Tom LaPrise
Member
Registered: Jan 2000
Location: Monroe, Michigan, USA
Posts: 244 |
Hoser_in_USA--
Not the Avro Arrow (quite a plane in its own regard, as was the -I believe- English Electric TSR2), but the North American XB-70 Valkyrie, which was to replace the Boeing B-52 as our "big stick." Before the first Valkyrie was even half-built, the military powers-that-be realized that a Mach 3 high-altitude bomber could be shot down by the new Soviet missiles, so the plane and a slightly modified "sister ship" (later destroyed during a photo shoot, of all things) was completed as a research aircraft. Mach 3.08 at around 75,000 feet...imagine a bunch of these things roaring overhead, preceded by a SR-71 Blackbird doing recon work...in the mid-1960's! Sure seemed like we were on our way to a Star Trek/Jetson's future.
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