Convair had experimented with parasite aircraft prior to advances in aerial refueling.  With the extended range and high cruising speed of the B-36 Peacemaker, fighters of the day had difficulty keeping up.  Jet fighters didn’t have the range, and prop fighters didn’t have the speed.  The solution was the X-85 Goblin, designed to hang from a hook in one of the B-36’s bomb bays.  It wasn’t a great solution; I’ll do a future post about it.

In this case, though, Convair proposed an two-piece parasite; one manned, the second unmanned.  The host aircraft would accelerate to Mach 2 so the ramjet on the parasite had enough airflow to fire up; once released, it could hit Mach 4, which made it invulnerable to fighters and surface-to-air missiles of the time.  It would land like the X-15; on a belly skid. 

There were immense problems with this idea.  First, the parasite was probably to heavy and produced too much drag to allow the host B-58 enough speed for the ramjets to fire up.  Second, the B-58B program was cancelled while development continued. 

The Fish (as it was called) was ahead of its time: it used ceramic materials to help with supersonic heat and absorb radar; it was shaped to limit radar cross-section; it featured a lifting body design to extend its range to nearly 4000 miles.  All this in the 1950s. 

Links to much more detail and excellent pictures over at aerospcaeweb.org.

Additional editorial commentary: it amazes me how little progress has been made in aerospace since the middle of the last century.  In the recent controversy over the Obama administrations proposed cancellation of the Constellation project, some key thoughts have been overlooked.  First, the great advances in aviation were often made by small teams of engineers at private companies like Lockheed and Convair (and even Boeing).  NASA today has become a huge bureaucratic mess; it takes 25,000 employees several months just to refurbish the Space Shuttle for one launch.  NASA’s plan to return to the moon and go on to Mars was described as “Apollo on Steroids”; but Apollo, while a magnificent feat, was done with unlimited budgets and the only motivation to beat the Russians.  After the moon, interest died and NASA turned into a jobs program.  People want more aerospace research; funding NASA is unlikely to provide progress, any more than funding the Post Office (contemplating 5-day delivery, still at a loss) is more likely to produce better mail delivery or funding Amtrak more (Acela – too many compromises and priced too high, especially compared to Asian and European systems) is likely to produce innovative rail service.  For innovation in aerospace, look to Scaled Composites, SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, and innumerable other small companies.

In the late 1940s, the boys at Wright-Patterson were already trying to capitalize on the supersonic breakthrough of 1947, when Chuck Yeager popped the sound barrier in the Glamorous Glennis (more formally known as a Bell X-1, aircraft #46-062).  Those beautiful minds at Convair (cf. B-36 Peacemaker) came up with a sharp-nosed, wasp-wasted, delta wing design:

The wasp shape was deliberate; such a shape smoothes out shock waves generated by supersonic flight.

Under the wings were four J79 engines from General Electric, good for 15,600 lbs of thrust each (a version of the J79 also powered the F-104 Starfighter, the Corvette of fighter planes and subject of a future post).  These were good for a speed of about Mach 2, if the plane could operate at altitude as designed.

Other unique features include the large pod, designed to carry nuclear weapons (either a B43 or a B61); a strange escape capsule (image credit to Wikipedia user J_Clear) designed to protect each crew member during a super-sonic ejection; and an early and sophisticated inertial navigation system.

Improvements in Russian surface-to-air missile technology drove the Hustler into a low-altitude penetration role.  The range of the plane was already problematic, and flying at low altitude made things worse. The B-58 was not an easy plane to fly; nearly a quarter of all production aircraft were lost to accidents.  These drawbacks got the Air Force thinking about the B-1 Lancer program (and were pretty much ignored with the ultra-crazy B-70 Valkyrie).

The B-58 is high up on my list of personal favorites.  It’s a beautiful aircraft with extraordinary capabilities.  If you’re ever in Dayton, go over to WPAFB and check it out.

Note – I’m an amateur enthusiast, and so I’m always open to feedback and corrections to any information.