Thread: x-Planes XB-70 Valkyrie and Others

The engineering in the Blackbird was amazing. The new materials and techniques that had to be invented to work with them.
Even the tyres had to be a special compound to withstand the heat the thing generated.
An awesome brute force machine, it must have taken balls to fly it.

Originally Posted by 350RRC

Anyone read 'Chickenhawk', about flying Hueys in Vietnam? Have read that more times than I'm prepared to admit.

Great book. Depressing ending.

..agree re the Concord, a simply amazing feat of engineering and incredible to see up close, and one that the US can be thankful for (even though they did everything to stop it flying to protect Boeing), given all technology developed by the Brits (and Euro partners) was handed over to the US under post WW2 Government agreements - note the early developments of the X1 etc related to British super sonic experiments (was it Martin?).

Also many years ago when working for Telecom I was told that US spy flights crossed over Tasmania - well in so much as at that height they could virtually be crossing most of the Planet at any one time, and one local Telecom radio facility was involved with radio transmissions back to the US!!!

sr71 a mans plane leaks like a sponge on the ground but once warmd up in flight
whould of been nice if the continued its development of its engine's and furtherd its ram jet ability.
the thing i like most about it was all the titanium in came from ussr as it was of much better grade then anything able to be sourced in good old usa and still is.
they could out run missile's more due to there height and speed by the time the missle reached there height it had ran out of fuel and could not catch it.

f15 is the best plane the us have made but the fact it can fly after losing a wing, still fly after pulling up out of a dive at exceeding 40g like to see any other plane do that, there's a saying with the f15 you dont ask how the skin got rippled you just fix it would be nice if aus got them with thrust vectoring its all ready a proven f22 killer and much more capable then f/a18 superhornet's

The threatened introduction of the B70 Valkyrie caused panic in the Soviet Union's defence forces. They had nothing that could defend against its speed and ceiling. The MiG-25 Foxbat was developed for one reason only, to shoot down the Valkyrie. After spending a staggering amount of money developing the 25 and rushing it into production, the joke was on the USSR as the USAF decided not to go ahead with the Valkyrie. It was the development of surface to air missiles such as the one that got the U2 that eventually caused the demise of the superfast bombers like the Hustler and Valkyrie.

The Foxbat used a specially developed and hyper-expensive fuel. The USSR sold some Foxbats to India. These spent a lot of time out of service as the Indian squadron found their budget was insufficient to buy the special fuel.

There's an A-12 parked at the Space and Rocket center in Huntsville Alabama. This is the predecessor to the SR-71. The head office of the company I work for is based in Huntsville so I've dropped in to look at it a couple of times I've been over there.

You can actually see it in Google Maps:

http://maps.google.com.au/maps?f=q&s...04506&t=k&z=19

I have this book and its a very good read ISBN 1-84176-694-1

Originally Posted by Disco Mick

There's an A-12 parked at the Space and Rocket center in Huntsville Alabama.

You can actually see it in Google Maps:

is that the black one at the top??

it must be HUGE!!!


I could spend a nice day looking around there