page_title: 43rd Airlift Wing
section_title: Hustler operations at Carswell Air Force Base
hierarchical_section_title: 43rd Airlift Wing / History / Cold War / Hustler operations at Carswell Air Force Base
caption_attribution_description: English: Convair B-58A-10-CF Hustler (59-2458). This aircraft set transcontinental speed record on 03/05/62 by flying nonstop from Los Angeles to New York and back again. First leg at average speed of 1214.71 mph; return leg at average speed of 1081.77 mph. Return leg was first transcontinental flight that moved across the country faster than the rotational speed of the earth. ("Chasing the Sun.") Crew awarded Bendix and Mackay Trophies. Now on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
context_page_description: The 43rd Airlift Wing is an inactive United States Air Force unit last stationed at Pope Field, part of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where it was inactivated in March 2011. The wing performed en route operations support at Pope Field to include mission command & control, aircrew management, aircraft maintenance, aircraft loading, aircraft fueling and supply. Since the wing's inactivation, the 43rd Airlift Group has carried out airlift, maintenance, and base support at Pope Field.
  The wing provided strategic, en-route airlift support and Lockheed C-130 Hercules tactical airlift support to the Army's XVIII Airborne Corps and 82nd Airborne Division. The wing traces its roots back to the 43rd Bombardment Group, which was constituted 20 November 1940, and activated 15 January 1941, at Langley Field, VA. It operated primarily in the Southwest Pacific Theater as a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, and later a Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy-bomber unit assigned to Fifth Air Force. The 43rd Operations Group carries the lineage and history of its highly decorated World War II predecessor unit.
context_section_description: The 43rd Bombardment Wing moved to Carswell Air Force Base without personnel or equipment on 15 April 1960. At Carswell, it was manned and equipped from the 3958th Operational Test and Evaluation Group and the 6592nd Test Squadron of Air Research and Development Command, which were discontinued.
  The wing immediately began training crews on the Convair B-58 Hustler, the world's first supersonic bomber, and, it began participating in Category III testing (operational testing) of the Hustler in August. The 43rd was the first USAF B-58 wing.
  Aircraft number 59-2436, the first fully operational Hustler equipped with all tactical systems, was delivered to the 43rd on 15 March.  On 23 March a test-unit B-58A (55-0671), remained airborne for 18 hours 10 minutes while averaging an airspeed of 620 mph over 11,000 miles. This was apparently the longest-lasting single flight ever by a B-58. The 43rd received deliveries of new aircraft from Convair throughout the year, the last being in December 1960.
  From March 1960 to July 1961, the 43rd operated a combat-crew training school for B-58 aircrews, and, from July 1962 until late 1969 it served as one of two SAC B-58 wings with a strategic-bombardment mission.  During the 1960s the wing established world-flight speed records in the B-58, beginning on 12 January 1961, when it set six international speed and payload records on a single flight, five of which were held by the Soviet Union.  Three of these records lasted only two days, when they were broken by another 43rd Hustler, which flew over a 1,000 km closed course with a payload of 2,000 kg at an average speed of 1284.73 mph, simultaneously breaking the 1,000 kg and no payload records. The crew on the second flight was awarded the Thompson Trophy.
  On 29 May 1961, a wing B-58 flew from New York to Paris in 3 hours, 14 minutes, and 45 seconds, establishing a new transatlantic speed record of 1,089.36 mph, earning the crew the MacKay Trophy.  On 5 March 1962, a wing B-58 flew from Los Angeles to New York at an average speed of 1,214.65 mph.  It flew from Los Angeles to New York and back in 4 hours, 41 minutes, and 15 seconds.  This earned the crew another MacKay Trophy and the Bendix Trophy.
  The wing, which had been prevented from being declared combat-ready by the B-58's teething problems, was finally declared as such in August 1962. In response to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the wing was placed on alert in October 1962.
  By the mid-1960s, the B-58 had become a fairly effective weapons system. By the end of 1962, USAF crews had made over 10,500 flights and loges 53,00 hours (1150 of them supersonic, including 375 at Mach 2). Initially, all B-58 training was conducted by the 43rd's combat-crew training school. From 1960 through 1964, this unit fulfilled the requirements of both its parent 43rd Bomb Wing and the second B-58 wing, the 305th Bomb Wing. In August 1964, the 305th activated its own CCTS. The wing also controlled an air-refueling squadron from August 1964.
caption: Convair B-58A Hustler (59-2458), formerly of the 43rd Bombardment Wing[a 3]
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