Convair TB-58 55-668

[170C]

George, you jokingly said to “go for it”, so I did so. Most 170 ers will probably want to delete this bit of trivia as it has nothing at all to do with C-170’s, but does have to do with an outstanding airplane. I have left out a lot of details (most will say “thank goodness”) and put in some that probably have little interest only to those of us who toiled the many long hours to save this example of aeronautical success from being smelted into aluminum ingots.

In 1970 I became associated with a group of local individuals in Fort Worth, TX who had a goal to refurbish the last production model (385th) Convair B-36J “Peacemaker”which was produced at the Convair plant in Fort Worth. The goal was to make it a flying museum. After several years & a lot of work the Air Force Museum grounded the effort to make the aircraft flyable (probably a smart move). Many years of work to make the airframe a static display article have yet to bear fruit although the airframe was displayed for several years outside the main gate at Convair/General Dynamics/Lockheed-Martin’s assembly plant (Air Force Plant #4) in Fort Worth along with many other aircraft, including the TB-58 at the Southwest Aerospace Museum. The aircraft currently sits in a disassembled, but fully restored state awaiting sufficient funds to construct a museum building in which to display it. (It takes a rather large bldg as the wingspan is 230 ft.—longer than the first flight of the Wright Brothers). It was while associated with this group that we were given the loan of a Convair B-58 “Hustler” for display.

Myself and two other gentlemen went to Davis Monthan AFB @ Tucson, AZ in 1974 to select a suitable airframe to be moved to Fort Worth for display. We were escorted to the area of the storage facility where the remaining 60 or so airframes were stored. (116 produced). What a sight to see that many B-58’s all lined up, but what a sad sight to see the condition the previously mothballed airframes were in. When the decision was made to scrap the fleet, the engines, avionics and any other reusable items were removed from the airframes & there they sat with radomes off many, tail gun pods lying on the ground and crew compartment enclosures often lying on the desert floor. Further, since the wings were manufactured with a honeycomb type construction, destructive testing of the structures had been done to most of the airframes and thus there were holes of vrs sizes in both the tops and bottoms of the wings. The officer assigned to our project told us he had personally selected what he thought was the best example left in the storage area. Aircraft serial # 55-668, a TB-58A (trainer). This aircraft was one of approximately 7-8 airframes that were built as early B-58’s and later converted to TB-58’s which allowed the second & third crewmembers to switch crew positions in flight for training purposes. This airframe did not have the destructive testing done to it and still had a tail cone attached as the TB’s had had the defensive weaponry (GE T171-3 6 barrel 20 MM “Gatlin” gun) removed as well as the hard points for under wing rockets. Red tape ate into our allowable time to select the airframe, gather parts and remove the airframe from the base. A quick assessment of several nearby airframes confirmed that 55-668 was the best of the pack. While removing the GE J79 engines, the lower engine nacelles were removed and scattered haphazardly in the area as well as having a large number of them taken to a remote area due to the heat shielding panels having some potential radio active material in them. Thus we had to scrounge 4 lower nacelle frames and as it turned out none were likely off 55-668. 55-668 being, I believe, about the 7th aircraft manufactured, it was virtually “hand built” thus many things like the lower nacelle’s were not easily interchangeable with those of other airframes. We then towed 55-668 off the base to a location adjacent to the base perimeter and parked it on an unused section of county (Pima) roadway next to a salvage company, but behind a secured fence.

Thus began a lengthy period of storage & inactivity about a mile from the Pima County Museum where another B-58 (61-2080 the last one built)sat (sits today) on display. This aircraft was made flight ready to be flown to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, CO, but for unknown reasons the Air Force didn’t allow it to be flown & thus it became a static display in Tucson. Several years later the Air Force Museum gave our museum an ultimatum to retrieve the plane or it would be “loaned” to another museum that wanted it. Our museum was without sufficient funds to return 668 to Fort Worth prior to this time, but with the help of a good group of workers, donations by several local companies and three trips to Tucson, we were able to do so. The airplane was moved back onto Davis-Mothan AFB to an area where we could begin our disassembly. We designed several fixtures to allow the main landing gear retraction mechanism to be removed, thus allowing the aircraft to be lowered into a crouched/tail low, nose high position. The wings, outboard of the main landing gear wells, were literally cut off by Skill saw & a long hack saw operated by two persons. The wings were built as one unit and with the honeycomb process mentioned earlier, thus there was no means to dissect/disassemble any portion of the wing from the fuselage . The vertical tail was also cut off by Skill saw. This process took two different trips. On a third trip we prepared the various components for shipping and loaded them onto an Air Force C-5A and transported them back to Carswell AFB / General Dynamics in Fort Worth where we reassembled the airframe and placed it on public display for a number of years. As that museum effort began to go into demise, the B-58 was loaned by the Air Force Museum to the Lone Star Flight Museum in Galveston, TX where it is currently on display. The current local museum is trying to collect sufficient funds to build a museum building to house the B-36 and it is hoped that the TB-58 might then be returned to the city where it was built and be displayed along with the B-36 and other historical aircraft. The B-58 was the world’s first supersonic bomber and set many speed records and won several trophies. This all being done with vacuum tube avionics. One has to wonder what it could have accomplished with the transistor technology that followed. A close friend (now deceased) of mine, Richard L. (Dick) Johnson, was transferred from Convair-San Diego to Convair-Fort Worth to head up the flight test engineering operations on the B-58 program. My many conversations and “war story” tales of his involvement in the B-58 program are legendary. An excellent book by local Fort Worth historian/author Jay Miller, CONVAIR B-58 , Aerofax, Inc. details the story of the B-58. What a great looking airplane---------not as good as the 170, but as military planes go, quite a stunning design. I sure would have liked to have had the opportunity to have flown that bird, but fortunately I was too young to have done so, but I remember well the many, many times as a youngster growing up in West Texas, hearing the sonic boom as the B-58 flew overhead. We learned to look up and in many instances we could spot the faint image of the plane or when it left contrails, we could follow it across the sky. What a deal!!!!

[3958v]

Frank Thanks for the post it was very interesting. Must of been fun to be a part of the action.

[170C]

It was indeed.