The USAF ordered 116 Hustlers which were operational with the Strategic Air Command (SAC) between 1960 and 1970. B-58s set 19 world speed and altitude records and won five different aviation trophies.
This web site is dedicated to those brave crew who flew the Convair B-58 Hustler.
One of the two wings to have the B-58, was the 305th Bomb Wing at Bunker Hill Air Force Base, which became Grissom Air Force Base after Gus Grissom’s death in the Apollo program. (Only two wings had the B-58: the 43rd and the 305th, the 43rd was both at Carswell and then Little Rock, where as the 305th was only at Bunker Hill AFB (later called Grissom Air Force Base). For me, I moved to the county in 1967 as a small child. My neighbors were all Majors who flew in the B-58, also known as the Hustler. It was a supersonic nuclear bomber. Each night about 3 a.m. in their practice runs, it made a turn above our home.
When the airplane was taken out of active duty at the end of the 1960’s, it was mothballed, and then in 1977, the remaining B-58’s except for 8 were sold as scrap and no longer exist. At Grissom Air Museum is the oldest remaining B-58, as a TB-58A (number 663). It had a cockpit fire in 1969 and was taken out of service. Today it sits in the Grissom Air Museum.
You may wish to check out the Grissom Air Museum Web site www.grissomairmuseum.com We encourage you to visit their web site and to visit their museum where many of the flying wonders of W.W.II and beyond are on display. And for a very inexpensive amount you can be a member of Grissom Air Museum, see their web site for details. If you would like to purchase Jay Miller’s authoritative book on the B-58, contact the Grissom Air Museum.
This site will honor those who flew at the time, the world’s fastest plane, which were hand picked top notch pilots. There were 116 B-58’s made. Twenty percent crashed. We will try to list information about the B-58, about the men who flew them, and some about Bunker Hill AFB, which was home to the 305th Bombing Wing.
If you are a former crew member of the B-58 Hustler and want to contribute story(s) about B-58, it will be considered for the site. If you have pictures that you would like to see posted about the B-58, they will be considered also.
Here is a picture of 663 sitting at Grissom in the Museum. 663 is a TB-58A and had a cockpit fire in 1969 and was taken out of service. Below two pictures were taken with permission of the Grissom Air Museum at a car show held during August 1999 (Grissom Days). The Grissom Air Museum is maintaining many of these treasures for future generations and I encourage you to check out their site and consider a monetary donation to the air museum for the fine work they do. When 663 was being tested, it was painted red and white. The 305th was the can-do wing. For pictures of patches of the era, click here.
To think that only two bom wings had 58’s… the 305th at BHAFB was one of them, later renamed Grissom after Indiana’s Gus Grissom. We are talking about a mach 2.1 machine. The crew consisted of 3 members. There was the AC (aircraft commander)(pilot), the bombardier/navigator and DSO (defense systems operator). It is my hope that men who flew these futurist planes will provide information what it was like to fly the fastest planes around. Some of the speed records still stand. 663 had a cockpit fire and was retired. To think they were mothballed, then sold for scrap in the mid 1970’s… To hear the sonic boom, or to be awakened at 3 a.m. each night as they made their nightly flight…
for some really neat pictures of the 58, including refueling by KC-135’s click below on photo gallery link..
This site is NOT connected with the US Air Force, nor with any other government agency. It is not connected with any other organization but is hosted by a few individuals who wish to honor those who flew the B-58 Hustler. It is not designed to reveal government secrets, but to help tell the chapter of history about one of the advanced planes of this latter half of this century and to honor those who flew this plane. It is not connected with the Grissom Air Museum, but is presented as historical information about an airplane that made a big impact upon the communities that were home to bases that hosted B-58 Hustlers. The crew who flew them are not getting any younger and like many other items of historical reference, when the death comes, too often that information goes to the grave, and we are left without this history.
If you have things to submit for consideration, send them to: info@b-58hustler.com
All items on this web site are copyrighted by their respective owners and have been used here with permission. No other use without the permission of the owner of the picture.