Posted on 03/17/2018 9:33:42 AM PDT by Kaslin
Everyone is always looking for the big advantage. Whether it's a military weapon that a country can use to threaten other countries with in order to get their way or some product or technological superiority that a company can use to favorably leverage its position in the marketplace or even a superstar athlete whose presence always tips the balance in favor of his team, everyone wants that special element that delivers the edge.
Here are some good examples from different walks of life.
The B-58 Hustler
During the height of the Cold War in the late '50s and early '60s, the U.S. and the Soviet Union were constantly vying for bragging rights with a never-ending string of new and impressive weapons. New aircraft, submarines, and ICBMs came on line, one after another, as the two adversaries tried to gain the upper hand and show the rest of the world which country and – by direct implication – which system (communism versus capitalism) could produce the superior technological product.
Certainly, no new aircraft of that era was more impressive than America's Convair B-58 Hustler. The B-58 was a sinister-looking, futuristic, four-engined delta-winged bomber capable of amazing supersonic speeds that most fighter planes of its day couldn't match. It was designed to be fast enough to deliver a nuclear strike on the Russian homeland and then evade their defenses with its blinding speed. The Hustler was so fast that it set several worldwide speed records in its day, many of which stood for decades. (Several of these were set by Major Henry J. Deutschendorf, Sr., father of the noted pop-folk singer John Denver.)
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
I had that model in the Sixties. Beautiful aircraft!
Around 1960, I put together a model B-58. It really was wicked looking.
I think one problem was it really drank the fuel. The reliability problems could probably have been fixed. Probably the cost of operation was what killed it.
Wikipedia says it was the Russian SA-2 threat. It then had to fly low to avoid the radar, and then couldn’t fly as fast.
Mean Mean Flyin` Machine
The J-79 engine was an engineering marvel. The F-104 Star Fighter had 1; the F-4 Phantom had 2. I can’t imaging what having 4 must have been like!
With a little of today’s technology retrofitted,it could be made into a pretty awesome aircraft,I think. Impressive looking plane,especially if you’ve seen one in person.
That was the coolest looking airplane of my youth.
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