North American XB-70 Valkyrie

From the 1960s onwards in the military, there was gradual innovation in regards to supersonic aviation.

Some classic examples include the 1964 North American XB-70 Valkyrie.

It was a bomber that could cruise at Mach 3 for thousands of miles.

Only two were ever made.

Anyway,

yeah, you know, footage of XB-70 just never gets old.

That is such a kick-ass looking airplane.

It really is.

An airplane built to carry a nuclear weapon at twice the altitude of Mount Everest, at three times the speed of sound, and return before any Soviet interceptor could climb high enough to even find it on radar.

That is the North American XB-70 Valkyrie.

I'm Taildragger, and you're listening to The Hangar on Radio Hangar.

Today, we are going to talk about one of the most audacious aircraft ever built, an airplane that proved almost everything it set out to prove, was canceled for reasons that had nothing to do with its flying qualities, and nearly took both of its airframes to the desert floor before it was done.

At Mach three, aerodynamic friction heats the skin of the aircraft to around six hundred degrees Fahrenheit in sustained cruise.

Aluminum, the material of choice for almost every airplane flying in the late 1950s, softens and loses structural integrity at those temperatures.

So North American had to build most of the Valkyrie's structure from stainless steel honeycomb panels and titanium.

They brazed the honeycomb panels together in a manufacturing process that was largely new to the American aerospace industry.

A B-29 sitting on the floor under the lights.

The white delta of the XB-70 Valkyrie, so long it barely fits inside.

Aircraft you would drive four hundred miles to stand next to for five minutes.

The kind of room where a grown pilot can lose an entire afternoon without trying.

Yeah.

So we, we talked about the F-40, or excuse me, the XB-70 mysteriously missing, um, at, uh, Edwards Air Force Base, and, and now there's people that are on X that are posting, like, like, people are getting job offers to work on the program.

So Mike, uh, Relja, I hope I pronounced that.

[laughs]

... do something like that

... just be a consultant.

So, uh, uh, Sluggo brings up a good question: "Why did the XB-70 have drooping wing tips?"

Oh, yeah.

The MiG-25 had not in fact been designed to be the aircraft the West so feared.

Conceived around 1960, the MiG-25 was intended to counter the American B-70 Valkyrie bomber.

The Soviet Union needed an interceptor of comparable performance quickly and without the resources or the time to develop a Western-style solution.

So Soviet designers built around existing technology.

In 1942, the B-29 Superfortress, a revolutionary bomber that played a pivotal role in World War II, made its debut flight at Boeing Field in Seattle.

In 1964, the North American XB-70 Valkyrie made its maiden flight from Palmdale, California to Edwards Air Force Base.

Although the Valkyrie never entered service as a bomber, the demonstration showcased the potential for sustained, long-range, supersonic flight in a transport-sized aircraft.

In 1981, Sandra Day O'Connor was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate to become the first female justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.