[AR] Re: B-58 \ was Ozone etc.
- From: Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 15:20:57 -0400 (EDT)
On Mon, 19 Sep 2016, David Weinshenker wrote:
...it could end up being less like a 747 and more like a B-58
(the plane whose operating costs were too high, and dispatch reliability
too low, for even the USAF)...
So what was the problem with the B-58... was it a flawed concept, or
just implemented badly?
A little of both, I'd say.
Its biggest problem was that it came into service at just the time when
people were abandoning the idea of penetrating air defences by flying fast
and high, and that was the B-58's specialty. While it wasn't useless for
other things, it wasn't appealing enough to really justify the cost and
hassles. You could run three B-52 squadrons for what it cost to operate a
single B-58 squadron.
As for the implementation, it was pushing a lot of late-40s/early-50s
technology pretty hard, and so it ended up with big maintenance and
reliability problems. Much of that could probably have been cured by a
major respin on the design -- for example, given the timing, a lot of the
electronics was probably using vacuum tubes -- but that wouldn't have been
a small project. (Convair did try to sell the USAF improved versions, but
at a time when ICBM projects were straining budgets badly and there was
political pressure to limit the USAF's ever-lengthening wishlist of
expensive toys, that was a non-starter.)
Henry
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