Slashdot Mirror

Not to pick nits, but the Smithsonian's Blackbird was still at the Udvar-Hazy center on the ground floor right at the end of the entrance hallway when I visited there just this past July. That doesn't mean that other Blackbirds aren't flying, though, although I'm pretty sure that the entire SR-71 program has in fact been retired.

The Blackbird has an impressive seervice history and is an amazing piece of technology. I often find myself wondering where we would be if we had fully developed this though...

And the XB70 Valkyrie would have. The most beautiful plane that never was.

/August.

There have been many dues paid. I think this site can tell us about many of them: http://www.labiker.org/xb70.html

Yes, that definitely qualifies as art. Technical, lethal, graceful and screaming fast, but still art.

http://www.bnr-art.com/aeronaut/valkyrie.htm

http://www.unrealaircraft.com/classics/xb70.php

http://www.labiker.org/xb70.html

Do not ever forget the XB-70 Valkyrie! A thing the size of a 747 that flew as fast as a SR-71 for longer ranges! Man I get goosebumps and a tear to my eye just to think about it!

Do not ever forget the XB-70 Valkyrie! A thing the size of a 747 that flew as fast as a SR-71 for longer ranges! Man I get goosebumps and a tear to my eye just to think about it!

Do not ever forget the XB-70 Valkyrie! A thing the size of a 747 that flew as fast as a SR-71 for longer ranges! Man I get goosebumps and a tear to my eye just to think about it!

Do not ever forget the XB-70 Valkyrie! A thing the size of a 747 that flew as fast as a SR-71 for longer ranges! Man I get goosebumps and a tear to my eye just to think about it!

Do not ever forget the XB-70 Valkyrie! A thing the size of a 747 that flew as fast as a SR-71 for longer ranges! Man I get goosebumps and a tear to my eye just to think about it!

Do not ever forget the XB-70 Valkyrie! A thing the size of a 747 that flew as fast as a SR-71 for longer ranges! Man I get goosebumps and a tear to my eye just to think about it!

The XB-70 Valkyrie flew at mach 3.1. But it's thermal protection consisted of stainless steel and thin white paint. The only figures I can find on the internet say the SR-71 toped out at mach 3.2. It seems odd that the SR-71 required so much more thermal protection when it's top speed was less than 100 mph faster.

It's pretty rare that any industry manages to combine such technical feats with such beauty (the only other airplane I can think of that managed it was the blackbird), and it will be a huge loss to the skies.

In that case, the pleasure of looking at the XB-70 Valkyrie awaits you. IMHO the Valkyrie is even more beautiful than Concorde.

In 1959, we began development on the XB-70, which had a cruising speed of MACH 3, but ultimately gave up on the project because flight at that speed is far too unstable for something as big and as unmaneuverable as a bomber. In fact, bombers have been getting slower, not faster. The B-2 isn't even capable of MACH 1.

The more important thing here is the B-2's $1.157 billion price tag. That's for each plane, excluding the cost of development. How many B-2 bombers do you think the U.S. military has at that price? How many missions do you think they ran in Iraq? Heck, we don't even really use our B-1s all that much. There's a reason we're still mostly using B-52s, the same basic plane it was in the Vietnam war.

Obviously the hypersonic bomber looks to vastly exceed that cost in both development and in unit price. Even if they are taken into production, they will be more rare than even the B-2, and I hardly think they would change the shape of our entire military and foreign policies. That, combined with the date 2025, makes me think "yeah, so?" By then, far more important developments will come along.

XB-70 pictures here

Same thing with the XB70 Valkyrie The Great White Bird

"Heat is the major enemy of speed. Caused by the friction of cutting through the air, heat has limited the top speed of modern aircraft (such as the F-15) far more than power. Beyond Mach 2.5, friction increases at an ever-growing rate (for comparison, an SR-71 operating at Mach 2.2 heats up to about 275 degrees, but at Mach 3.2, skin temperatures rise to almost 900 degrees!). The same aerodynamics that gave the XB-70 so little drag helped minimize heat buildup. The hottest portions of the Valkyrie, her nose and horizontal splitter, reached a temperature of only 625 degrees during Mach 3 flight, with the majority of the XB-70s skin at a temperature of just 450 degrees! Equipment was placed in the fuel tanks, which acted as heat sinks. As the fuel soaked up the heat from the fuselage, it was drawn into the engines and burned away, leaving the cooler fuel behind. At the same time, it had to be replaced with nitrogen gas. The temperatures inside the tanks were high enough that just two percent oxygen would have caused the fuel to burst into flames -- a decidedly undesirable event."

Just 450 degrees?

Well, very simply the Valkyrie, which might even be more advanced than the Blackbird...

Beauty

Just watching the last PI... RIP.

Anyways, this plane used 'compression lift', ie the wing tips folded down in flight (flight at Mach3+, mind!!!) and trapped air under the wing for more lift. That's a BIG plane too!

This has nothing to do with BWBs, but damn, it's a nice plane!