![]() The aviation industry had been studying this problem for some time. They also concluded that after the release of the bombs, the aircraft would need supersonic speed to escape the critical blast-radius. At the time, nuclear weapons weighed several tons, and the need to carry enough fuel to fly that payload from the continental United States to the Soviet Union demanded large bombers. In an offshoot of Boeing's MX-2145 crewed boost-glide bomber project, Boeing partnered with RAND Corporation in January 1954 to explore what sort of bomber aircraft would be needed to deliver the various contemporary nuclear weapons under development. ![]() In 1966, one prototype crashed after colliding with a smaller aircraft while flying in close formation the remaining Valkyrie bomber is in the National Museum of the United States Air Force near Dayton, Ohio. As such, two prototype aircraft, designated XB-70A, were built these aircraft were used for supersonic test-flights during 1964–69. Development was then turned over to a research program to study the effects of long-duration high-speed flight. The USAF eventually gave up fighting for its production and the B-70 program was canceled in 1961. With the advent of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) during the late 1950s, crewed nuclear bombers were increasingly seen as obsolete. Other alternate missions were proposed, but these were of limited scope. In this low-level penetration role, the B-70 offered little additional performance over the B-52 it was meant to replace, while being far more expensive with shorter range. In response, the United States Air Force (USAF) began flying its missions at low level, where the missile radar's line of sight was limited by terrain. The introduction of the first Soviet surface-to-air missiles in the late 1950s put the near-invulnerability of the B-70 in doubt. Its high speed made the aircraft difficult to see on radar displays and its high-altitude and high-speed capabilities could not be matched by any contemporaneous Soviet interceptor or fighter aircraft. The bomber would spend only a brief time over a particular radar station, flying out of its range before the controllers could position their fighters in a suitable location for an interception. Designed in the late 1950s by North American Aviation (NAA), the six-engined Valkyrie was capable of cruising for thousands of miles at Mach 3+ while flying at 70,000 feet (21,000 m).Īt these speeds, it was expected that the B-70 would be practically immune to interceptor aircraft, the only effective weapon against bomber aircraft at the time. The North American Aviation XB-70 Valkyrie was the prototype version of the planned B-70 nuclear-armed, deep-penetration supersonic strategic bomber for the United States Air Force Strategic Air Command.
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