I remember when they had those things at Eglin.
Four engines on a plane about the size of a fighter. It really looked fearsome. Not sure why it never became more common or popular.
Pretty remarkable, and beautiful plane, but I think it had some major flaws:
1.) Expensive
2.) High Maintenance (as some beautiful women are)
3.) Swilled fuel like a drunk sailor
It was bleeding edge. Computers were analog, slow and expensive back then. The engines were also bleeding edge, and ate fuel at a stupid rate. It's like driving my 240-Z. Sure, it goes fast, but not for very long on a tank of gas.
Maintenance was a stone cold gritch, too, according some old ramp apes I worked with.
The lessons learned sure taught us a lot, though, and are the reason we have supercruise aircraft now.
Oh, and nuclear weapons were much larger then than they are today.
/johnny
As with so many other missed opportunities in aerospace, blame Defense Sec. McNamara. The B-58 was more expensive to buy and keep flying and less versatile than the B-52, so he killed the program.
Was also a medium range bomber, a type future planners were going away from. Only heavy long range bombers were even considered for any or more production. Along the same lines if the F-117 wasn’t also desingnated a fighter, we would have never seen them deployed.