AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 255 / 307

Plate 255 of 307 · Cold War · Mach 3 strategic bomber prototype

North American XB-70A Valkyrie

XB-70A 62-0001 (AV-1), painted as XB-70A 62-0001, AV-1, the first of the two North American Valkyries, which first flew on 21 September 1964, reached Mach 3.02 in October 1965, flew research sorties for NASA and the US Air Force until February 1969 and is displayed at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, Dayton, Ohio: a six-engined Mach 3 strategic bomber prototype with a long slender forward fuselage, a movable windscreen ramp (shown lowered) over a two-seat cockpit, swept canard foreplanes with flaps, a thin, high-mounted delta wing with folding outer panels (shown level, as displayed), a huge box-shaped engine housing under the wing split by a vertical intake splitter, six General Electric YJ93 nozzles side by side in the tail, twin swept fins and a tall undercarriage with four-wheeled main bogies: gloss white overall with a black anti-glare panel on the nose, ‘U.S. AIR FORCE’ in dark blue and the star-and-bar on the forward fuselage, ‘20001’ on the fins and a star-and-bar under the starboard wing, as photographed at Dayton (no XB-70 is in a UK museum; shape from the USAF Standard Aircraft Characteristics three-view; the nose probe is included, and the small stencils and photo-calibration marks are left off).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as XB-70A 62-0001, AV-1, the first of the two North American Valkyries, which first flew on 21 September 1964, reached Mach 3.02 in October 1965, flew research sorties for NASA and the US Air Force until February 1969 and is displayed at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, Dayton, Ohio: a six-engined Mach 3 strategic bomber prototype with a long slender forward fuselage, a movable windscreen ramp (shown lowered) over a two-seat cockpit, swept canard foreplanes with flaps, a thin, high-mounted delta wing with folding outer panels (shown level, as displayed), a huge box-shaped engine housing under the wing split by a vertical intake splitter, six General Electric YJ93 nozzles side by side in the tail, twin swept fins and a tall undercarriage with four-wheeled main bogies: gloss white overall with a black anti-glare panel on the nose, ‘U.S. AIR FORCE’ in dark blue and the star-and-bar on the forward fuselage, ‘20001’ on the fins and a star-and-bar under the starboard wing, as photographed at Dayton (no XB-70 is in a UK museum; shape from the USAF Standard Aircraft Characteristics three-view; the nose probe is included, and the small stencils and photo-calibration marks are left off). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (968 KB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (XB-70A); engine, crew and dimensions are for the XB-70A 62-0001 (AV-1) modelled here.

History

The XB-70A Valkyrie

In the mid-1950s Strategic Air Command wanted a successor to the Boeing B-52 that could cruise all the way to its target at three times the speed of sound, high enough and fast enough to outrun fighters. North American Aviation won the contract in December 1957 with the B-70: a huge canard delta built largely of brazed stainless-steel honeycomb, with six General Electric J93 turbojets side by side in a box under the wing. Its outer wing panels folded down in flight, so that the aircraft could ride on the shock wave from the wedge-shaped engine box, a trick its designers called compression lift.

The bomber’s case collapsed as it was being built. Ballistic missiles promised to reach the Soviet Union faster and more cheaply, and the shooting down of Gary Powers’s U-2 in 1960 showed that height alone no longer protected an aircraft from surface-to-air missiles. The programme was cut back step by step, and by 1964 it had become a research project with just two XB-70A prototypes. The first, 62-0001, flew from Palmdale to Edwards Air Force Base on 21 September 1964 and reached Mach 3 in October 1965; the second, which had better wing sealing, held Mach 3 for more than half an hour in May 1966.

On 8 June 1966 the second Valkyrie was lost when a Lockheed F-104 chase aircraft, flying close in formation for a publicity photograph, struck its tail; both the F-104’s pilot, NASA’s Joe Walker, and the XB-70’s co-pilot, Carl Cross, were killed. The first aircraft flew on for NASA and the Air Force, gathering data on sonic booms and high-speed flight for a planned American supersonic airliner, until February 1969. It is now the only XB-70, displayed in Dayton, Ohio. None is in a UK museum.

This airframe

XB-70A 62-0001 (AV-1)

62-0001The airframe modelled

62-0001, known as Air Vehicle 1, was rolled out at Palmdale, California, on 11 May 1964 and made its first flight on 21 September 1964. Problems with the stainless-steel honeycomb skin, which peeled away from the wing in flight more than once, led to it being limited to Mach 2.5 after it reached Mach 3.02 on 14 October 1965. After the second aircraft was lost in 1966 it carried on alone, latterly in a joint NASA and Air Force research programme, and on 4 February 1969 it made its last flight, to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, for the museum. It is displayed at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, Dayton, in the gallery of research and development aircraft. The model shows it as it stands there: gloss white overall with a black anti-glare panel on the nose, ‘U.S. AIR FORCE’ and the star-and-bar on the forward fuselage, ‘20001’ on the fins and a star-and-bar under the starboard wing, with the windscreen ramp lowered and the wingtips level. Its shape comes from the US Air Force’s Standard Aircraft Characteristics three-view; the small stencils and photo-calibration marks are left off.

Where to see one

Not on charge

The second was lost in a mid-air collision in 1966; the first, 62-0001, is at the National Museum of the US Air Force, Dayton.

All 307 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.