What an incredible aircraft the North American XB-70 would have been if it had entered service. Google it and see, if it was before your time. Futuristic – and fantastic it most certainly was! The Skunk Works wasn’t the only place where futuristic designs were produced.
The saddest thing was that a mid-air collision ‘put the nail in the coffin’ after other development problems cancelled the project. I remember seeing amazing pictures of the aircraft ‘going down’ in the late, great, ‘Life’ magazine.
In this crash, as shown in the pictures, she was falling down BACKWARDS after an F-104 took off its twin fins. As the aircraft was going backwards, one of the crew got trapped by the negative G and lost his life. That was reported in Aviation Week.
One thing I would like to know is: Was this aircraft designed for Nuclear propulsion, as I seem to remember reading all those years ago? I believe this was the reason for the crew compartment being placed so far away from the engines – 6 turbojets in the event.
How on earth would a nuclear aircraft engine work anyway? Surely it wouldn’t have super-heated steam driving a turbine! I think NASA was involved with these ‘engines’.
Bri :
By: cypherus - 12th December 2006 at 00:34
BAC Compression Lift on Concorde Mk 2 designs.
An old chum of mine form the build days of Concorde who worked in the design office at the time recalled that BAC had considered using the Compression lift idea on the early layout drawings for the Mk 2 Concorde and serveral months of testing with models was undertaken, The Idea was eventually shelved due to the extrodinary amount of wieght that would be required for the machinery too actually make this idea work in a commercial airliner, however he did say that they all agreed the idea was sound, had considreable potential in a possible future SST design as long as the weight penalty could be negated, such a pity that even with out this idea the MK2 was never progressed further than the drawing board. 🙁
By: agent86 - 11th December 2006 at 08:55
I have a friend who’s father was a photographer for North American aviation.
He said that his dad hauled him along on a number of occasions and actually saw the XB-70 fly.To this I answered calmly , WOW!. He also claims to have some of the Naa factory films hidden away somewhere. I gotta talk him into digging them out.
By: Bager1968 - 6th December 2006 at 06:35
bmp
By: Bager1968 - 5th December 2006 at 12:21
Mach 3 first reached by the XB-70 on October 14, 1965 in the first prototype (17th flight), which was later limited to 2.5? due to skin separation problems on that flight.
The second prototype was built to a higher standard, and was not restricted. It also reached Mach 3 on its 17th flight, but had no skin problems.
The Mach 3 for 33 minutes flight was on May 19th, 1966 (39th flight).
The crash of #2 was on June 8, 1966 on its 46th flight.
#1 flew 82 flights (the last to the Air Force Museum at Wright Field, in Dayton, Ohio), 33 of them after the loss of #2.
Info from:
http://www.labiker.org/xb70.html
edit
Therefore, Sea Vixen, there were 49 flights of #1 and 45 flights of #2 before the crash… it was on the 95th combined flight.
I tried to get this on right away, but the board had gone down
By: robmac - 4th December 2006 at 01:44
i always thought the B-70 was “even for the Americans” too far too soon.
I wouldn’t say that. It’s no more different than the Brits developing the TSR2. That was a machine that was also ahead of it’s time really. 😉
By: J Boyle - 4th December 2006 at 01:27
The XB-70 sprang from the Boeing MX-2145 project for a long range bomber for “high yeild” weapons. A January 1954 Boeing document point to the possibility of a “chemically augmented” nuclear-powered aircraft. By the fall of 1954, the Air Force was looking for two manned aircraft…one for a conventionally powed bomber capable of supersonic speeds, the other a chemically powered sunsonic aircraft. The resulting aircraft was to replace the B-52 and be in service by 1965.
By March 1955 the WS-110A requirement was proposed…for a new long range bomber. Speed was of secondary importance than range and altitude.
Boeing and North American boith received contracts for “Phase 1” work.
On Dec. 23 1957, North American got the contract.
Throughout the late 50s, the proggram was in danger of being cancelled because of budget issues and questions of whether a manned bomber made sense in the (albet early) days of ICBMs. Among issues that caused problems was the cancellation of the F-108 fighter, as that program was expected to yield some neeeded technologies for the bomber, and the issue of a special high-energy fuel. Eventually. improved conventional fuels (JP-6)were used.
Engines, generators, fuel tanks and general airframe issues all presented huge technological problems.
The coming of a Democratic-party president in 1961 sealed its fate. Like the Republican Eisenhower administration, Kennedy questioned whether a long range bomber was needed. JFK limited the amount of funding to be provided to the B-70…although he did approve funding for the RSB-70…a reconnaissance/strike version (the RS category was later used in the Lockjheed Blackbird program). Eventually even Gen Curt LeMay, a long time supporter of the plane, had to agree with the limitation reducing the order to two flight articles. In short, the program’s fate was sealed long before its first flight in Sept 1964…4 years later than originally planned.
By: sea vixen - 3rd December 2006 at 23:35
i always thought the B-70 was “even for the Americans” too far too soon, though it was a amazing beast, is it true that it holds the most noisey aircraft ever flown title. how many flights did the prototypes make before the tragic accident.
By: PMN1 - 3rd December 2006 at 20:02
the XB-70 saga may not have ended where you think:
http://www.aviationweek.com/avnow/news/channel_awst_story.jsp?id=news/030606p1.xml
enjoy…
greg v.
There is quite a discussion on it here…
By: Papa Lima - 3rd December 2006 at 20:00
Mach 3 maintained for 32 minutes on May 19, 1966 – having seen the massive size of the surviving Valkyrie, I count that as quite an achievement, and at that time the engines were still experimental too.
Politics were killing the project long before the accident.
By: Kernowglyn - 3rd December 2006 at 19:04
[QUOTE=gregv]the XB-70 saga may not have ended where you think:
http://www.aviationweek.com/avnow/news/channel_awst_story.jsp?id=news/030606p1.xml
Um, it says ‘looks like’ which might be so, but the B-70s much vaunted Mach 3 cruising speed was never achieved anyway. I think on one flight they may have touched Mach 3 but it certainly wasn’t cruising as the airframe was temperature limited and the temp limit was reached. The other B-70 never exceded M2.83. With a large external store the drag would have prevented really high speeds The idea of riding the compression wave was brilliant, but I know of no other aircraft with this feature. AW&ST might be having a little joke at our expense here!
By: gregv - 3rd December 2006 at 18:44
the XB-70 saga may not have ended where you think:
http://www.aviationweek.com/avnow/news/channel_awst_story.jsp?id=news/030606p1.xml
enjoy…
greg v.
By: Kernowglyn - 3rd December 2006 at 16:38
I don’t think that nuclear powerplants were ever seriously considered for the B-70, as the trials with a converted (and heavily shielded B-36) was merely to see what radiation hazards were in store for the airframe and crew. The nuclear engine was not ‘switched on’ and no propulsive thrust was employed.
The nuclear engine was meant to admit air at ambient temperatures, pass it around the core which would heat and expand that air, thus giving propulsive thrust.
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December 3, 2006 at 3:36 pm