North American XB-70 Valkyrie

[lordroel]

So the North American XB-70 Valkyrie, what if it did not have the Mid-air collision on June 8th 1966 and the bomber enterd into production, how would she change Strategic Air Command.

[archibald]

I LOVE this bird. Recently I downloaded a document discussing all the crazy whacky projects the Vakyrie inspired. Some of them completely bonkers (VSTOL - yes - parasail landing, airliner, cargo aircraft, and even SUPERSONIC REFUELING.)

Have a look at it here

media.defense.gov/2020/Nov/23/2002540204/-1/-1/1/B-70%20VARIANTS.PDF

My favorite one is air-launch platform for orbital rockets. Takes 9000 m/s to go to Earth orbit: dropping a rocket from an aircraft flying at mach 3 substracts 2000 m/s of that. Well, the B-70 still is the one and only aircraft large enough for that job. SR-71 was way too small.
So they planned to strap a Minuteman ballistic to a Valkyrie: and that contraption could have send a Gemini capsule to Earth orbit, 3000 kg to orbit. And Partially reusable, with that.

It plays an important role in my "magnum opus" story, Dark Moon Rising.

[lordroel]

Nov 30, 2020 7:25:38 GMT archibald said:

I LOVE this bird. Recently I downloaded a document discussing all the crazy whacky projects the Vakyrie inspired. Some of them completely bonkers (VSTOL - yes - parasail landing, airliner, cargo aircraft, and even SUPERSONIC REFUELING.)

Have a look at it here

media.defense.gov/2020/Nov/23/2002540204/-1/-1/1/B-70%20VARIANTS.PDF

My favorite one is air-launch platform for orbital rockets. Takes 9000 m/s to go to Earth orbit: dropping a rocket from an aircraft flying at mach 3 substracts 2000 m/s of that. Well, the B-70 still is the one and only aircraft large enough for that job. SR-71 was way too small.
So they planned to strap a Minuteman ballistic to a Valkyrie: and that contraption could have send a Gemini capsule to Earth orbit, 3000 kg to orbit. And Partially reusable, with that.

It plays an important role in my "magnum opus" story, Dark Moon Rising.

Well have you check this page out, it is the B-70 of TBO verse fame.

North American B-70 Valkyrie

[archibald]

If only Stuart Slade wasn't such a colossal right-wing nutjob !

A third XB-70 was very nearly build. Unfortunately it was canned. End result: the lone Valkyrie that survived was number one, a complete dog of aircraft that end red limited to Mach 2.5. Second Valkyrie was much better, but ate a F-104 and killed two people.

Pretty frustrating.

That web page is excellent xb70.interceptor.com/

[lordroel]

Nov 30, 2020 17:27:16 GMT archibald said:

If only Stuart Slade wasn't such a colossal right-wing nutjob !

Do not think it is the place to discuses this.

So back to topic, could the XB-70 Valkyrie become something like the B-52, being flown until present day.

[archibald]

By the 60's metric it didn't stood a chance. Bombers were shifting from 70 000 ft to 70 ft above the ground to avoid being slaughtered by SAM, Gary Power or Vietnam style. The B-70 simply can't shift to tree tops, unlike the slower B-52. 

Problem was, until 1980 at least bombers had to drop free falls bombs right on the target - stand-off cruise missiles were not mature enough. They were massive and unreliable (Hound Dog).

By the late 60's SRAM was the first viable cruise missile, but the real breakthrough was the Tomahawk AGM-86 and 109 - after 1977. 15 years too late for the Valkyrie.

There was another option, however: Skybolt. There were plans for B-70s to carry Skybolt underwings at subsonic speed (no other option with that missile) and fire that outside the Soviet Union: 1000 miles range.

Once the Skybolt fired, drop the wing pylons, go to Mach 3, and fire a volley of SRAMs from the payload bay.

This way the XB-70 could have barely survived. But SRAM was too late and Skybolt was a dead-end, so it died.

Still, a B-70 with Skybolts would be one hell of doomsday machine.

Some days ago I got a radical idea to cut down fuel and maintenance costs of the Valkyrie (which were truly horrible)

Put SST engines - GE4 - in that aircraft. www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/b-70-with-sst-ge4-engines.35945/

The neat thing with the monster GE4 engine: only FOUR of them WITHOUT afterburner have slightly more thrust that all 6-J93 in full afterburner.

End result: a supercruising B-70 ! This would tremendously extend its range.

Icing on the cake, the XB-70 WAS proposed as a single GE4 testbed, by removing two J93. So we know the engine could fit into the Valkyrie engine bays.

[lordroel]

Nov 30, 2020 19:48:02 GMT archibald said:

By the 60's metric it didn't stood a chance. Bombers were shifting from 70 000 ft to 70 ft above the ground to avoid being slaughtered by SAM, Gary Power or Vietnam style. The B-70 simply can't shift to tree tops, unlike the slower B-52. 

Problem was, until 1980 at least bombers had to drop free falls bombs right on the target - stand-off cruise missiles were not mature enough. They were massive and unreliable (Hound Dog).

By the late 60's SRAM was the first viable cruise missile, but the real breakthrough was the Tomahawk AGM-86 and 109 - after 1977. 15 years too late for the Valkyrie.

There was another option, however: Skybolt. There were plans for B-70s to carry Skybolt underwings at subsonic speed (no other option with that missile) and fire that outside the Soviet Union: 1000 miles range.

Once the Skybolt fired, drop the wing pylons, go to Mach 3, and fire a volley of SRAMs from the payload bay.

This way the XB-70 could have barely survived. But SRAM was too late and Skybolt was a dead-end, so it died.

Still, a B-70 with Skybolts would be one hell of doomsday machine.

Would it look like this archibald.

[archibald]

This looks like a Gemini mated to a Centaur hydrogen stage. The combination of Valkyrie, Centaur booster stage, and Gemini, would be pretty awesome. Although pretty dangerous, too: with all the kinetic heating at mach 3, the Centaur could go KABOOM and ruin the party...

You are giving me ideas. IT is possible to burn hydrogen into jet engines, it is actually better than kerosene.

Hmmm... B-70 with 4*hydrogen GE4, dropping a centaur... should be able to deliver a big payload to orbit...

[simon darkshade]

The problem with your initial post is that the B-70 programme had already been cancelled by 1961, some five years prior to that.

The crash would not change a single thing.

Now, if we change the date to 1961 and have the programme go through, it would require different decisions made in 1959 regarding missiles both offensive and defensive.
As for what happens...it depends. It depends on strategy, implementation of different technologies, how many aircraft are procured and what occurs around the world.

If there isn’t a nuclear war, the B-70 would be somewhat less adaptable to conventional missions.

[lordroel]

Dec 1, 2020 1:07:16 GMT simon darkshade said:

The problem with your initial post is that the B-70 programme had already been cancelled by 1961, some five years prior to that.

Did not know that, must read over it.

[archibald]

It is even worse than that.

That thing nearly triggered a constitutional crisis between JFK and McNamara, on one side; and Congress - military - industry, on the other.

Well worth a read !

www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/05/29/jfk-xb-70-lemay-constitutional-crisis-215203

The B-70 was a dinosaur, in the days of the Minuteman. The later was essentially steel tubes filled with fertilizer, and an unmanned guidance system. Making it dirt cheap: they build more than 1000 of them. Plus the Polaris subs.
Yet compared to the B-70, it had 10 times the speed and was unvulnerable.

[simon darkshade]

The C4I arrangements for the ICBM and SLBM forces were rather expensive, even if the missiles themselves were cheap.

The speed difference was 8 times, which doesn’t really make a difference, but ICBMs aren’t necessarily invulnerable, even from the position of 1959.

The Politico article is fairly littered with inaccuracies and mischaracterisation of the political and strategic positions of multiple figures (Ike being a proponent of conventional weapons and brush fire wars is a new one). Perhaps the most amusing section was the claim that Kennedy and McNamara “ struggling to convert U.S. defense to a less provocative and more cost-effective “counterforce” or limited war posture” - there are at least four errors in that sentence alone. O’Hanlon’s contention that a nuclear war wasn’t winnable in 1962 is blithely accepted without any consideration or refutable. Talking about some strange concept of 150 airborne Valkyries being used as stand off weapon platforms doesn’t compute with anything I’ve read. Ultimately, it is a partisan view of a contentious issue with a very clear outline of who the reader should view as the goodies and the baddies. I would recommend “Decisions of Robert S. McNamara” for a more measured look at the issue.

Another issue is that bombers can be pulled back from the brink, whereas there isn’t a recall for missiles when fired. From the position of the late 1950s and the New Look, everything was nuclear, so that was less of an issue.

A penetrator bomber can go low below radar and/or use stealth, as they did in @. They can also fight their way in by hitting SAM sites and radars with stand off weapons and in concert with missile strikes from other shorter range assets. Even in the pre SIOP days, there was still coordination.

It wasn’t a path that was fully explored or taken in @, although we can see some of the weapons systems and warheads in an examination of the 1960s. Ultimately, there was not a full scale nuclear exchange to test the efficacy of various approaches.

[lordroel]

I always toughed the B-70 was the same ore smaller than the B-52 which i already find to be big, but it seems the B-70 is bigger:

[lordroel]

YouTube (The World’s Fastest Bomber: The XB-70 Valkyrie)