Originally posted by cmdrkeenkid
i just don't get what's the difference between an xb-70 and a super xb-70. when a new design is created it gets a new designation. it could have at least been called an xb-70b or something.

That's a good point. I really have no idea. Certainly the designation xb-70b would make more sense.

Originally posted by kinglizard
That's a good point. I really have no idea. Certainly the designation xb-70b would make more sense.

yeah, wouldn't it?

here's my new idea...
the xb-70 was being publicly tested, correct? so what better way to "cancel" the project than to destroy one of the aircraft. as soon as it was "canceled" it was shifted over to black budget, and is in use in a perhaps limited quantity today. so people do occasionally spot it, and hence the reports.

but i doubt even that though, since i would have assumed that since 1990 when the "brilliant buzzard" have been sighted that no one as managed to get a picture of it. also, the xb-70 was during like the 1960s (i think. correct me if i'm wrong) and so what happened during that 30 years span of time?

im back online and yea the xb-70 came in during the 60s during the cold war.

i think the space uav that the brilliant buzzard is supposed to deploy is this big white ball called pumpkin seed or something like that

hmmmm........now i'm trying to decide which 1 is sexier
this new plane or the sr-71 blackbird.
either way, id hit 'em both

silq ive said it before and ill say it again u r obsessed with calling the blackbird sexy
btw u should get a tattoo of the blackbird.

silq, the xb-70 is a rather old plane... developed around the same time as the sr-71 though.

I used to have a really cool video from the space shuttle program, and the Dryden researh center that showed all kinds of cool stuff, like the lifting bodies, the X-15, the X-29 (forward swept AC), the Shuttle prototype gliders, etc. One of the cool things in the program was the portion about Fly by wire, which they used the XB-70 as a test platform for. Well during one of the tests a T38 chase plane catches the XB-70 "failing" in flight just below mach. It seems the aerodynamic structures including the front canards were prone to dynamic loading and at a certain harmonic would break apart from the fueslage. The video actually shows the wing flexing and then I believe a piece of the outer, moveable winglet rips off throwing the "bomber" into a slow, diving, spin. The program was cancelled for budget reason and the lack of need for a hypersonic "bomber" when we had plenty of ballistic missiles that could get there faster.