On January 16, 1970, a sleek silver jet bomber thundered down a two-mile runway in Jacksonville, Ark., on its last take-off roll.  As the echo of its four engines faded to silence, the era of the strategic bomber ended at Little Rock AFB.  Number 55-0668, the last Convair B-58 Hustler, was on its way to the final resting place of American warbirds:  the “Boneyard” at Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona.  No one could have guessed that 668 would return more than four decades later.

The Air Force ordered 668 from Convair in 1955.  It was one of the early Hustlers built in Air Force Plant #4, an aircraft factory adjacent to Fort Worth’s Carswell AFB.  The B-58 was a fabulously futuristic plane.  America’s first supersonic bomber, its innovative delta-wing design was more typical of a Convair fighter plane than a bomber.  At top speed, it flew at a staggering 1,325 mph, or nearly Mach 2.[1]

When 668 was delivered to the Air Force in April 1959, it entered an experimental test program.  Air Force and Convair engineers used it to evaluate the B-58’s potential as a radar reconnaissance plane with two experimental radar systems.  The first system got good results, but limited the Hustler to low speeds and short flights.  The second system, code named Quick Check, was somewhat successful, but the engineers found that they got their best results at subsonic speeds.  As there was little benefit to flying the supersonic bomber at subsonic speeds for reconnaissance purposes, the Air Force abandoned its attempt to use the Hustler as a spy plane.  However, while mounted with the Quick Check radar system, 668 made a unique contribution:  In October 1962, it became the only B-58 ever to enter enemy airspace, when it flew a high-speed reconnaissance mission over Cuba during the Missile Crisis.[2]

After the Quick Check program, 668 was modified as a
TB-58 trainer.  As a TB-58, it lacked the sophisticated navigation and bombardment targeting systems of combat B-58s.  Instead, its navigator position had been modified with a second set of flight controls for an instructor pilot.  A third pilot occupied what was normally the defensive systems operator’s position, although he had no controls and only tiny windows.  Since normal combat Hustlers had no copilot seat, this arrangement was the only way for a student pilot and instructor pilot to fly together.

In 1964, 668 entered regular service at Carswell AFB with the 43d Bombardment Wing (Medium).  Over the next six years . . .