Valkyrie final flight
 

Just watched this on YouTube. Fascinating silent footage of this awesome beast, from the days of pencils and sliderules. Mach 3 cruise in a shirtsleeve environment. IIRC, it frightened the USSR into developing the Foxbat.

Ok, were you going to post a link?

Fixed it.

Or perhaps this:

The bomber version of the Concorde….what an amazing aircraft.
Could have been one of the greatest of all time.
Apologies to the purists.

Did the mid-air kill the project or was it political like the TSR2?

Afaik, the project was already dead when the mid air happened. In an ICBM era, the bomber was too slow, even at Mach 3.
The main loss was that NASA might have been able to use the aircraft to explore the Mach 3 operating environment for a future long range SST,
Obviously, that never happened.

Killed by the SA-2*. Once the USSR deployed a SAM capable of destroying high flying supersonic aircraft it lost its ability to penetrate their defences - and its role.

(*With a nuke warhead - the Soviet equivalent of Nike**)

(** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Nike)

Pye Wacket not withstanding….

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pye_Wacket

Salute!

What a beautiful big bird, and as many refs said, the missiles made it a relic.

Interstingly, at the same time there was a program called Oxcart that resulted in a plane that flew until the 90's.

Gums sends..

For interest there is a good alternate history series by Stuart Slade based on the USA nuking Germany in 1947 (Starting with The Big One and B-36s) and including Ride of the Valkyries.)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...-the-valkyries

Amazon

Amazon

Pye Wacket
 

Interesting to read about Pye Wacket in the light of recent media coverage of “flying Tic-Tacs” that “pull huge amounts of G” being reported by US Navy near their Vessels!

One of the problems was the fuel (also designed for the F-108) - a mix of JP-6 and something called ZIP for the afterburner - it all required special prep, special handling etc . The ZIP programme was canceled (as was the F108) just before first flight of the Valkyrie.

The Eisenhower administration had already decided the aircraft wasn't necessary as all the tasks could be done by satellites, rockets and other aircraft. It was very very very expensive and couldn't fly effectively at low levels. It was kept on as a technology demonstrator and also as a bargaining chip in arms negotiations.

From what I have read of Concorde development and the Olympus, the US never managed to get an engine/aircraft to fly in "supercruise" - Mach2 without reheat. One of the reasons they didn't proceed with an SST. Reading about the XB-70 it seems it did sustain Mach3. Can anyone throw any light on the subject?
A, literally, fantastic aeroplane design, but did Gerry Anderson design it or use it as the model for his SSTs in Thunderbirds? :)

The big step was when Eggers at NASA came up withe idea of trapping the airflow under the aircraft by turning the wing tips down and having the correct fuselage shape. At Mach 3 this increased the lift/drag by 22%-100%

The prototype demonstrated 33 minutes cruise at M 3.08 on its 39th flight

Pye Wackett - amazing how one keeps hearing about cancelled projects from decades ago. One wonders what else may yet be revealed!

I'd never heard of Tag Board until I saw a D-21 on display at Palmdale in 1999, though I presume it had been in the public domain for some years by then. Fascinating reading about it.

I must get myself to Dayton - B-36, B-58 and XB-70 are three types I've never seen in the metal...

Different technology to Concorde, the XB-70 was a “wave rider” using compression lift to reach the required range - hence the fold-down wingtips.

“As the competition evolved, North American exploited an aerodynamic advance that gave it the determining edge. A supersonic aircraft could have its lift-over-drag ratio increased by positioning its wing to take advantage of the pressure field that occurs behind the shock wave generated by the protruding fuselage. In North American’s design, this phenomenon—called compression lift—provided a 30 percent increase in lift with no drag penalty. Compression lift appeared to contravene the engineering rule that you never get something for nothing, but it worked.”….


https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....07cca3821.jpeg

ORAC, thanks for that superb shot of the beast. IRRC, the wingtips were down on the fatal midair collision flight and have often wondered if this caused the F104 pilot to think he was more distant from the wing than he actually was.

57mm, the tips were up it would appear. That is a superb photo!

By that logic, we shouldn’t have nuclear capable B52, B2 and that new fangled stealth bomber being built. A bomber offers options that missiles don’t and vice versa. Orac is correct, highly capable SAMs killed the XB-70.