concorde+bomber role

dont know if anyone mentioned this or made a topic about it.

anyhow the concorde had a speed of mach 2+
making it one of the fastest air craft when it was in service (which no RAF plane could catch up)

my question could the concorde of have been armed and used as a fast bomber?

stupid question (but im bored)

Originally posted by bodrul
dont know if anyone mentioned this or made a topic about it.

anyhow the concorde had a speed of mach 2+
making it one of the fastest air craft when it was in service (which no RAF plane could catch up)

my question could the concorde of have been armed and used as a fast bomber?

stupid question (but im bored)

There was also in the USA, the XB-70 Valkyrie, capable of Mach 3, there were supposed to built plenty of them, (it was stop after three prototypes) but this project was drop, because it sort of became clear, that it will be easier (cheaper) to rely on ICBM (Inter Continental Ballistic Missile).

Funny you should say that, it wasn't really possible due to the fuselage structure, pressure bulkheads, wing box where the bomb bay would need to be etc but I remember a flippant comment made on the 'Uncle Roger' page in Flight on the occasion of the Vulcans retirement to the effect that some Concordes could be 'converted in a weekend at Filton and have some camouflage paint slapped on them' as a V bomber replacement. A joke of course but it placed an image in my mind that stayed with me

the xb-70 was a perfect bomb er for what it was designed for ulta high alt. ulta high speed bomber. it would climb and then cruse at high alt then go mach 3+ to russia then slow to jsut below supersonic drop its payload(designed for nukes) then haull back home. intresting side note the xf-180 was designed to match the 3+ speed of the 70 and was designed to escorte it in to and out of hoslt airspce. there where 2 reasons the 70 and 180 was cancled one the 70's press flight sucked in a small chase plane then followed a very large explosion. the second is the admenastrations changed hands and it got its funding lost in mountins of paper work.

Hmmm, a Concorde bomber?

Interesting thought......maybe some sort of Vigilante rear ejecting delivery system might have been capable of being incorporated!

As for the (X)B - 70 Valkyrie and the F - 108 Rapier?
Not quite engenerQ; the Valkyrie died entirely because of costs (and the ever more apparent extortionate operating costs a fleet of them would have generated) and above all the obvious vulnerability of that proposed fleet to interception by surface to air missiles.......and there are those who say politicking from Lockheed and Kelly Johnson who got it finally dropped and killed off in favour of the Blackbird.
(Once the pure bomber role of the B-70 was under question all sorts of alternate roles were seriously discussed including an RS-70.)

Concorde isn't the only supersonic plane to have been considered for such a major role-switch.
Interestingly the Valkyrie did a lot of work after the cancellation of the bomber program for NASA in respect of the US SST program; it wasn't considered as an SST itself but it did a lot of work researching the whole area.

[edit on 21-2-2006 by sminkeypinkey]

Heres a 1970 Tupolev design model which briefly carried the designation Tu-156 (later switched to a version of the Tu-154 airliner) which was a bomber derivative of the Tu-144 'Concordski' using extensive wing body blending.Due to the small size of the image it is not entirely visible but the nose and cockpit design was taken direcltly from the Tu-144 prototype and was thus identical to that version

This was one of the designs rejected in favour of the Tu-160 Blackjack.



[edit on 21-2-2006 by waynos]

The B-1A was mach 2.0+ but was ditched in order to become the B-1B which is mach 1.4+ but a much stealthier platform. The lower speed is due to RCS vanes in the inlets of the engines which disrupt airflow to the engines but provide a lower radar cross section (RCS) for the jet.

www.aemann.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk...

If you look at some of the proposed designs from English Electric you can see they were thinking along very similar lines