Republic B-59C Raven - United States Air Force, 1960
From combat experience gained during the opening months of the Korean War the USAF issued a requirement for a night intruder/bomber to replace the A-26 Invader with the English Electric Canberra being declared the winner despite the presence of the futuristic-looking Martin XB-51. Fortunately for the Martin company they were selected to licence-build the British aircraft as the B-57 Canberra but, such was the pace of military aviation in the 1950's, even before the ink had dried on the B-57 contract the USAF were already drafting a requirement for a larger supersonic replacement. Martin proposed both a scaled-up B-51 and also an enlarged swept wing version of the B-57 but ultimately lost out to Republic's proposal for a sharply swept-wing aircraft with low drag promising excellent transonic performance and a supersonic dash capability with a much larger payload than any other competing design.
The Republic Raven was duly selected for production as the B-59 in December 1953 but soon hit powerplant problems when the planned Westinghouse J50 turbojet was cancelled as a fallout from the J40 fiasco. Pratt & Whitney were drafted in to produce the twin-spool, axial flow J59 derived from their outstanding J57 but the delay cost the program dearly and delayed the prototype YB-59 taking to the air by almost two years. By the time that production B-59A's started to roll off the Farmingdale production line in 1957 the USAF's total order had been cut to just one-third of the planned 600 Ravens and the type was retired from service in 1964 playing no part in the Vietnam War.
