The Film “Tall Man Five Five” Was a Tour de Force for SAC and the B-58
Produced for Convair and General Electric by Herschensohn Productions of Hollywood, with aerial photography by Convair and narration by none other than Chet Huntley, the film Tall Man Five Five was produced during the early 1960s to promote Convair’s B-58 Hustler supersonic bomber. The B-58 did come with a built-in calling card- the mysterious and always attention-grabbing sonic boom. The film does its level best to allay any concerns among its audience about the booms. The film was uploaded to YouTube by PeriscopeFilm.
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Operation Heat Rise
On 5 March 1962 a pair of B-58s from the 65th Bombardment Squadron of the 43rd Bombardment Wing based at Carswell Air Force Base (AFB) in Fort Worth, TX, took off and departed the area westbound. After the B-58s were off the west coast they were refueled by Boeing KC-135A Stratoankers. Then the lead aircraft, 59-2458, Cowtown Hustler, callsign Tall Man Five Five, flew from Los Angeles to New York in a new world-record time of 2 hours and 56.8 seconds. According to the Air Force the flight generated more than 10,000 damage claims (mostly for broken windows) due to sonic booms caused by the two Hustlers during their historic round trip from LA to the Big Apple and back.
DFCs for the Crew of Cowtown Hustler
Average speed of the B-58 was 1,214.17 miles per hour. The second B-58, Tall Man Five Six, was a minute behind Tall Man Five Five. During their return flight they broke the records for flight from New York to Los Angeles and the record for a round trip between the two cities as well. The crew, USAF Captains Robert G. Sowers (pilot) Robert MacDonald (navigator) and 1st Lieutenant John T. Walton (defensive systems operator) received Distinguished Flying Crosses along with the Bendix and Mackay Trophies for their feats. The B-58 they flew, B-58A-10-CF AF SN 59-2458, Cowtown Hustler, is now enshrined at the National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, OH.
Supporting Cast
The film features the Convair B-58 Hustler along with the Boeing B-52F Stratofortresses and the Convair SM-65 Atlas Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). The sharp-eyed among us may notice a passing appearance by a Convair TF-102A Delta Dagger along with a Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker and a Douglas C-133 Cargomaster swallowing an SM-65.
Hustler’s Lament
The B-58 largely replaced the Boeing B-47 Stratojet as a strategic bomber, but the B-58 itself didn’t last very long in the role either. When the Soviets demonstrated their newest surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) could take out high and fast-flying bombers like the Hustler the jet became a low-level penetration bomber instead- a role for which the B-58 was neither suited nor designed. Eventually the B-58 was itself replaced in the low-level penetration bomber role by the General Dynamics FB-111A.
