I have to show you my favorite aircraft. At the time it was the fastest aircraft in the world. If it were made of titanium, it would still be one of the fastest aircraft in the world. At over twice the speed of sound and a skin temperature over 300 degrees, I would have to throttle back to cool the skin. I loved that aircraft.
On one of my flights, as I was approaching a KC135, jet tanker, for refueling, a kindly boom operator took this photo and mailed a copy to me. Many thanks to him.
After the Hustler was retired, some of our pilots went into the F4 fighter. I was told the F4 had to dive to break mach. The F4 pilots couldn't believe the ease at which the B58 went supersonic. We accelerated to 600 knots and started to climb and just slipped through the sound barrier as we climbed. As an aircraft gains altitude the thin air meant we were going much faster than what our airspeed indicators displayed. By the time we climbed to about 50,000 feet we were going about 1400 miles per hour. Alas we were entering age of the transistor and all the Hustler electronics were tube and very vunerable to the heat we generated.
No comments:
Post a Comment