AHC: Export options for the B-58 Hustler

[La Rouge Beret]

For those of you that are unaware of the Convair B-58 Hustler.

It was the first operational bomber to reach Mach 2 speed and was developed in the 1950s for the USAF Strategic Air Command.

With a rather fetching delta wing design powered by four General Electric J79 engines, the Hustler initially carried a single nuclear weapon and with later modifications allowed it to carry up to five weapons.

My question is apart from the USAF, what other Air Forces could potentially operate the Hustler? Specifically, what changes would be necessary for example the Royal Air Force and the Royal Australian Air Force to operate the type?

Here are some WI images to help.

 

[CV12Hornet]

None of them, IMO. The Hustler was and expensive and temperamental beast pushing the limits of technology and so riddled with design compromises. There’s a reason the RAF, RAAF, and AlA went for bombers in the upper end of fighter size - cheaper and easier.

 

[steamboy]

The B-58 was hyper specialized and verrrrrrrrrry expensive to run, to make it a viable export beasty, you'd need to change it a LOT. Really it was pushing what the tech of the time could do and this technical complexity would probably limit the number of operators, factor in that without modifications, its nuke only, and not everyone's got nukes.

 

[Pangur]

The most immediate question re RAAF/Australia is why? If you want a cynical answer the Iranians,they would buy anything

 

[AlanL]

The only countries at the time likely to see themselves as being in need of an eye-wateringly expensive, bleeding edge strategic bomber were Britain and France, both of whom were very focused on the survival of their own domestic aircraft industries and so unlikely to be inclined to buy American.

 

[vetinari]

The only countries at the time likely to see themselves as being in need of an eye-wateringly expensive, bleeding edge strategic bomber were Britain and France, both of whom were very focused on the survival of their own domestic aircraft industries and so unlikely to be inclined to buy American.

This would explain why the British canceled their TSR-2 and ordered the F-111K.

 

[steamboy]

This would explain why the British canceled their TSR-2 and ordered the F-111K.

The TSR is a lot more complicated than that and was a victim of being too ambitious, and politics, and honestly, whilst this might get me flogged, flayed and shot, the F-111 was the superior platform really, a far bigger payload, similar performance too and would have had a longer service life as I feel the TSR was too focused in its nuclear strike role, but even then that fell afoul of politics and money.

 

[mtpalmer1]

the F-111 was the superior platform really

Eventually, yes but I'd argue not straight out of the box. The A had issues. The TSR.2 saga is really more complicated than a this-one-is-better-than-that-one - as I'm certain you are already aware - but I don't want to get into because politics and it's depressing.

As others have already pointed out, the B-58 was too expensive and specialized for other air forces to consider - a pity as it's drop dead gorgeous! It's probably a little late for the Shah's spending spree who wasn't really in the market for a freefall nuclear delivery platform but it's an outside possibility as a vanity buy. Another outside possibility for alternate national markings is maybe RAF roundels on a RB-58A variant in a similar arrangement to the RB-45C and Operation Ju-jitsu?

North American B-45 Tornado - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[I lurk therefore I am]

This would explain why the British canceled their TSR-2 and ordered the F-111K.

The TSR2 got cancelled by the British Government because it was going to cost too much*

The F111 order then got cancelled.... because it was going to cost too much.

There is a bit of a theme going on there.


*(or, if you listen to one of my Dad's favourite rants, the Labour Government cancelled it after the Soviets told them to because it was too good).

 

[BlueTrousers]

My question is apart from the USAF, what other Air Forces could potentially operate the Hustler? Specifically, what changes would be necessary for example the Royal Air Force and the Royal Australian Air Force to operate the type?

It's a comparable aircraft to the Tu-22, which was operated (in small numbers) by Libya and Iraq, so non-US users aren't automatically out of the question. I just don't see anyone who's likely to actually want the thing.

The UK might be able to use it, but by the time it's on offer the British government has decided missiles are the future and are getting out of the bomber game. Also, it's not British, but depending on the timeframe that might be a selling point. Regardless of cost, that's them out.

France could use it, but it has two crippling flaws: it's not built by Dassault, and it's not powered by SNECMA engines. Regardless of cost, that's them out.

Australia could use it, and an effort was made to sell it to them, but they weren't interested. Presumably someone showed them the bill.

The weird possibilities are Argentina and South Africa, IMO. Argentina flew Lincolns, and was vaguely interested in buying Vulcans. South Africa inquired about Victors. Either might be interested in the B-58, provided someone else pays for them. That someone else can only really be the US, and I'm not sure why they'd pay.

 

[The Oncoming Storm]

The TSR is a lot more complicated than that and was a victim of being too ambitious, and politics, and honestly, whilst this might get me flogged, flayed and shot, the F-111 was the superior platform really, a far bigger payload, similar performance too and would have had a longer service life as I feel the TSR was too focused in its nuclear strike role, but even then that fell afoul of politics and money.

Yep, it was far too specialised and expensive. In Empire of the Clouds former Harrier test pilot John Farley was scathing about it, he claimed it would have been vulnerable to fighters as its wings meant it wouldn’t have been capable of the evasive manoeuvres necessary. Much of the mythology about it seems to have originated from Roland Beamont and it’s suggested that he was embarrassed that he’d turned down the chance to be test pilot on Concorde because he thought the TSR2 was less likely to be cancelled. About the one thing Mountbatten ever got right was that an advanced Buccaneer could have fulfilled much of the role much cheaper.

But instead it’s been cast as the victim of nefarious dealings by those dastardly Yankees like another white elephant produced by a Commonwealth member.

Oh no, I’m going to have the Canadians after me too! 😜

 

[ArtosStark]

Oh no, I’m going to have the Canadians after me too! 😜

Did we insult your national pastime? Blaming Canada’s problems on the US is what Canadian news icons (by which I mean coffee shops and gossip groups) in business. Stop messing with our economy! 😉

 

[steamboy]

Oh no, I’m going to have the Canadians after me too! 😜

Canadians? Oh you mean Snow Australians
And yes the Arrow was a fucking disgraceful performance.

 

[AlanL]

This would explain why the British canceled their TSR-2 and ordered the F-111K.

Somewhat later in entirely different circumstances

 

[mtpalmer1]

But instead it’s been cast as the victim of nefarious dealings by those dastardly Yankees like another white elephant produced by a Commonwealth member.

...and triggered. TSR.2 was a victim alright. Mostly of homespun.... officials but them good ol' boys from the USofA weren't exactly innocent either. I think it's fair to say the F-111 was deliberately massively under-priced. That the government of the day fell for it... there aren't enough rolleye smileys in the world. Perhaps the overall extent of US influence in this sorry saga has been overstated over the years but that doesn't mean it should be downplayed either! This all not far off of the heels of the Skybolt saga. Eurrrggh. How messed up is it when Nixon looks like an honest broker?!! Arooooooo

Yes the TSR.2 was too complex, too niche and the avionics just the wrong side of a technological revolution. I know pretty much all the ins and outs. What rankles to this day though isn't necessarily that it was cancelled but how the government of the day went about it and the demolition of BAC as a combat aircraft manufacturer. Simply put, we didn't throw the match, we threw the whole %$^$ing sport.

Must visit Duxford....

 

[Ramontxo]

Well after the Sky Bolt debacle the UK got the Polaris deal. Not a bad result. And just think whaf could have been if the money spent on the TRS.2 would have been spent on the Bucanneer.

 

[mtpalmer1]

Well after the Sky Bolt debacle the UK got the Polaris deal.

Well yes but between one end of that sentence and the other could be an entire book. It's easy to summate it to a mere sentence now. My point though, was that the US had 3 presidents in a row, Ike, JFK and LBJ (or their administrations) who could perhaps be said to not have entirely acted in good faith in respect to their British allies regarding aerospace/defence matters. We call it knobbling the competition where I come from. Does anyone know of any Nassau Agreement transcript? It would be fascinating to read.

....if the money spent on the TRS.2 would have been spent on the Buccaneer.

The trouble with that is I enter this Moebius Loop where any government who takes strike seriously enough to invest in Buccaneer upgrades never cancels TSR.2 so never invests in Buccaneer upgrades. The RAF, of course, could do far worse than more Bucc - don't mention Red Flag!

 

[steamboy]

IIRC the RAF was even maybe looking at upgrading the Vulcan. They wanted to buy AGM-69 SRAM and AGM-86 ALCM for them. Plus new electronics and newer engines. But the big issue is that the Vulcan was pretty much built for the type of Olympus engines its got, and the more powerful ones on the Concord are a meter longer and this means you'd have to redesign the wing section and lengthen the body, and this is on already aging airframes. But if the UK had gone ahead with it, not a clue if the USAF would have let them have SRAM's or ALCM's.
As was said, Ike, JFK and LBJ really did screw over the UK with various defence programs that were good ideas for the most part before pulling out or changing requirements that the UK didn't need or couldn't make work with what they had.

Hell look at the Starfighter scandal, that was basically done to screw over european aircraft manufacturers.

 

[DougM]

The problem was that for a long time most of Europe didn’t take defense as seriously as they should have. In part this was because the US was involved and spending huge amounts and everyone sat back and said, well the US is outspending all of us and has us covered so we can skimp a little this year, or we can cut this project back” Then they all butch that the US is not playing nice with them. Or the US is trying yo kill their defense industry….
The B-58 was not a good aircraft in general and like most aircraft that were even close to cutting edge at the time, it had issues. But what aircraft didn’t? B-52 and the F-4 may be two of only a handful of aircraft that were more or less contemporary to the B-58 that survived any lenth of time. And frankly the B-52 was a pretty conservative aircraft.
Almost all cutting edge aircraft from 1945-1960 had pretty short lives. One because they sone became obsolete, 2) because the tech they used was not mature and thus prone to problem and 3) because no one was sure they role they were designed for even trully existed/worked.

We still get a similar problem in the 1960-2023 time frame, but now aircraft take so long to develop that thse problem pop up before the air raft is in production vs the pre 1960 timeframe when these aircraft often went from concept through design and into production in a couple years. Not a decade or more.

This is I believe a contributing factor to aircraft such as the Arrow and the B-70 and a couple attack hilocoptors and pretty much all the US navies aircraft in the past 30 years and a bunch of other (in)famous aircraft getting canceled in development.

The problem with the B-58 was that it took bleeding edge tech to do its mission and then it was soon determined that it’s mission was not worth doing at the cost it took to do it.
if this had been 20+ years latter the aircraft would have been canceled in testing simply because testing would have taken long enough to have second thoughts a bout the cost to mission benefits.

Of course this tends to result in repeated designs that never get to production as pretty much all aircraft have issues. It is just that in the past by the times these issues become apparent we have invested in production aircraft so it is worth spending the time and money to work out the bugs and ultimately we get a func aircraft. But now days we just cancel the prototype before production and spend huge amounts designing a “better solution “ that also ends up having problems. And ultimately we never work out the bugs,
This even happens to our production aircraft to one degree or another.
the F-14 was scrapped just about the time it should have been upgraded, The F-15 is only in production today because smaller countries supported its continued development. The B-2 production was stop so sone that they are for all intents an purposes pre production prototypes with all the cost that entails, The F-22 was canceled and most major upgrades stopp way to early in favor of the F-35. The F-35 MAY get its development but I would not count on it as we are already seeing work on the NGAD and various drones.
We also saw this with the A-12 and in that case and with the rest of the Navy aircraft we simply tossed the roll out the window, We lost attack with the 3nd of the A-6 and cancelled A-12, we simply tossed the anti submarine roll out and rely on shorter ranged hilocopters, the interceptor long range fighter was pitched with the F-14 and the only reason we have any modern aircraft on a flat top is that the Navy basically fooled congress into believing the Super Hornet was just a new batch of slightly updated Hornets.
Even aircraft such as the tilt rotor were bitched about and folks wanted to cancel them because devepment was a problem. Overlooking that development is ALWAYS a problem. Even systems we think are reliable today all had issues they had to overcome.

So this is nothing new and this is not a huge conspiracy. It is the result of a long process that has to many folks coming in and out of it that change the goal and want to find a fast solution. So instead of supporting what we have they jump at the new project. After all the current project has a bunch of problems we know about or had to fix but that shinny new project has NO ISSUES AT ALL. Simply because it has not been developed yet. So the grass is much greener in the lawn before you start construction on the house.

 

[The Oncoming Storm]

...and triggered. TSR.2 was a victim alright. Mostly of homespun.... officials but them good ol' boys from the USofA weren't exactly innocent either. I think it's fair to say the F-111 was deliberately massively under-priced. That the government of the day fell for it... there aren't enough rolleye smileys in the world. Perhaps the overall extent of US influence in this sorry saga has been overstated over the years but that doesn't mean it should be downplayed either! This all not far off of the heels of the Skybolt saga. Eurrrggh. How messed up is it when Nixon looks like an honest broker?!! Arooooooo

Yes the TSR.2 was too complex, too niche and the avionics just the wrong side of a technological revolution. I know pretty much all the ins and outs. What rankles to this day though isn't necessarily that it was cancelled but how the government of the day went about it and the demolition of BAC as a combat aircraft manufacturer. Simply put, we didn't throw the match, we threw the whole %$^$ing sport.

Must visit Duxford....

Yep no arguments here, it was far too ambitious a project and was appallingly managed. The resources would have been far better spent to developing aircraft like the Hunter and Lightning to their full potential. I’ve no doubt that had the government been prepared to throw enough money at it then it would have eventually come good, which is what the USAF did with the F-111. Unfortunately we didn’t have as big a wallet.