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.

Salute!

The plane was amazing, but it had passed its best time to be a good threat to opposing folks.

The mid air was a pure and simple pilot factor when getting too close to a big plane that is generating a strong tip vortex. This phenomena was not well studied when then accident happened. Later in life I checked out the vortex on numerous tankers. Was like surfing, as you got further in trail you needed more and more counter aileron. My fuel flow went down maybe 20% or more, but took a lotta concentration.

BTW, the carriers have been talking bout trailing a guy across the ocean to use the vortex and save gas. Gotta love it. Maybe they should fly like the geese during migration.

Secondly, the wing tip config was sensitive, and when I was at a briefing back in 61, we were cautioned about not discussing it.

Gums sends...

At least according to the book I have on the Valkyrie "VALKYRIE NORTH AMERICAN'S MACH 3 SUPERBOMBER" (Jenkins on Landis), the fold down wingtips are not directly related to the compression lift function - apparently that's a common misconception. The compression lift was done with the overall shape of the aircraft - the fold down wings were to improve directional stability at high speeds.

The XB-70 that was lost in the mid-air was the second one built - and had incorporated lessons learned from the first and was more heavily instrumented than the first. A coworker that had been at North American before coming to Boeing told me there is video of the mid-air but it was classified and never made public.

Pretty amazing some of the things we did back in the 1960's, when we didn't know what we couldn't do...

Salute!

I saw the video way back, and it was a quick roll into the tail of the Buff, but the thing did not get into what looked like a flat spin for some time.

The wing tip contribution to performance should still be a factor, just as the vortex we get on the Hornet, Viper and Rap and Stubbie from using the lex features.

What a loss, and glad we had the Black bird to do high mach research for another 2 decades.

Gums sends...

A few tips on the USAF museum at Dayton:

Do it!
Give yourself 2 days. Yes, I mean it.
If Mrs. Treadigraph thinks a P-40 and a P-51 look the same, best go alone....ask me how I know. :)
An absolute must-see place.

The SA-2 engagement window, the SR-71 was only ever hit once, by a sole piece of shrapnel that caused inconsequential damage. Highly recommend Dayton, but a week rather than two days, unfortunately only had one.


https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....19ad7a4a13.png

https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstro...-084-DFRC.html

….Although intended to cruise at Mach 3, the first XB-70 was found to have poor directional stability above Mach 2.5, and only made a single flight above Mach 3. Despite the problems, the early flights provided data on a number of issues facing SST designers. These included aircraft noise, operational problems, control system design, comparison of wind tunnel predictions with actual flight data, and high-altitude, clear-air turbulence.

NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, wind-tunnel studies led engineers at North American Aviation in Downey, CA, to build the second XB-70A (62-207) with an added 5 degrees of dihedral on the wings. This aircraft made its first flight on July 17, 1965. The changes resulted in much better handling, and the second XB-70 achieved Mach 3 for the first time on Jan. 3, 1966. The aircraft made a total of nine Mach 3 flights by June….

I saw this video last year and it reinforced how tremendously large this thing it: Haven't watched this one yet but will do now:

I've never seen that photo! superb as has been said. Can you imagine flying alongside that thing, it must have appeared to be a plane out of the future

ORAC, finder of all things, didn’t Aviation week and space technology run a piece years ago about the “Aurora spy plane” being carried aloft by a new version of the XB-70? The article was roundly criticized for its accuracy.


Edit: found the article

https://web.archive.org/web/20060313...s/030606p1.xml

There are three really great aircraft museums in the US - in no particular order: Dayton, Smithsonian Air and Space on the Capital Mall, and Smithsonian Air and Space Udvar-Hazy (Dulles Airport).
First time I went to Dayton, I wondered around for hours when I realized I'd not seen the XB-70 - and it's big enough that it would have been pretty hard to miss. So I went to one of the help desks and asked where the XB-70 was. 'Oh, that's in the annex (glances at watch) - the last bus left 10 minutes ago' :eek: :ugh:. So when I went back several years later, the first thing I did after I arrived was asked how to get to the annex to see the XB-70 :cool:. And yes, it is huge! A 500,000 lb. aircraft that could go Mach 3, years before the first 747 rolled out :D.
I've not been back to Dayton for over 10 years - I heard the XB-70 has now been moved to the main museum (not sure about all the other stuff that was in the annex - including several former Air Force One aircraft).

The XB-70 demonstrated why it's a bad idea to have a common inlet for multiple engines - on one of the high speed flights, a chunk of structure in front of the inlet broke off and was ingested. It failed all three engines on one side, and did FOD damage to all three engines on the other side... :mad:

Took my then 12 year old to the Smithsonian, he bounced between aircraft, not caring about a piece of a prop and associated plaque on the wall. Had to go back a second time, solo to take in all the smaller presentations.

Dirty Beast
 

From watching the landing video I would suggest that, if the Valkyrie had survived to the present day, Greta Thunberg would have got it cancelled based on its emissions alone!

BV

Bob, it looks cleaner than a Convair 990 to me ! :}

Thanks for the advice about Dayton and Smithsonian folks - one day! (Or preferably three or four....)

Thanks so much for sharing that article West Coast. I have followed all things "Aurora" related over the years, but never saw that article. Good stuff. I strongly believe something large and fast was flying in the 1990's and hope someday we learn more.

If they were using a reusable XB-70 derivative to launch a smaller reusable orbiter from the 1990s, I wonder why they replaced it a decade later with the distinctly lower-tech (expendable launcher) X-37B?

I supposedly have a bit of one. Many moons ago I ordered something from a yard in the US and it was delivered with a free gift which was this little bit of carefully wrapped up honeycomb with a note saying it had come off a Valkyrie, who am I to say otherwise, but why would anyone go to that trouble if it wasn't true, after all it was added as an unexpected addition..

Perhaps some of the same reasons that expendables still have a place in transonic and space flight. Remember the Space Shuttle was originally envisioned as a space truck that could be rapidly reused and re-launched cheaply and easily, but as we saw it did not replace expendable boosters, was never cheap, and was replaced by Titan derivatives for heavy payloads. Only now are we seeing some truly reusable launch methods, but even these are only partially reusable, and they work....sometimes.....

IF an Aurora or XB-70 type aircraft was developed as a mother ship for a reusable orbiter, that would have been two very complex airframe systems with exotic materials, fuels, maintenance and security requirements. Not cheap or easy.

Crewed vehicles also have the highest safety requirements.

Was the honeycomb stainless steel? If so, perhaps, if not someone was pulling your leg.
Interesting use of stainless steel for the skin of the Valkyrie - apparently they didn't want to use titanium because the original plan was to build hundreds of the things and figured they could never get that much titanium, so they figured out how to use stainless without a huge weight penalty...

Definitely silver grey metal in colour about 2 inch by 1/2 inch in size without any external skinning on it. I will photograph it.

Iirc, the skin was made by Hexcel, a firm that lead the honeycomb business and was eventually taken private by Goldman Sachs.
I too have such a small sample of stainless steel honeycomb from them, although my specimen did not have any claims of association with the B-70 program.
My sample is only about 1/4" thick, so clearly a different application from yours.
I do remember the Hexcel people were seriously focused on the challenges of shaping the honeycomb. Airplanes have lots of curves and so the honeycomb has to be trimmed to just the right shape before the skin is brazed on.