Martin B-57 Canberra

[wingsnstuff]

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[Tower Guy]

                                           A Blast from the Past
WB-57 TDY in Panama 1972 by Tower Guy, on Flickr

[Scott Youmans]

Impressive!  Weather reconnaissance? Absolutely!

[Tower Guy]

They would take off very early morning and not return till after sunset. Most missions were 12 to 14 hours of flight with no refueling. They would climb to a very high altitude and shut down the large engines and cruise and maneuver with the small outboard engines and take better photos than I can. They wore high altitude suits and looked like astronauts. Pretty cool to see in 1972.

[Tower Guy]

After a real monsoon rain shower, this WB crew is in pre-flight and the pilot about to climb into the cockpit. by Tower Guy, on Flickr

[Joe Copalman]

Awesome shot Harvey.  Belongs in a book about the B-57.

[Scott Youmans]

Fantastic Harvey! Interesting that the little J60s aren't installed in this shot.

[Joe Copalman]

Fantastic Harvey! Interesting that the little J60s aren't installed in this shot.

Scott, I think they only have the J60s installed for flights above a certain altitude.  If I recall correctly, they'd be at idle until a certain altitude was attained, then they would increase in power as the aircraft climbed higher.

[Joe Copalman]

According to Bob Mikesh's book on the B-57 (a phenomenal resource, for Canberra fans), the J60s added 2500 more feet of altitude, and would remain at idle below 32,000, at which point they'd respond to throttle input.  They became fully responsive to throttle control at 42k and above.  NASA's three WB-57Fs seem to fly all the time without them, which makes me wonder if they've had tweaks to the main engines making the J60s redundant.