XB-70 "Valkyrie Bomber" Pictures...

Lets see you shoot something at 100,000 Feet in the sky moving at 3.45mach.

Shattered OUT...

Too bad they (USAF) won't update teh XB-70 Valkyrie program for a modern super bomber. Or they have and they just haven't released it to the general public yet.

I believe that the idea for an upgraded XB-70, is beyond it's time, this would have possibly been a better idea 20 years back, but now, technology is more advanced and there are other ways, better, more effective ways to get a target.

Shattered OUT...

The XB-70 flew over 77,000ft at mach 3.1 and it would have dropped bombs too not just fly across the sky and not bother anyone like the SR-71 did. It defiantly would not have made the soviets day.



Yup, hypersonic strike vehicle which would be more stealthy than the XB-70 and fly at lest twice as fast and higher than it did. That's what the AF is working on right now, the XB-70 would not make sense from a strategic and cost point of view.

An interesting similarity in those pics of the Valkyrie and Concorde...

Big difference, those enormous, ugly canards on the XB-70's fuselage...It says a lot about the
poor state of US based aerodynamic design, even the Russkies managed a better delta wing with
better lifft characteristics than that on the TU-144, and that was a dog with fleas...

Now I see why they canned it...and the rest of the US commeriial SST programmes during the
60's...as Lockheed, Boeing, and the rest of the industry just couldnt do the math...

..don't even start me on the questionability of the powerplant layout, I wonder what that would
have been like in the event of an engine unstart / failure at 90k....Can anyone say fatal failure?

[edit on 13-7-2005 by Stevie_Nottm]

Strange, I always thought the Valkyrie was designed to certain specifications.

Shattered OUT...

Production Tu-144S and Tu-144D models also featured canards to improve low-speed handling, particularly during takeoff and landing. They were retractable and were stowed alongside the upper fuselage just aft of the cockpit.

My Dad lost two good friends in that crash. He loved that bird, known initially as the YB-70, and was sad to see it go down the way it did. I think the problem with the 104 was the thing would hardly fly at all if it wasn't in afterburner, and was super hard to control at low speed. Still, they were both exceptional aircraft. The nose of the 70 was able to change angle of attack based on airspeed to maximize performance.

[edit on 13-7-2005 by Icarus Rising]

The way the landing gear are on the fuselage, almost all the fuselage is hagning off asnd it looks as though it should be lopsided with the front wheel where it is...


And the huge canards make it look like its a friggin bat. I think that's becasue the way the cockpit is so... well , let's just say it, awkward, the canards need to help the plane pitch and yaw or else the fuselage would snap off. That would be funny, but deadly.

It amazes me that intelligent people let this project get anywhere near the design studio, or for that matter, off the back of a beer mat, its truly -that- awful...

I can only think it was a desperate testbed for some other technology??

Because you're the smartest scientist in the world and is qualified to make that statement with no sources backing yourself up or no foundation... what so ever.

Look I'm sorry, but that comment to me is a horrible one to make, especially about a mach 3.1 strategic bomber.

Shattered OUT...

...guess I was right though...

Hey Steve

Have you ever seen the xb-70 with the ends of its wings rotated down 60 degrees. It was called a wave rider. You think that is just ugly canards. Man, these people were so far ahead of you. It rode its own shockwave, simply amazing, show me another plane that does that at mach 3.

Train

As you can see the comparable Soviet bomber looks much like the XB-70.





The TU-144 was a passenger aircraft.

- Quite right.

The aerodynamic requirements of the long range, high altitude, mach 3 XB70 bomber were totally different to those of the slower and therefore less hot, approx mach 2.2, not as long ranged and not quite so high flying Concorde or Tu144.

Once some folks get a clue about the whole concept of 'compression lift' and why they needed to use it they might care to revise your ideas about the 6-pack engine layout and the canard controls.


[edit on 4-10-2005 by sminkeypinkey]

A lot of pictures, also with original North American and Sukhoi documentation:

XB-70 Valkyrie

Sukhoi T-4

Nice pics... I have a video on my computer... Pity I can't post it here...

reply to post by skippytjc

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No "Dubya" never flew F-104s. He flew the F-102 Delta Dagger interceptor. The F-104 that collided with the XB-70 was flown by another XB-70 test pilot. The F-104 pilot and one of the XB-70's pilots were killed in the collision. I don't find that funny or conspiratorial.

reply to post by The Godfather of Conspira

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While the crash was certainly a setback for the program it wasn't the cause of its cancellation. The problem was that the long range supersonic bomber role was rendered obsolete by the advent of ICBMs.