Convair 4 YB-58A Hustler

Convair 4 YB-58A Hustler

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06/18/2007. Remarks by Weldon Stevens: "Airplane number 5 was our most heavily instrumented plane and carried a crew of only 2. This is the plane that, on a speed run on a Saturday afternoon experienced misfortune. It lost an outboard engine. The plane was instrumented to automatically correct for this. Apparently the pilot reacted through his normal habit and hit the rudder to correct for it. It flipped the plane broadside and it disintegrated and scattered it across the countryside near Lawton, Oklahoma. They reassembled the plane in the hanger just outside my office.

The flight test engineer was Don Siedhof. He and I hired in and were processed at the same time. We were good friends. A third young man that was in that group in hiring and processing was Walt Simon. Walt was Jewish and born in Germany. His parents escaped Germany just as Hitler began arresting the Jewish people and sending them to the death camps. The fled to England and then came to the US just as Germany began the blitz of London. He was the flight engineer on the plane that went into a flat spin into Salt Lake. When they recovered the plane he had his hand on the ejection button."


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06/18/2007. Remarks by Weldon Stevens: "Airplane number 5 was our most heavily instrumented plane and carried a crew of only 2. This is the plane that, on a speed run on a Saturday afternoon experienced misfortune. It lost an outboard engine. The plane was instrumented to automatically correct for this. Apparently the pilot reacted through his normal habit and hit the rudder to correct for it. It flipped the plane broadside and it disintegrated and scattered it across the countryside near Lawton, Oklahoma. They reassembled the plane in the hanger just outside my office. The flight test engineer was Don Siedhof. He and I hired in and were processed at the same time. We were good friends. A third young man that was in that group in hiring and processing was Walt Simon. Walt was Jewish and born in Germany. His parents escaped Germany just as Hitler began arresting the Jewish people and sending them to the death camps. The fled to England and then came to the US just as Germany began the blitz of London. He was the flight engineer on the plane that went into a flat spin into Salt Lake. When they recovered the plane he had his hand on the ejection button."