Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/02/16

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Re: XB-70
From: Frank Dernie <Frank.Dernie@btinternet.com>
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 06:31:37 +0000

I was lucky enough to fly one Concorde return trip, half the time in 
the cockpit. It was cruising at Mach 2.2
Frank


On Tuesday, February 17, 2004, at 01:24  am, LRZeitlin@aol.com wrote:

>
> In a message dated 2/16/04 7:08:36 PM, Greg writes:
>
> << The XB-70 Valkyrie was a truly spectacular looking and preforming
> aircraft! Certainly in the same league as the Concorde and the SR-71 
> Blackbird. You
> should be very proud to have been involved in its development!
>>>
>
> The XB-70 was intended to be a rapid response bomber during the Cold 
> War. It
> was designed to fly at 3 times the speed of sound (twice the speed of 
> the
> Concorde) for several thousand miles, penetrating the Russian air 
> space and
> returning to a US base. However, before the plane was deployed, 
> missile technology
> advanced to the point where it  proved more cost effective than the
> horrendously expensive XB-70 and the project was terminated. Only 3 of 
> the XB-70s were
> built. One crashed during a photo op when the chase plane got too 
> close and
> collided with the bomber. Another was used as a high altitude research 
> aircraft
> for several years, then scrapped. The third, and only remaining XB-70 
> is on
> display at Wright-Patterson AFB in the Air Force museum. I got to fly 
> in the
> research version of the airplane once. It was noisy, crowded in the 
> jump seats
> provided, and an extreme rush. Naturally, I was not allowed to bring a 
> camera. Not
> even my brand new Leica M3.
>
> Larry Z
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