XB-70 Valkyrie: America’s Mach 3 Super Bomber Ever Built
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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. 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). So nice to see video footage of this plane, even though I already knew of its history. There is in fact one bit of historical fact this video didn't cover: The long-reaching effects of the plane. It touched on its influence in American military applications, but not the Soviet ones. It was because of the threat of this bomber's development that the Soviets pressured the Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureau to build a plane that was supposed to catch this bomber. Even though the U.S. Congress ended up doing the killing for them, the Soviets put that plane into service, as the MiG-25 Foxbat-quite possibly the scariest airplane the Soviets ever developed (not so much for its abilities, though, as the mystery they kept it shrouded in).
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