A NACA-Langley photo of a wind tunnel model of a B-58 variant, dated 1957. While generally based on a stock B-58, at least three things are diferent:
1) The wingtips are turned sharply down. Presumably, the wingtips would be like those on the B-70… hinged to be horizontal at low speed, and angled down at high speed to benefit from compression lift.
2) A wider cockpit (on a possibly longer nose), presumably for side-by-side seating. Whether this means additional crew in back is unknown.
3) A smaller external fuel tank, carried under a pylon under the left wing root, rather than on the centerline. It looks like there might be another tank under the right wing root, but it’s hidden behind the fuselage. This would open up the centerline position for either a single very large weapon (a large rocket, perhaps), or another fuel tank/weapons pod. If the latter, the design would seem to indicate much greater range than the standard B-58 could attain.
8 Responses to “Advanced B-58 Variant”
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I wonder if this is the design for the B-58C. A ‘cheaper’ replacement for the B-70. It would have replaced the J-79’s with non-afterburning J-58’s so it could supercruise at mach 2.
Those don’t look like J-58 pods, too narrow. IIRC, the J-58 version not only could supercruise but had a longer combat radius than the B-58A.
The B-58 had a lot of neat variations but this one looks like it would be fairly easy to model.
The down-swept wingtips could also be to add more yaw stability at full speed; they had one B-58 break up during flight testing when they shut down one of the outer engines to see how much the asymmetric thrust would affect its flight characteristics. What they hadn’t counted on was the fuselage yawing into the airstream so far that it disturbed the airflow into the inboard engine on the same side, causing it to lose thrust also. Then the aircraft swung into the airstream sideways and broke up. The aircraft’s vertical fin was too small in area in relation to the rest of it, as can be seen by comparing its proportional size to a F-102 or F-106.
Would compression lift work with those engine nacelles and their pylons setting up their own shockwaves?
I asked the crew over at Stuart Slade’s board if they’ve seen this before.
Ask and you shall receive…
According to Stuart Slade: “I believe it’s the near-legendary B-58D powered by four J-75 engines. It was a proposed variant of the original B-58 once the very advanced B-58C got cancelled.”
The nose area looks shorter and wider than on a stock B-58; did they put side-by-side seating in the cockpit?
Probably not. I’m betting they put in a bigger radar set.