[Leica] Re: B-70 axing

[jhnichols at bellsouth.net (Jim Nichols)]

Larry,

Thanks for the details of the B-70 exodus from the arsenal.  I was involved 
in a couple of large-scale engine/inlet matching test programs in the 16-ft 
Supersonic Wind Tunnel at AEDC, which involved operating the system at high 
altitude and at the maximum temperature that the facility could develop, 
some 620 deg F.  Because it taxed the capabilities of the facility and the 
test article to the fullest, it was a memorable test program.

Jim Nichols
Tullahoma, TN USA
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lawrence Zeitlin" <lrzeitlin@optonline.net>
To: <lug@leica-users.org>
Sent: Monday, August 13, 2007 9:52 AM
Subject: [Leica] Re: B-70 axing


>
> On Aug 13, 2007, at 8:14 AM, Marc wrote:
>
>>> I remember that issue quite well and there was
>>> noting impractical about the XB-70 project.  It
>>> was killed only because of "Liein' Lydon's"
>>> concentration on guns and butter during his
>>> fixation on the Viet-Nam War.
>
>
> For a new and beyond the state of the art airplane, the B-70  performed 
> better than expected in its test flights. There were  significant problems 
> with the first of the two aircraft built but  most of them had been 
> corrected by the time the second took to the  air. This plane performed 
> splendidly until it was lost in an  unfortunate collision with a F-104 
> chase plane during a photo shoot.
>
> The reason the B-70 was cancelled had much more to do with our  changing 
> military strategy than with the aircraft's practicality. The  B-70 was 
> designed in the 50s as an extension of the strategic bombing  role of the 
> USAF. It was intended to deliver a high yield weapon  (read atomic bomb) 
> to a target several thousand miles away, flying in  and out at three times 
> the speed of sound. With a bit more  development, it probably could have 
> done so. What killed the B-70 was  the rapid advance in missile 
> technology, both ICBMs and ground to air  anti-aircraft weapons, combined 
> with a Mutually Assured Destruction  (MAD) policy vs. the Soviet Union. To 
> achieve a significant level of  destruction, it was far more efficient to 
> target every major Russian  city with a nuclear warhead, either from a 
> land launched ICBM,  carried in an airborne SAC bomber or from a Polaris 
> missile bearing  submarine. They were already in place, the very expensive 
> B-70 was not.
>
> A B-70 attack on vital targets in the Russian interior would have 
> required the airplane to fly for at least an hour over land. At  speed, 
> the skin friction heat on the B-70 was so high that it was an  extremely 
> efficient IR source, leading edges of wing surfaces almost  glowing a deep 
> red. Further, it had a radar cross section the size of  Iowa. No stealth 
> technology here. Simple IR guidance systems, such as  used in the 
> Sidewinder missile, affixed to SAMs that could reach the  B-70s altitude, 
> would have decimated a B-70 attacking fleet. I  designed much of the B-70 
> electronic countermeasures system and it  was a daunting task. After the 
> Gary Powers U2 loss, we knew that  Russian missiles could reach the B-70s 
> altitude. There was a "fix"  for IR radiation but it involved coating heat 
> emitting surfaces on  the B-70 with gold to change the radiation spectrum. 
> Try explaining  that to taxpayers in a guns AND butter economy.
>
> The sole remaining B-70 was used for years as a high speed, high  altitude 
> research aircraft, paving the way for supersonic aircraft of  the Concorde 
> type. It is the plane in the Air Force museum at Wright  Patterson field 
> in Dayton.
>
> Larry Z
>
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