing like the Connie, it should just be gorgeous like the Connie : )

 The Rules:

1)   One design per person

2)   Must be an original design/drawing

3)   Photoshopping existing airplane parts not allowed

4)   You can provide multiple views of the design, but only 1 'side' view required to enter

5)   Design must have 4 engines (large radials swinging big props!)

6)   Deadline to submit is Thursday night 4-8-10 at midnight (you can submit your design anytime before the deadline)

7)   Please submit your drawing as a jpg file (scanned napkin drawing or fancy drawings)

8)   No prizes, just bragging rights : )

9)   Poll that will be put up Monday 4-12-10 and end Friday 4-16-10 will determine winner

 More rules or additions may be added along the way.  Remember this is all for fun... and I also reserve the right to reject really crappy entries : )

 Email me if you have any questions.  Dream big, dream loud, dream fast!

CoolPix - Early Aviation: Byrd’s Fokker Trimotor At The Henry Ford Museum

(click pic for hi-res)

 A new CoolPix category starting up, this time it’s ‘Early Aviation’.  This is a pic I took of the Fokker Trimotor that was used by Admiral Richard E. Byrd to fly over the North Pole on May 9, 1926.  The claim was that this was the first ever flight over the North Pole, but seems there's some question about whether Byrd and his pilot Floyd Bennett actually made it far enough to pass over the pole.  They encountered an oil leak on one engine and returned back at the airport sooner than expected.  There seems to be a bit of ongoing controversy about the matter, however, Byrd’s accomplishments before and after this trip are quite extensive regardless.

 There’s a lot more about this specific airplane that’s pretty interesting as well.  It’s displayed as shown at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.  There’s a lot of great aviation pieces at the museum, like the Anzani 6-cylinder radial powered Laird biplane that Katherine Stinson flew in 1916.  I always say this: you gotta get to The Henry Ford - it's awesome!  So anyway, it’s a very cool display for this unique aircraft.

 This particular Fokker Trimotor is pretty special in that it’s serial #1.  It’s also interesting to note that 'Fokker' is painted prominently pretty much all over the airplane.  The Byrd expedition to the North Pole was funded by Edsel Ford, and the airplane was named the ‘Josephine Ford’ for Edsel’s young daughter.  Seems Tony Fokker didn’t want there to be any chance of people confusing his Trimotor with the one soon to be flying from Ford!  A pretty interesting detail in the history of this airplane.

 Lastly, the airplane was not fitted with a heater, so it’s likely that the cabin temp was as cold as -50° F while flying over (or near!) the North Pole.  Cool stuff indeed : )