B-58.com - The B-58 Hustler Page

History of the B-58

Wings, Tail, Control Systems

The wings of the B-58 were of fully cantilever, modified delta type with cambered leading edges and outboard tips. They incorporated multi-spar construction with a sandwich panel covering that was secured with titanium screws. The leading edges were of sandwich-type skin construction pre-formed to shape without any internal bracing.

The internal structure of the wing consisted of multi-spar construction with bulkheads at the points of major load. The two inboard bulkheads located in the wheel well area were large channels that were flanged away from the wheel well to allow maximum clearance for main landing gear retraction. The spars were made so that contact with the wing skin was on a curved surface to allow the wing skin to more closely approach the contour of the desired airfoil. The wing sandwich panel was made up of aluminum sheet skins, adhesives, fiberglass and aluminum honeycomb core, and a machined aluminum grid.

The entire wing served as an integral fuel tank which was sealed from the outside during construction. Free-flow openings in other spars and bulkheads allowed fuel to flow between sections. Check valves prevented fuel flow between left and right wing sections when one wing was high. The wing panel fiberglass cores served to insulate the fuel in the wings from the external heat.

The vertical tail was a swept-back, truncated structure with spars and ribs providing the internal framework. The fin cap was fabricated of laminated fiberglass. The rudder had a full-depth aluminum core with an aluminum alloy skin bonded to it. It was hinged at 11 points along the front spar. The elevons were made of steel sandwich panels with a brazing alloy used as a bonding agent.

The control surfaces consisted of a rudder and two elevons. The pre-production B-58s also had two resolution surfaces, located inboard of the elevons. These were used to mask out the effects of mechanical backlash in the longitudinal control system and were completely automatic. However, they were found to be redundant to the primary trim system and were eventually eliminated from all production aircraft, and were removed from existing pre-production aircraft as well.

The flight control system incorporated three-axis damping, constant stick forces throughout the entire speed range, and continuous g protection, making it virtually impossible to manually overstress the airframe when in automatic flight mode. An artificial feel system was installed, and altitude and Mach number control was provided for station keeping, approach control, landing and flare-out.

The flight control system included an automatic trim system which had three modes of operation: takeoff and landing, manual and automatic. In the takeoff and landing mode, the trim system was locked at 3 degrees up elevator. In the automatic mode, the automatic trim system provided the elevon deflection required for 1-g flight. The auto trim system was closely associated with the ratio changer or g-protection system.

There was an aileron-rudder interconnect system that served to cancel out the yawing that normally resulted from aileron deflection. Artificial pitch, roll and yaw damping were supplied to minimize variations in flight characteristics and to provide satisfactory damping. There was also a "wing heavy" control system which sensed lateral accelerations and provided corrective rudder through the rudder damper servo to prevent lateral fuel shift and subsequent wing heaviness.

The Eclipse Pioneer autopilot system provided a constant Mach number by automatic control of the elevators. The aircraft was maintained at the desired altitude and Mach number by automatically controlling the elevators and throttles. The heading was maintained by automatically steering the aircraft along a constant track or a computer ground track.

The deceleration parachute (or dragchute) system was housed underneath the rear fuselage just in front of the tail gun installation. It was a 28-foot ring slot dragchute assembly housed inside a stowage compartment enclosed by dual clamshell doors. The pilot could jettison the dragchute at his discretion.

Landing Gear

The main landing gear assemblies consisted of 8-wheel bogies, four wheels on each axle. Between each pair of tires there was a steel non-frangible wheel which was installed after mid-1961 in response to problems that the B-58 had encountered with tire failure during landing and takeoff. The main gear was fitted with a set of multiple disk-type anti-skid brakes. The main gear bogies were attached to large legs which were in turn connected to the underwing attachment points by large 'U'-shaped connecting units. The main gear assemblies retracted into faired wing wells located inboard of the inboard engine pylons and nacelles. In order to provide sufficient space for the retracted wheel units within the thin wing, the wing wells projected significantly above the wing upper surface, being encapsulated under a wedge-shaped aerodynamic enclosure. The gear retraction mechanism was fairly complex, with the main unit retracting backwards into the wing recesses. During retraction, the main leg folded at the point where it joined the 'U'-shaped connector in order that the whole unit could fit inside the bay. In spite of the complex retraction scheme, main landing gear retraction or extension failures were fairly rare. However, strut, bogie and axle assemblies did occasionally break, resulting in damage to the aircraft and at least one complete write-off.

The nose landing gear consisted of a pair of tires attached to a rather complex strut that retracted into a well covered by a pair of doors. The complexity of the strut was in part due to the fact that the gear had to clear the nose of the ventral pod during extension or retraction. The strut was hinged so that the main strut rotated up and back into the well while providing clearance for the MB-1 pod or TCP. The nose gear was fully steerable from the front cockpit.

Marek Rys has assembled an excellent animation of the B-58 gear retraction sequence:

Cinematics of B-58 Hustler's gears from Marek Rys on Vimeo.

More of Marek's fine work may be found on in the Gallery.

The full sequence of landing gear retraction and extension took about 10 seconds.