North American XB-70 Valkyrie

I really, really love the allure of the XB-70 seen from the front - as in the second picture. It looks like a spaceship and not at all 60 years old in design...
 
By 1964 the Soviets already possessed small nuclear warheads capable of extending the kill ratio of the SA-2 to 19,680 ft and the ceiling to 80,000 ft.

The Valkyrie program suffered numerous delays due to inexperience with the new heat-resistant materials, as well as political and budgetary reasons. When the prototype XB-70 AV-1 was flown on September 21, 1964 the Soviet air defense system was already so consolidated that the WS110A specification was meaningless and the B-70 was cancelled by the Kennedy Administration.

In August 1958, the North American project office submitted the proposal Defensive Antimissile System (DAMS) using air-to-air missiles launched by the Valkyrie.

The Defense Feasibility Study was completed in March 1959 and published by the Air Proving Ground Center-Eglin AFB the same month the U-2 incident occurred.

In 1948 the first experimental AAM-A-2 air-to-air missile was launched and entered in service with the USAF in 1955 as the Hughes AIM-4 Falcon.

The original purpose of the Falcon was a Mach 3.8 self-defense weapon for the B-52 bomber and was shortly revived during the B-70 development. The rail-launched missile was not a particularly maneuverable and needed to be pointed in the right direction of the target.

Due to the B-70 speed the Falcon could just be used against any threat coming from its forward hemisphere, but the Valkyrie would have to defend itself against threats from all direction with spherical coverage.

The Falcon was a cylindrical rocket with four delta wings. Would it have been thrown sideways from a B-70 flying to Mach 3 it would have been destroyed by the crosswind shock waves.

North American proposed the Weapons System WS-740A, a wingless lenticular-form rocket with omnidirectional launch capabilities, capable of engaging incoming missiles at relative speeds of Mach 10 and being able to survive and maneuver at 250g accelerations.

The project was awarded to the Convair Division of General Dynamics Corporation, under the codename Pye Wacket, in June 1959.
 

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Justo Miranda said:
By 1964 the Soviets already possessed small nuclear warheads capable of extending the kill ratio of the SA-2 to 19,680 ft and the ceiling to 80,000 ft.

The Valkyrie program suffered numerous delays due to inexperience with the new heat-resistant materials, as well as political and budgetary reasons. When the prototype XB-70 AV-1 was flown on September 21, 1964 the Soviet air defense system was already so consolidated that the WS110A specification was meaningless and the B-70 was cancelled by the Kennedy Administration.

In August 1958, the North American project office submitted the proposal Defensive Antimissile System (DAMS) using air-to-air missiles launched by the Valkyrie.

The Defense Feasibility Study was completed in March 1959 and published by the Air Proving Ground Center-Eglin AFB the same month the U-2 incident occurred.

In 1948 the first experimental AAM-A-2 air-to-air missile was launched and entered in service with the USAF in 1955 as the Hughes AIM-4 Falcon.

The original purpose of the Falcon was a Mach 3.8 self-defense weapon for the B-52 bomber and was shortly revived during the B-70 development. The rail-launched missile was not a particularly maneuverable and needed to be pointed in the right direction of the target.

Due to the B-70 speed the Falcon could just be used against any threat coming from its forward hemisphere, but the Valkyrie would have to defend itself against threats from all direction with spherical coverage.

The Falcon was a cylindrical rocket with four delta wings. Would it have been thrown sideways from a B-70 flying to Mach 3 it would have been destroyed by the crosswind shock waves.

North American proposed the Weapons System WS-740A, a wingless lenticular-form rocket with omnidirectional launch capabilities, capable of engaging incoming missiles at relative speeds of Mach 10 and being able to survive and maneuver at 250g accelerations.

The project was awarded to the Convair Division of General Dynamics Corporation, under the codename Pye Wacket, in June 1959.
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Cool! Though off the top of my small head I'm pretty sure B-70 was canceled and turned into a research only program years earlier to 64, late 61 I think.
 
By the way, does anybody have any illustrations (or, drool, video) of how the movable (foldable) outer windshield / ramp combo worked? Especially how it was possible to make it streamlined and at the same time movable? Was the mechanism very complicated so that not only did it fold up and out into the supersonic position, but the side parts also moved a bit inwards to achieve a smooth outer surface flush with the rest of the fuselage, or something?

(First post here, so be gentle;)
 

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I don't really understand how the nose ramp mechanism worked... Would there be any more pics/diagrams on this?
 

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From the Lawrence Kuter papers
AFHRA Microfilm A1843
Frames 434-438

NOT A POSITION PAPER - TALKING PAPER ONLY

AFXPD-LR
25 November 1960

WHY THE B-70?

General Discussion

1. The growing obsolescence of our manned bomber force and the significant increases being made in Soviet air defenses dictate a requirement to modernize.

2. The Mach 3 B-70 best fills this vital requirement for a manned follow-on to the B-52.

3. The B-70 is the only aircraft system now under development by the Air Force. Its introduction into the strategic bomber force is essential to the continued effectiveness of the manned bomber force.

The Mixed Force Argument

4. An effective offensive strategic capability requires a flexible force using manned aircraft and missiles.

5. Properly employed, manned aircraft and missiles can complement each other by attacking those targets for which they are individually best suited. Both are needed. Neither can replace the other. The ratio of bombers to missiles may decrease but we cannot abandon the manned bomber.

6. In addition, a diversified attack forces the enemy to dilute his defenses to cover all speeds and altitudes.

The Unique Capabilities Argument

7. Manned systems possess certain capabilities missiles do not have and are therefore necessary if we are to have a strong strategic posture. A manned system:

a. Can be recalled. This allows it to be launched on less than certain information. Launched in this situation, the manned system could be recalled or proceed on to enemy targets. Being airborne, it would be safe from the attack.

b. Can be used over and ever on repeated strikes. A missile cannot be used a second time.

c. Fulfills the important role of obtaining intelligence and damage assessment information vital to planning subsequent strikes. It also provides a means of bringing mobile targets under attack.

d. Can carry large, high-yield weapons as well as multiple weapons. The ICBM can carry only one small-yield warhead.

e. Can bring to bear large yield weapons against such hardened targets as military and government control centers or to attack several targets on the same mission. This large and variable load carrying ability takes on additional significance when considering the possibility that nuclear weapons conceivably would be banned at some time in the future and only TNT weapons could be used. Under such a situation missiles become a very expensive means of delivering TNT against the enemy when compared to the bomber with its capability to carry many conventional bombs and return to carry more.

f. Can seek out. discriminate and attack targets with no sacrifice in accuracy and effectiveness. In short, it can achieve high accuracy using less accurate target data.

g. Offers a great range of flexibility in choice of tactics. For example, it can use any portion of the enemy perimeter to penetrate with variance in both altitudes and speeds.

h. Provides the distinct advantage of human judgement during unexpected conditions. A man can disregard targets already destroyed and use his weapons on alternate targets. He has the ability to observe think and make unrehearsed decisions.

The Nuclear Test Argument

8. There exists the possibility that the moratorium on nuclear weapons tests will continue for at least the immediate future. If so, we will be denied the means to develop and improve the ratio of warhead yield to weight, a factor of great importance when related to missiles. Consequently, reliable missile warhead yield growth without testing and within reasonable weight limitations becomes most doubtful. Reliable extremely large yield nuclear bombs are now in the inventory. When considered in conjunction with possible cessation of further flight testing of long range missiles, this factor lends weight to the continued need for the manned bomber.

The Arms Control Argument

9. Of great significance is the increasing emphasis on arms control. Although complete and general disarmament is probably not attainable within the prevailing or foreseeable political environment partial arms control is conceivable and may eventually include space weapons, ICBM's, IRBM's, and nuclear weapons. Assuming this possibility, the future security of the nation will, as today, be primarily dependent on the manned bomber force. The continuation of this force must be planned for and programmed now. It cannot be a stop and go proposition, since many years are needed to develop and produce modern bombers and train personnel to use and maintain them.

The Cold War Argument

10. Manned systems offer cold war applications not possible with large missiles

11. The flexibility of manned systems eases the decision-making process by providing an instrument which may be employed on a graduated scale without an irrevocable commitment to combat.

12. The options provided the decision makers may vary from an increased ground alert posture to launch of the force subject to recall. Examples include:

a. It is difficult in times of stress to let the world know, particularly potential enemies, that the readiness of the ballistic missile force has been stepped up Nothing happens that anyone can see whereas stepping up the readiness of the manned aircraft force on alert or initiation of an airborne alert is visible to friend and foe alike.

b. To display response in a tense situation manned vehicles could be sent to where they would be seen by Allies, or even picked up on radar screens of an enemy.

The Follow-on Capability Argument

13 The aging B-47's are planned to phase out of the Air Force inventory by the mid-sixties. Also, during the mid-sixties the earlier model B-52's will begin to phase out. This condition, coupled with an ever—improving Soviet defensive posture, requires modernization of our manned strategic capability. An anlysis of payload. range, speed and penetration capabilities shows the B-70 to be the weapon system best suited to fulfill that requirement.

The B-70:

a Will provide the Air Force with the most advanced manned strategic system that the state-of-the-art now permits. It is unique in that it has been designed expressly for continued operation in the supersonic environment.

b. Will travel the entire distance of its very great range at Mach 3, which is roughly 2,100 miles an hour. This represents a major aeronautical breakthrough since it transcends the heat barrier, and conceivably opens the door to much greater speeds and further major advances in aeronautical science. This speed means that if B-70's were on alert over the polar regions and it was decided to attack, they would be over Moscow before an ICBM launched from this country could reach Moscow.

c Will have excellent penetration capabilities. This capability is derived primarily from the airplane's speed and altitude and would be further enhanced by countermeasures, decoys, and air-to-surface missiles -all used under the monitorship of a human brain.

d. Is designed to carry a variable internal payload. It can carry several large bombs or a great many very small ones.

e. May be useful as a recoverable booster. One of the problems in space research and military space work is the boost required to propel payloads through the lower dense atmosphere into space. It may be possible to realize substantial savings by launching space vehicles from the B-70 instead of from the ground.

f. Offers great potential as an anti-satellite weapon carrier, and possibly as a long-range platform for air defense missiles due to its maneuvering ability, speed, and large load carrying capacity.

g. May be adaptable for nuclear propulsion due to its design which has the crew far removed from the engines.

h. Offers the potential for assuming the role of rapid strategic airlift or paving the way for Mach 3 transport aircraft. Just as the B-52/KC-135 developments paved the way for jet transportation, so the B-70 would initiate Mach 3 transportation, freight and passenger. Under conditions of total weapons control a Mach 3 transport utilizing the B-70 design features would provide the U.S. the flexibility of rapidly transitioning from transport aircraft to weapon system should such a need arise.
 
Justo Miranda said:
North American proposed the Weapons System WS-740A, a wingless lenticular-form rocket with omnidirectional launch capabilities, capable of engaging incoming missiles at relative speeds of Mach 10 and being able to survive and maneuver at 250g accelerations.
Click to expand...
That may need to be looked at again for the XB-70 lookalike Quarterhorse or Starship…

You do fine artwork. I’d love to see you flesh out Phil Bono’s highly notional ROOST saucer HLLV if you would… in that a payload might be a conformal monolithic dish/aeroshell…etc

Lenticular designs deserve more love.
 
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Appears to be the CONDEC MB-2 (a lot of tug-tow manufacturers called one of their vehicles the "MB-2" for some reason):

rollout-of-xb-70-at-palmdale.jpg
 
TomS said:
Orionblamblam said:
Appears to be the CONDEC MB-2 (a lot of tug-tow manufacturers called one of their vehicles the "MB-2" for some reason):
Click to expand...
MB-2 is the Air Force's nomenclature for a tow tug of a certain size and towing capacity. So each manufacturer using that name is offering a tug that meets the MB-2 requirements.

Click to expand...
That answers that. But it makes it difficult to research specific designs. Feh.
 
Thanks for digging up all that information.
With the close-up that OBB (Scott) on his site, it was clear to me that I was looking at the rear-end of a tug. ( You can see a head and a arm on that picture).

That is a nice picture of the XB-70. I fixed it a bit in PS.

Cheers,

Rob
 

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Based on this, it looks like XB-70 AV/3's canards would have differed from those of the first two prototypes?
(Edit: This drawing seems to predate the decision to add the 5° dihedral angle to AV/2's main delta wings, so I think it'd be safe to assume that they'd still have had AV/3 share AV/2's 5° dihedral on the main delta-wing)
 
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If the B-70A had gone into production or at the very least if the YB-70A had been completed are there any details available about its electronic warfare suite or its offensive avionics systems?
 
Yes. In https://www.amazon.com/Valkyrie-North-Americans-Mach-Superbomber/dp/1580070728/

Its hard to get hold of now but if you like the B-70 you need this book.

The defensive system was to consist of a Central Intelligence Control (CIC) that included a computer and various displays and controls, an electronic countermeasures section, thermal surveillance and countermeasures, and chaff countermeasures.

The CIC was an advanced concept for the time and was intended to integrate all the “electromagnetic radiating systems” on the aircraft to prevent mutual interference in addition to controlling expendable countermeasures and queuing active defenses. This has long been the utopia for ECM designers, and has largely remained elusive even on the B-1B in 2004. The CIC would also prioritize the threats and record all electromagnetic activity. Frequency surveillance equipment would detect when the aircraft was being illuminated, then locate and categorize the specific threat. The thermal surveillance equipment would perform the same function for heat-emitting sources. Infrared sensors would indicate the “intensity, azimuth, elevation, intensity rate of change, and angular rate of change” of the approaching threat.

The ECM equipment would be capable of noise jamming, deception jamming 30 threat radars operating simultaneously, and trackbreaking 10 radars simultaneously. The system covered virtually all radars operating in the 50- to 16,000-megacycle (megahertz) spectrum. Although both the Air Force and North American anticipated that the aircraft would eventually carry some sort of active defense system (i.e., missiles), none were specified in the contract, and none were listed in the contractor report.

Independently, the Air Force had contracted with Sperry for the AN/ALQ-27 Defensive Subsystem for installation in later B-52 models. Given the lack of progress on the Lockheed PS-1, the Air Force asked North American to investigate using the ALQ-27 on the B-70. However, the physical and operating environmental differences between the B-52 and the B-70 were so great that it appeared unlikely that one system could be used on both. On 21 May 1958, the B-70 Program Office notified the Pentagon that very little of the B-52 defensive subsystem “beyond basic circuits, some specialized electronic tubes, and basic contractor know-how” could be profitably applied to the B-70.

At the same time, the B-70 Program Office advised North American to “draw from present technical development programs such as the ALQ-27” in defining the B-70 defensive subsystem. North American produced a detailed specification for the B-70 defensive system and issued a request for proposals to industry. This progress notwithstanding, in April 1959 the B-52 and B-70 program offices agreed to the “use of ALQ-27 information and hardware” for the B-70 program.”

Despite the situation with the ALQ-27, North American spent much of 1958 evaluating the proposals from the companies for the B-70 defensive system. On 7 January 1959 North American decided that the Westinghouse Air Arm Division offered the best hope of developing the system primarily based on their “advanced engineering concept” and a subcontract (L961-GX-600124) was finalized on 6 April 1959. Both Westinghouse and North American realized that the giant leap required for the B-70 defensive system would require a combination of techniques beyond the capability of any single contractor, and it was intended to use the “countermeasures industry to the fullest extent” possible. Nevertheless, the Air Force insisted that Westinghouse list all of their second-tier subcontractors so that the government could ensure that “maximum possible use of existing technical knowledge” was made. A detailed survey was completed in November 1959 to aid in the selection of lower tier suppliers.

Development had not progressed very far when the Air Force decided to limit the B-70 program to a single air vehicle on 1 December 1959. Given that this aircraft was not scheduled to carry any offensive or defensive systems, the Westinghouse subcontract was cancelled on 3 December for the convenience of the government.

After the program picked up again during august 1960, Westinghouse was issued a new subcontract (L1E1-YZ-600320) on 29 October 1960 to “conduct analytical, design, test, and other necessary studies.” One of these included another complete evaluation of the ALQ-27 and its applicability to the YB-70. Unfortunately - as had been discovered earlier - the basic technique employed in the ALQ-27 relied on the use of specific traveling wave tubes that could not be applied to the B-70 airframe configuration, necessitating a major redesign of the ECM system. The study was completed on 16 January 1961 and the modifications were beginning to be developed when the effort was cancelled on 31 March. Unlike the IBM bomb-nav system, which continued as part of a low-level development program, the Westinghouse ECM system was cancelled outright. The defensive system operator planned to be carried by the third B-70 air vehicle would have nothing to do.
Click to expand...
 
Some heavy stuff:

Lessons from the XB-70 as applied to the supersonic transport: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19680026262

Wind-tunnel/flight correlation study of aerodynamic characteristics of a large flexible supersonic cruise airplane (XB-70-1)
Part 1: Wind-tunnel tests of a 0.03-scale model at Mach numbers from 0.6 to 2.53 https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19800002822
Part 2: Extrapolation of wind-tunnel data to full-scale conditions https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19800007772
Part 3: A comparison between characteristics predicted from wind-tunnel measurements and those measured in flight https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19800009724


The Valkyrie book by Jenkins & Landis is not really hard to get but it won't be cheap.
Check abebooks every now and then to see whether a used very good copy is available within your budget:

1580070728 - Valkyrie: North American's Mach 3 Superbomber by Jenkins, Dennis R ; Landis, Tony - AbeBooks

Valkyrie: North American's Mach 3 Superbomber by Tony Landis; Dennis R. Jenkins and a great selection of related books, art and collectibles available now at AbeBooks.co.uk.
www.abebooks.co.uk

TOC attached:

Valkyrie North American's Mach 3 Superbomber TOC.JPG
 
overscan (PaulMM) said:
kaiserd said:
Excellent book with additional content on the XF-103 and the F-108.
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Yes the XF-103 and F-108 content is an unexpected bonus :)
Click to expand...
Some of it is just enough to be a tease. He mentions the designation of the original solid motor, that was supposed to drive AIM-47 to Mach 6, but not what was so special about it that it would be able to do that vs the motor it ended up with. :)
 
hesham said:
Hi,

www.forbes.com

Futures Past: Passenger Version Of U.S. Supersonic Bomber Could Have Beaten Concorde

A new report reveals plans for variants of the canceled Mach 3 B-70 Valkyrie: passenger aircraft, cargo transports and launch aircraft for sending payloads into space. It is an intriguing glimpse into a history that could have been.
www.forbes.com www.forbes.com
Click to expand...
That "cargo pod" idea certainly lends gravitas to my wish for the XB-70 as a launcher for an improved 2-seat X-15 to actually reach low-earth orbit.
 

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