Any discussion of the history of the B-58 Hustler must be considered in light of what technology the USAF had prior to the development of this airplane. The Boeing B-47 and its bigger brother, the B-52 Stratofortress, developed in the early years after World War II, represented the application of jet power to conventional bombing concepts of the day. Still traveling at subsonic speeds, the two big Boeings were intended to penetrate enemy airspace at great altitudes, and were originally designed to carry conventional bombs.

The supersonic B-58 Hustler, on the other hand, was derived from a new concept developed in the late 1940s and early 1950s -one which took into account the greatly increased capability of ground defenses, including radar tracking and ground-to-air missiles. The new problems presented by these defenses were addressed by an aircraft that literally was designed starting with a clean sheet of paper. At a final price of $12,442,000 per aircraft, the Hustler was expensive, but clearly the final price was affected by the small number of units built. Like the more contemporary B-2 Stealth bomber, the Hustler was unable to realize the economy of numbers that the B-47 and B-52 (over 1,000 of each type built) enjoyed due to the very small number of units built. The F/FB-111, B-1 and other programs that followed gained much in the way of research and development from the Hustler program.

The B-58 was the first supersonic bomber, the first bomber to reach Mach 2, the first aircraft made of aluminium honeycomb sandwich and the first aircraft to have stellar-inertial navigation. It also set more world speed records than any other type of combat aircraft, many of which it still holds. The Hustler fulfilled its mission admirably and the crews who flew the airplane still lament its passing.

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