The Convair Super Hustler, two iterations of the Convair “Fish,” and the SDR-17 “Super Hustler” tactical bomber.
The SH was a recon/strategic bomber meant to be carried aloft by an unmodified B-58; the earlier “Fish” was a pure recon plane meant to be carried aloft by an unmodified B-58; the second “Fish” was also a recon bird, meant to be carried aloft by a stretched B-58; the SDR-17 “Super Hustler” was a conventional tactical bomber in the mold of the F-111, but equipped with only a single bomb.
This is for the RoBo article in the V2N4 issue of APR. These play only a small role in the RoBo story, so get only a few pages of treatment; a future article may cover the Super Hustler and/or Fish in greater depth. I’m also giving serious contemplation to CAD modeling the Super Hustler and the later Fish for printing at 1/72 or even 1/32 scale. I think a SH at 1/18 would be most impressive.
3 Responses to “Super Hustler/Fish”
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There’s photos of a really well done model of the 1958 Super Hustler in Jay Miller’s
B-58 Hustler book (1997 edition) It’s one of the wildest things you ever laid eyes on from a engineering viewpoint; the whole fuselage from just aft of the cockpit hinges downwards for landing, the tip of the nose hinges up to clear the nose gear of the Hustler during carriage, and clear the ground on landing.
Doors close over the cockpit windows during cruise flight, and the H-bomb rides in the nose of the top-mounted winged ramjet section on the aft of the aircraft.
There also appear to be retractable “somethings” (canards? AAM’s?) on the lower forward fuselage.
The model must have been pretty good sized, as all this stuff appears to be movable on it.
> There also appear to be retractable “somethings” (canards? AAM’s?) on the lower forward fuselage.
I’ve got some rpetty detaield Super Hustler drawings, and the only thing in that area of the fuselage is the radar. I suspect that’s what’s being shown.
There were neither canards nor AAMs.
It’s visible (barely) on your small photo of the model in your upcoming models page:
http://www.up-ship.com/blog/models/models.htm
It’s a rectangular opening fairly low on the port fuselage that doesn’t have any sort of a door over it, and inside of it the edge of “something” is visible, almost looking like the outer edge of a rounded disc. If it’s radar it’s only going to be able to look straight sideways, unless it’s just a opening on the model to show where the radar is located in the aircraft. If that’s the case, then it’s the only part of the model that is a cutaway.
The model varies in other ways from the above drawing, including having what appears to be either a IR sensor or retractable aerial refueling probe on the flip-up nose tip, and four seperate doors covering the cockpit window instead of the two-part one shown on the drawing.
I’m re-reading Miller’s book at the moment, and the whole Super Hustler concept is unhinged.
I don’t know if it can land with the aft ramjet section still attached, so any sort of realistic training mission might be very expensive to do, as you may be throwing away part of the aircraft.