I have visited the XB70 crash site. A dear old friend who just passed away a couple weeks ago was a NASA employee and dirt bike desert rat. He organized a ride where we visited the the XB70, Joe Walkers F-104, the B1 and also the X-15 site where Mike Adams lost his life all in one day. My friend was also involved in the X-15 flight, I believe as the crew chief for propulsion? He said they spent months, hundreds of men walking abreast in the desert looking for wreckage, found almost everything with the exception of one wing

I was ten years old and my dad NAA tech rep took me to Palmdale to see the roll out of the B-70.

Thank you so much for making this video about the XB-70. As a teenager I saw this aircraft parked at Edwards while driving out to pickup alfalfa hay nearby. Years later, while attending a course at Ohio State, a buddy and I drove down to Dayton to the Air Force museum. At that time the XB-70 was parked right in front of the museum. If that wasn't thrilling enough, inside was an X-15, a B-36 and the Brokscar B-29 among many other notable aircraft. What an amazing place to visit. Growing up I had heard the sonic booms of that very x-15 and read about Scot Carpenter and others that flew the x-15, IMO, the first US astronauts.

Mr,Orr,i cannot thank you enough sir for this video.An amazing airplane ahead of its time,and yet so sad didn't survive.

Its amazing that a seniors social group is posting such amazing AvGeek videos!

I'm so glad you mentioned Major Carl Cross. He was my 3rd cousin. Awesome recount of the accident.

Some people dream of Genie. I dream of XB-70. The most beautiful of aircraft.

@keithmyers6121

5 жыл бұрын

WELL SAID SIR!

Thanks! The XB-70 is one my favorite aircraft...This channel deserves way more subs! The content is always so interesting, especially the accounts from the pilots and designers of these incredible machines. PSV is doing a service to future generations by preserving these first hand stories that may otherwise be lost in time....

Wow, what a story! Got me hooked up until the end.

Such an excellent plane, wishing the U.S. government would have chosen this plane, the XB-70 was truly extraordinary

I cant help but try to imagine just what kind of aircraft are flying today as top secret research vehicles

these videos are great. The intro music sounds like an early 90s doc tho...Otherwise great work. Getting these guys to share their knowledge is great. Some of these things are only heard by family and friends and now we get to hear it. Fantastic!!!

Cool to see aluminum impregnated tires used in SR program on this bird. Great channel!! Subscribed:)

The Blackbird program was allocating most of the available titanium for its program. To bad North American wasn't able to aquire enough of it to offset the challenges working with stainless steel.

Great Video! But darned if to this day Orr will not say that the F-104 got "sucked In" to the compression vortex . Another great bird, put down by short sighted politicians. Thanks again Betty!

@sharkheadism

5 жыл бұрын

It was the right decision. Bombers were increasingly vulnerable to SAMs over hostile territory and ballistic missiles were correctly surmised as being the future of strategic deterrence.

The most beautiful planes ever made.

These videos you put produce are great. Keep them coming. I have watched them all and I'm looking forward to your next one.

Great speech for a great plane.

If we had this in the early 60's ? What do we have now ? Last i heard was Hopeless Diamond ??? A very interesting presentation !!!

MY KINGDOM FOR A TIME MACHINE!!

Very good production enjoyed this a lot .

Somewhere east of Barstow....

Thank you for this captivating presentation. I learned additional details that are not even mentioned un the dedicated books. Great speach!

Great stuff - as usual.

@DBGlendale89

5 жыл бұрын

XB-70 Valkyrie was a fantastic airplane. Probably my favorite airplane (and many others) ever produced by the USA. Obvious, Air France/British Airways borrowed heavily from North American Aviation in the Concorde program. However, the USA was producing a multi-sonic bomber/reconnaissance airplane at the same time aka SR-71 which was in production until the late 80s. Unbelievably, the Soviet Union built an an entire fighter/interceptor based upon the XB-70 which was the the Mig-25. Those planes could "blast" to Mach 3+ but waste their engines. However, the end of the Valkyrie wasn't performance, but technological issues and Soviet surface to air missile technology.

Hi! Loved the video. Can someone tell me which were the chase planes besides the F-104 used in the testing flights of the XB-70? Thanks.

best video - stoked

It was a "Great Plane . . . even by TODAY'S standards.

Fascinating! I also note Mr. Orr has a doppelganger on television... Al Bundy!

Great Video, once again. Love the good history lessons, always fun to learn about a new plane.

Very interesting. GREAT !!!

The sonic boom must have sounded so nice...

there are different opinions as to why it was cancelled. I think it had to do with Kennedy winning in 1969. With Mcnamara, there were many cuts and changes. I think if Nixon would have gotten in in 1960, it may have survived

@AvengerII

6 жыл бұрын

Nah, the XB-70 had a LOT of technical issues and wasn't very long-ranged for a plane that was dubbed a strategic bomber. Heck, they couldn't put a decent paint job on that plane without it partially peeling off after every flight! It looked almost as bad after every supersonic flight as the Space Shuttle Columbia did when it was delivered to Kennedy Space Center with 1/3 of the tiles missing in 1978! There have been concerns about the stability of the surviving XB-70 prototype. It was on outdoor display for many years (20+ years) at the National USAF Museum. They finally moved it indoors because A) it WAS showing some signs of deterioration and B) it's the flagship aircraft of the USAF Museum. It was in their continued economic interests to keep one of their most popular exhibits intact and they could really only ensure its continued survival after they moved it indoors! The XB-70 was partially deteriorating because of the way it was built. It was built with early lightweight honeycomb construction (predecessor of the composites we use today in plane construction) but that tech wasn't perfect and showed signs of deterioration during the test flights. It's great that it only showed those problems on the prototypes and NOT 100 or more production planes that were in-service. It's very expensive to fix these problems after a plane is already in-service. Better to tackle those issues in pre-production planes. Uh-uh. They made the right call here when they cancelled production of the XB-70 and made it a tech demonstrator. The only supersonic bomber (aside from the FB-111) that SAC ever employed was the B-58 and it was in service for only about 10 years, too. It was a maintenance headache, had a lot of accidents, and was really limited in weapons load and range, too. Its most useful ability was to set speed records and that was about it. What makes anybody think the B-70 would have been any less of a headache to maintain? It was a full Mach faster than the B-58, would have had higher heating of the airframe, and would have required even more safety checkouts and maintenance of the engines and airframe to keep it operational. That adds up to being a HUGE hangar queen. That's not the kind of plane the USAF wants or can really afford to be honest. The B-1B is really a subsonic bomber with very limited supersonic flight capability after the B-1 was redesigned for low-level penetration. If they could have redesigned the plane economically to get rid of the variable sweep wings, I'm sure they would have. The most successful strategic jet bomber to date is still the B-52. The ultimate replacement for that plane will be another version of the B-2 which is subsonic, too. Supersonic speeds are just not compatible with decent range/weapons carrying capacity and reduced detectability... They certainly don't work out for lower maintenance requirements, greater fuel economy, and greater reliability, either!

That was/is an awesome looking plane...and 6 engines at 30,000 lbs. of thrust each= 180,000 lbs. of total thrust...incredible..!! I did find it interesting that, however, that the presentation was not made by an XB-70 pilot. I wonder why?

@rekinlas

6 жыл бұрын

Remember, it's been nearly 50 years since this plane last flew. Al White, the pilot who ejected, would be 98 years old if alive today. Possible other pilots were younger but probably still too old to care about doing speaking engagements.

@karlchilders5420

6 жыл бұрын

There are no living XB-70 pilots. Some of the co-pilots survive but they are old as dirt and aren't up to speaking. The remainder were company test pilots, who are also dead.

Why does the channel have the word "seniors" in it??? Is it a nodd to the family of secret programs with the name "senior" in it? Or is it more of a AARP sorta thing? Plz answer, I'm dying to know. I'm only half way to my senior years but I do enjoy watching these videos with my dad. He helped build every one of the sr-71's at the skunkworks facility in Southern California. He's got some great stories and I like hearing about some of the things he was doing.

@PhysicalDimension

6 жыл бұрын

@Anchor Bait: It's because the videos are produced and made for senior citizens/retirees. In particular the senior citizens living on the Palos Verdes Peninsula and surrounding areas.

@AvengerII

5 жыл бұрын

The area these people live in WAS the hub of military aviation development until the early 1990s when the US budget cuts hit the area hard and most of the manufacturing left the area. There were thousands of planes built in the area during World War II -- Lockheed's main production plant (prior to the 1990s) was in the local area! -- and of course the military presence since before the early 1900s. The bases are still there but the businesses moved out because A) the government's not paying them to make up the difference of COLA in California and B) it's cheaper to build things elsewhere! They did final assemblies of the F-22 in Georgia (?) because it was a right to work state. The last NEW plane they built in the area was probably the B-2 Spirit. All the current American fighters you can name were or are being built in other States. F-15, F-18 = St. Louis, Missouri. F-16 = originally Fort Worth, the production was moved to Georgia, probably the same plant that built the F-22. F-35 = being built in Fort Worth, Texas where the majority of F-16s were built. Washington = Boeing transports and refueling planes (707, 747, 777, 737, KC-135)... Only certain specialist planes and top-secret stealth planes have built in California in the last 30-40 years (B-2, U-2S, Tacit Blue, and the ATF and JSF prototypes final assembly). They still have aerospace company headquarters and planning groups in the area. The Lockheed Skunkworks is still in California where it's always been but the testing is either at Edwards AFB or Groom Lake for the really top-secret stuff.

The damn General Electric "fasion show" doomed the XB-70 project.

@104thDIVTimberwolf

4 жыл бұрын

As a manned bomber, the die was cast already for the Valkyries. The bomber program had already been cancelled and they had already been relegated to research vehicles about six months prior to that collision.

Were these developed to deliver nuclear weapons to the USSR?

@kettle_of_chris

4 жыл бұрын

Unfortunately it was, but thankfully it was never - ever needed. My dad's last post overseas was the US Embassy in Moscow. 1987-1990 (State Dept.) I spent collectively about 7 months in Russia. Pre-Russian Federation. The Russian People are incredible on so many levels. Yes they have their problems as do we. In spite of this they are a lot like us; resourceful, patriotic, loyal...the list goes on. Don't assume anyone is so different because their language is so different. When Glasnost & Perestroika rolled out around 1986/1987 which is about 6 months or so before I first got there. They took to the concept of Privately Owned / Free Market Economics like a dog to bacon. Anyway back to the plane - what should have happened was a scale back to civilian applications. I/E fund 5 of them - use 2 for High Speed Research, and 3 for Research as an SST. It's not fair that Boeing took that challenge without some help from Uncle Sam. I think if that happened the Concorde would be the "less expensive alternative" people used when flying super sonic. Just my opinion.

what happened to the b47

@antonyborlase3965

6 жыл бұрын

Arthur Fiorillo Believe it was replaced by the 52.

@AvengerII

6 жыл бұрын

The B-47 was taken out of service by the mid-1960s because it was too reliant on aerial refueling and couldn't carry the weapons load SAC wanted out of a strategic bomber. It was really a mid-range bomber (4000mi) and NOT a true "strategic bomber" (at least 8000 mi range, unrefueled). It was essentially a lead-in, technology demonstrator and proof-of-concept plane but it was far from perfect. It was brand-new tech (aerodyamics, jet engines) that had to be refined and debugged. That was a process that took at least 10 years but in the meantime we couldn't get to the B-52 without going through the teething pains with the B-47. Don't worry, though -- there are TONS of preserved B-47s in museums all over the US. The plane's significance was recognized and basically ever major airliner in service today owes a lot of their aerodynamic/wing layout/wing-engine nacelle combo features to the B-47. The major difference I see is that the B-47 had a high-mounted, "shoulder-type" wing instead of the mid-mounted or low-mounted wings of today's major airliners. The B-52 and the Boeing 707 would NOT have happened without the B-47 flying first.

@donaldgrant9067

6 жыл бұрын

Plus at the time the B-47 scared the crap out of the Russians, because of it's speed. Are there any that could be rebuilt to fly again? The B-52 is still flying. I personally thing the military should respect their equipment of old rather then just let them rot. Bring them out on holidays. The reason I have an interest in the B-47 is that back in about 1965 My father was stationed at Pease AFB in New Hampshire. There where 2 at the end of the runway for the fire crew to practice on and it seemed such a waste of a beautiful aircraft. They looked much better then the BUFF. I got to get into the bomb bay where I missed a step and fell on the ground. Good thing I bounced at the time.

joe walker flew the x15!!! jesus..something must have gone terribly wrong with the t38, walker was no rookie or company hack..adds a lot of complexity to the crash...even sabotage via the russians..if they knew the flight profile of the chase plane, which side of the aircraft and vicinity to xb70, it wouldnt be that difficult to mess with the controls to make it un responsive once in the wash of the big bomber.. joes loss was a great blow to our aeronautical history.. had they landed it a few min earlier everything would have been different..

@planegaper

5 жыл бұрын

sorry f104, not t38.. chase plane

@puremaga17

5 жыл бұрын

The truth is, Joe's F-104 got "sucked In" to the compression vortex. It was a very controversial point that was also mis-reported here in the video ... still trying to "bring the XB-70 back" I guess lol..

The reason the XB70 was cancelled, is because Russia could shoot it down no problem.

XB-70 is canceled because of the Mig-25. That mig was and only plane that Soviets were ahead of USA. All other times and to date, USA leads. mig-25 also very amazing in terms of technology; stainless steel plane, able to achieve mach 3 operationally., yet much cheaper than SR-71.

@EricIrl

7 жыл бұрын

Not really. It was cancelled because a) it was a very expensive programme b) it was not going to be as effective due to the advent of ICBMs c) ground to air missiles were rendering high flying bombers vulnerable. The knocking down of Gary Power's U-2 in 1960 by a Soviet SAM proved that the high flying bomber was no longer viable.

@ramjb

6 жыл бұрын

the MiG-25 was no factor. In fact the MiG-25 wasn't even a thing by the moment the Valkyrie had been reduced to a technology demonstrator, and certainly the americans didn't know anythign about it by that stage. The XB-70 program was kept alive for testing and propaganda purposes only, both the Congress and the USAF had decided there was no use for such a bomber well before the first prototype took to the air, and the reasons were pretty straightforward: 1st: The nuclear bomber force took a backseat in SAC priorities compared with the ICBM force. From being the main strategic nuclear First strike/Fast answer delivery asset of the US Air Force, it was downgraded to a secondary "reaction" force. The XB-70's cost was spectacular and now it was no longer a priority, there was no justification for it's tremendous cost. 2nd: SAMs had already proven that flying very high was a no-go for bombers. So the primary SAC mission profiles changed from high speed dashes at very high altitudes to very low nap-to-earth penetrations. And it just happened that at very low altitude a XB-70 was not even able to go supersonic without tearing itself apart (air is FAR more dense down at sea level than up high at 70k feet). In fact at low altitude the B-70 was barely any faster than a B-52, but had only half the range than the Stratofortress(the B-70 long range came out of it's ability to cruise at Mach 3 with fantastic fuel economy, at subsonic speeds it was very fuel inneficient). Given it's cost it would've been stupid to pay for it when it was actually less capable that the bomber it was supposed to replace. The MiG-25, btw, wasn't ahead of anything the USA had. It was an one-trick pony very fast, very unflexible, interceptor and recon plane. It weighed a shit-ton, was as maneouverable as an iron sled, couldn't turn worth a damn, and had the cockpit visiblity of a jail window. And to top it off the plane wasn't able to go any faster than Mach 2.5 without slashing it's range by half, by destroying it's own engines, and by reducing itself to an unfliable piece of junk until a complete airframe revision was accomplished (to go alongside the replacement of the engines). Yes, there were a couple times that MiG-25s were clocked at Mach 3.2 - each time they were very short dashes, each time the plane's Tumanskii engines had to be sent to the scrapyard upon RTB because they were beyond economic repair, and each time the planes had to be subjected to complete airframe revisions to make sure the only thing that had melted were the engines. Matter of fact, by the time the soviets were able to declare the MiG-25 operational, the CIA was already flying the A-12, predecessor of the SR-71. A plane that cruised at Mach 3.2 ....and was able to do so for hours, in missions involving huge ranges, and without destroying it's own engines in the process. "Ahead of the USA"?. I don't think so, buddy. PS: I'm not even american but to discuss the technological superiority of the US aeronautics of that era just leads nowhere. And no, the MiG-25 isn't any exception to that. Quite the opposite, actually, a comparison of the recon MiG-25 with the A-12 shows how brutally far ahead the US was, as does a comparison of the interceptor MiG-25 compared with the perfectly feasible performances the YF-12 (fighter version prototype of the A-12, discarded because the USAF considered they didn't need an interceptor of that performance at all) had to offer.

@cowboybob7093

6 жыл бұрын

EricIrl, ramjb, Harri v'Jah, Thanks for the great posts, analysis. It takes a long time to write items like those, it takes a while to read them for that matter. I've learned to stop reading as soon as a yellow card is issued by my mental referee. All of yours were finished and I even clicked to see what content you've posted. (I don't have anything posted but comments)

@ALSNewsNow

5 жыл бұрын

Not at all. The Mig 25 engines were pure crap. They were not allowed to be run on full burner more than 5 minutes or they would melt down! You ain't catching the SR or the B-70 with THAT! Especially from a ground launch.

@104thDIVTimberwolf

4 жыл бұрын

@@ramjb, agreed. When Viktor Bylenko defected with a MiG-25 in 1974 ('76?) we were shocked at what garbage they were. The Soviets demanded it back, so the boys from Wright-Patterson's Foreign Tecnology Division obliged them. They flew to Japan and stripped the airplane down to the individual rivet crated it up and the Japanese insisted that the shipping was paid in full before they allowed it to be loaded onto the freighter to send it back. We learned enough about the MiG to not be afraid of them or the MiG-31 it evolved into. A lot has been said about the similarities in configuration between the MiG-25 and the F-15, which was flight testing first, but second into service. The Foxbat was a short-lived brick with wings, while the Eagle is still in service 45 years after the first squadron was activated, with the best kill ratio of any combat aircraft in history (helped by the fact that no Eagle has ever been shot down after 45 years of combat operations with several different countries generating well over 100 kills). The Eagle has also proven to be able to fly with on wing ripped off, something that the Israeli Air Force was the first to learn in 1974 and USAF duplicated when I was a young Airman. The MiG-25, by comparison, barely flew with both wings attached.