| Stats | |
| Length : | 189 ft |
| Height : | 30 ft |
| Wingspan : | 105 ft |
| Max. Weight(fueled) : | 500,000 lb |
| Max. Speed : | Mach 3.08 |
| Max. Height : | 74,000 ft |
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| SPACE | TRANSPORT: | Aircraft : | XB-70 Valkyrie (1964-1969) |
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In the 1960s, the cold war was reaching new heights everyday. Their was this arms race between the two poles which seemingly had no end. Only 20 yrs after WWII, the strategic bomber was still the first thing that came into the brass's minds when planning strategy. While the Soviets were pushing for spy satellites and ICBMs , USA still believed that a long range high speed bomber was needed to deliver atomic/nuclear bombs. Hence came about the short lived XB-70 Valkyrie . This baby gave USSR the creeps. In their usual style they tried to copy and came up with the Su-T4 which existed for shorter time still.
The Valkyrie is perhaps the most hellish looking(or beautiful depending on how you look at it ) planes man will ever produce. It was conceived in the 1960s as a strategic bomber that could deliver nuclear weapons.
It holds the record for being the largest Experimental plane ever . It could fly at Mach 3.08 and achieve an altitude of 74,000 ft.
Ultimately, it was only put to use as a research aircraft. It was simply too impractical when compared to an Inter-Continental ballistic Missile( ICBM ).
Also See :
| Aircraft | : | Concorde |
| Aircraft | : | Su-T4 |
| Aircraft | : | Tu-244 |
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Do check out these hand-picked links before go to your favorite search engine!
| Content | Design | |
| people.fas.harvard.edu/~nair/xb70.html : Enthusiast Jai Nair's dedication to this plane | 8/10 | 1+0/6 |
| labiker.org/xb70.html : Steve at LA Biker really loves the valkyrie. I guess bikes and aircraft go together pretty well. Probably the most detailed XB-70 page on the web. | 7/10 | 2+2+1/10 |
| atse.org.au/publications/focus/focus-polmear.htm : An Australian unversity's paper on effects of heat due to friction on different substances(especially polymers) in SSTs. Also has some info on the proposed successor to the concorde. | 8/10 | 1.5+1/6 |
| airspacemag.com/asm/mag/supp/as99/Valkyrie.html : Article tracing political developments behind the valkyrie in extreme detail. | 10/10 | 3+0/6 |
| dfrc.nasa.gov/EAO/FactSheets/X_PlanesFACTS.html : NASA factsheet on Research Airplanes Program i.e. the X-Planes | 7/10 | 1.5+0/6 |
| dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/photo/XB-70/index.html : dryden space research center's XB-70A picture gallery | 7/10 | 3+0/6 |
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