IMHO, one of the coolest looking bombers ever built.

Anyone else have pics of this beautiful bird?

Dave:smoke:

I always thought it looked a little awkward with the tank/bomb pod. But once that's gone is very slick.

More pictures, one photo is sans tank.

Just love thse Delta wing types of the 1950's.:thmbsp:

Dave

Imagine what it woulda been if it came along NOW...

The "Hustler" was a cool looking bomber.I used to drive past a static display of one daily at the Eglin Armament museum.
I am most fond of this bad boy. B-1B Lancer..

Probablly the coolest looking bomber next to the B-47,,,S.O.B was quick to 1385 MPH at 40,000 feet

I had a plastic model of the B-58 when I was young. I remember trying to put it together one day with a tube of something that was NOT model glue. The gooey stuff was silver, so I thought it looked cool on the silver plastic parts. I never finished putting that model together (nor about 2 dozen others I attempted) and it probably got trashed soon after.

I've always remembered that sharp silhouette, though. I would have liked to see one up close in person! I'm a WWII warbird fan and have been to a number of good airshows in my time.

I grew up with these. My family lived in the city where Pease AFB was located. It was home to these 111s and 52s as well as others.

Brian
Showing your age..:thmbsp:

Hey, I grew up close to a base that flew C119s, and worked on F4 Phantoms when I was in the Navy.

Watch that "showin' your age" business.

Brian is not the only old fart, nor the oldest fart in here.

Have a nice day!
Dave

Hey, I resemble that remark. Bet I'm the only guy here who got qualified on Guppy Class Subs. Real subs for real men - diesel fumes and all. Good old Navy days.

The only thing wrong about a B-58 was you couldn't keep enough gas in them (just like the 105). Only two Air Force bases ever had B-58's stationed at them. One was Bunker Hill AFB (re-named Grisson AFB) in Peru, Indiana, and I'll be damned if I can remember the other, but I don't believe it was Pease AFB in Portsmouth. I was stationed at Pease in the mid-to-late 70's when the 111's were there with -135 tankers, and they made up the 509th Bomb Wing. Not long after the Vietnam War, the UNH campus over in the town of Durham still had signs on a lot of the lawns that said, "Dogs and Airmen stay off the grass." We'd go there JUST to walk on the grass.

I would love to have air refueled a B-58, but they were out of the inventory by 1972.

I stopped by the Pima Air Museum in 1987 and took this photo. I wonder if they have restored it?

I lived in Portsmouth from 1953 through 1980 with a brief time away of a few years but traveled there every month so was there form the time it opened. They were there but do not remember the years or for how long. I do remember them in high school so it would have been in the mid '60s. My family had an auto and electrical parts store in downtown that catered to the Air Force and an aunt who had and still has a discount store there.

I was more aware of things at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard than Pease but remembered the B-58 as it was always referred to the Hustler while everything else there was known by its numbers. I remembered when I 1st heard they had been based there why the Air Force had stationed a flight of gamblers there. Yeah, young and innocent.

As mentioned above, one of the first model airplanes I ever built was a B-58 Hustler. I think I chose it for it's name alone ... it just sounded cool. I played with that for a long time. Maybe I'll have to look for another one now.

Then I guess I stand corrected. I do know only two bases were permanent stations for them. Portsmouth turned into a pretty happening little place after I left. When I got to go back up there a few times during the first Gulf War, the town (and surrounding area) had really changed. Really built up. There was a real big record shop in the center of downtown, along with a pretty good stereo shop. There was also a pretty good shop on the main road out of town headed toward the water. It was The Audio Barn or something like that. It was a husband and wife operation, they were getting divorced, and the place was having a going out of business sale. I picked up a little Parasound sub for $50. Still have it.

I remember seeing a B-58 with nothing on the nose but the word "Smoke" written in script. Nice name for a haul-ass machine.

I had a toy B-58 that actually launched the weapons pod.

The Audio Barn was another guy who like me would hit Route 95 and into Boston weekly and clean out the used, obsolete and overstock shelves. He opened up in the barn next to his house and a couple of years later I bought 4 stereo stores in Mass and Ct.

The 1 downtown is where I bought my A/D/S L-300s some years after I sold my stores and was going through my divorce. Still have the speakers, or Jr. does.

Portsmouth went from a sleepy double military town to a tourist trap in a few short years with the development of Strawberry Banke that was an interesting way of dealing with the then big problem in the city of historic preservation. It went through some economic stress after Pease shut down.

Thanks for the clarifications Brian. I always wondered just what happened up there in Portsmouth to wake up that sleepy little town.

Thanks for showing me that SOME of my brain cells are still operational with the confirmation of The Audio Barn's existence. I thought they were nice enough people, and actually felt bad at the time that we were buying things for such great prices. I ALMOST walked out of there with a pair of the big JSE loudspeakers. The ones that were big enough so that casters were incorporated into the base. He was giving those away for almost nothing.