B-58 Hustler

B-58 Hustler History: http://members.cox.net/dschmidt1/
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"Jim Doyle" wrote in message
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Really liked the site! Could you shed any light on the record-breaking
flight between Texas and California averaging 600Kts at less than 500 ft?!
Must take some balls and one hell of a lot of flight clearance!

It was VFR so they stayed about 500' above the overall terrain. The Hustler
didn't have the terrain avoidance radar like the B-52H had so in IFR
conditions we had to fly an "airway" type altitude that would clear all
terrain within a certain distance from centerline on each leg segment. We
had high speed segments on certain "Oilburner" low level routes where, if it
was VFR, we would accelerate to 600 KIAS and drop down to about 500' to
practice it.

It's a single-pilot airplane and on one high speed segment I looked down at
the map on my clipboard and when I looked up there was this Cessna 150 a
couple hundred feet ahead to my right. He had a white shirt and very big
eyes as I went by his nose at 600 per. I was concerned my wash might damage
him but it would take 2 states to make a 360 at that speed so I reported the
near miss to ATC during the Oilburner climb out. I checked the newspapers
for any article about a crash or damage but never saw anything about it. I
would imagine he would now check Notams or airspace use info before
approaching an Oilburner route again.

A side issue. Environmentalists became enraged when they read about our
Oilburner routes. How gross of us to pollute the skies. The routes were
named OB-10, OB-15, etc. So we changed the name to Olive Branch and the
stayed OB-10, OB-15 etc. Only the name changed but the environmentalists
were satisfied and went off looking for another good deed to do.