Whipped Cream Difficulties

I’ve posted some B-58 videos previously, but not in a while, and this one is interesting: “Tall Man Five Five”.

On March 5, 1962 two Convair B-58 Hustler supersonic bombers from the 65th Bombardment Squadron, 43rd Bombardment Wing, Carswell Air Force Base, Texas, took off at sunrise and headed west to Los Angeles, California. Off the Pacific coast they refueled from a Boeing KC-135A Stratotanker, then headed east at maximum speed to New York. The total elapsed time, Los Angeles–New York–Los Angeles, was 4 hours, 41 minutes, 14.98 seconds (4:41:14.98) for an average speed of 1,044.97 miles per hour (1,681.71 kilometers per hour) The crew and the airplane “Tall Man Five Five” established three National Aeronautic Association speed records for Speed Over A Recognized Course. At Los Angeles the crew, Captain Robert G. Sowers, Pilot, Captain Robert MacDonald, Navigator, and Captain John T. Walton, were congratulated by General Thomas S. Power, Chief of Staff, Strategic Air Command, and each airman was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. For the eastbound transcontinental flight, the crew won the Bendix Trophy, and for “the most meritorious flight of the year,” they were also awarded the MacKay Trophy.

I can’t tell if that record still stands: I suspect it was broken by the SR-71, but the NAA’s records site is a bit awkward to use, and they changed the way they classify speed records a while back.

Bonus video: “Twenty Years of Strategic Air Command”, from 1946 to 1966. Silent, but short.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 3rd, 2020 at 2:00 pm and is filed under History, Planes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.