In 1960, the United States Air Force introduced a bomber that could cruise at twice the speed of sound, at 63,000 feet, carrying a nuclear weapon to Moscow. It was the first supersonic bomber ever built. It set nineteen world speed and altitude records in its first three years of operation. On paper, it was the most advanced strategic bomber on the planet. Ten years later, every one of them was gone. Twenty-six of the 116 B-58 Hustlers ever built were destroyed in accidents — more than one in five. The aircraft was so violent to eject from at Mach 2 that the Air Force replaced the ejection seats with fully enclosed escape capsules, tested first on human volunteers, and then, after the human tests killed people, on black bears. It cost roughly three times as much to operate as the B-52 it was supposed to replace. And by the time it was fully operational, Soviet surface-to-air missiles had

Source: The ‘Supersonic’ Nuclear Bomber America Retired After 10 Years – Nobody Could Survive Flying It