This plane is why I started studying aerospace engineering. I was so impressed seeing her in the museum as a kid. I've now been working at NASA for nearly 20 years and am still awestruck looking at her! Thanks for the cockpit tour!
Me and my kid spent hours just staring at this plane over a 3 day period this Summer. If you haven't been to the USAF museum, you're really missing out!
Magnificently done! I could actually READ the instruments unlike so many videos done by others. This was an incredible treat. If it was possible to film every square inch of that aircraft, I'd watch it all.
I first heard of AV-2 when I was 9 years old in 1966. I 2004 I found the crash site, collected some small parts and also assist Maj.Carl Cross sister in locating the site. I always planed and still do plan on seeing AV-1 and visiting the museum. And now at 64 years old I finally see the cockpit in detail. Thank you for posting this.
When I was a cadet in the Civil Air Patrol at summer encampment at Seward AFB, TN in 1965, I believe, we were taken to the Arnold Research test facility for a tour. I remember seeing one of the wing air inlet section in the wind tunnel being tested. Quite an amazing technological achievement for the time. I'd love to seen her fly! I need to get back to Wright-Patterson AFB museum soon to see her.
This is a dream come true!! I can't thank you guy's enough for making this video!! I hope to see more like this of other aircraft in your collection!! I'm an A&P Mechanic and I love seeing these video's!! Let me know if you guy's ever need help! Keep up the GREAT work! 👍👍
The XB-70 is an amazing aircraft and piece of history - it's great that you folks have put the effort into restoring/preserving it. And the video is great too!
I remember when I was a little kid in the early 1970's I stumbled across a copy of the September 1965 National Geographic "United State Air Force" issue in my parents basement. That was where I first saw the XB-70 and I instantly thought it was the coolest plane I'd ever seen. It still holds that place in my mind 50 years later.
I am absolutely fascinated by all the flight controls knobs and buttons you can actually read the instrument panel very well done this is a very special treat to us aviation lovers WELL DONE.
We were stationed in Ft. Irwin and I was in Barstow the day the other ‘70 went down. My dad was I.G. and actually went to the crash site out in the desert. Super sad.
Thank you so much for this video. I have put hours of research into seeing photos of the interior of this aircraft! A B36 interior tour from front to back would be amazing...
Well just 7 miles from me is Castle Air Museum (formally Castle AFB), Atwater California, and it so happens that there is a B36 on display, and on open cockpit day (coming up in the next couple of months) you can walk through most of the planes they have here. I'd be happy to show you the base, and might be able to wrangle a walk through.
@@billyjoe415 I was stationed at Castle AFB twice.. 71-72 and 74.. I'd like a tour of that as well.. Is the Blackbird open as well.. Do you know if they have a B-58 Hustler on display? That was another one of my favorites...
My grandfather got to see it land for the last time at Wright Patterson, said it was one of the most spectacular things he’s ever seen. But now I get to say I saw the inside of the cockpit. Miss ya grandpa! Thanks for this upload!
This aircraft, outside the Main Museum at WPAFB, was the most memorable and awesome plane I remember from my very first visit museum in the 1970’s. To this day, it is one to see for sure.
How about the behemoth B-36 full interior walk-through? Please!?! Or have you already done it? Either way; thank you for all you do at one of the best museums in the world!
I had never had a close up view of the interior of this aircraft. Thank you very much and I hope there is more to come. Coming the the museum in June. Haven't been there since the 1970's
It is surreal to see these images if you have ever watched the Discovery Wings episode about this fantastic machine. To see the actual controls that legends once held. To see all the details that engineers seem to have grabbed from the future. Just speechless.
The outside looks so cool and then the inside really shows its era, how did pilots fly this stuff? That looks like an absolute nightmare of steam gauges. Beautiful!
4:36 All those circuit breakers! What a beast that must have been to fly! My wife and I were supposed to go to the museum but Covid intervened. Maybe next year.
I was at the museum the day after Martin Luther King Day 2 years ago and had the place almost to myself. I took a lot of pictures. I was exhausted after that. I was there almost all day. I am definitely going back once the covid war is over, if it is over.
The EPR and N1 gauges look very similar to those in the first-gen DC-9s. I just came from a B-36 video. It's really striking how far aviation advanced from the late '40s to late '50s. The B-36 is a relic from a long-bygone era while the cockpit of the XB-70 is that of a relatively modern jet, sharing many instruments with airliners like the mentioned DC-9, 727, 737 etc.
Development of the B-36 began around the time we entered WWII. The B-70 was designed around 1958 - that's many years later. Looking back about the same time from the B-36 and you'll see that America was till building open cockpit biplanes with limited range and payload. With that frame of a reference, a large, all-metal monoplane with a pressurized interior, and capable of carrying huge payloads across the ocean, seems as fantastic as the B-70 does to us. When you realize how little that high speed and altitude adds to the B-70's offensive capability, it's a far less striking aircraft. I'm not sure what you mean by "relatively modern jet" since the interuors of the DC-9 and Xb-70A look normal for aircraft designed over a century ago. Military aircraft have had glass cockpits for over 30 years.
@@winternow2242 Analogue/mechanical airplanes like the DC-9, 727, DC-10, L 1011 were in service through the 1990s, with some still in service with US budget carriers as late as the 2010s. If you're over 20 and have flown in your life, you've almost certainly flown on one whereas few people under the age of 50 have flown on pre-jet-age designs like the DC-6/7 or a Constellation. That's what I mean by relatively modern. You can say, "Well those planes are analogue/mechanical too, so they also have "relatively modern" cockpits, to which I'll resort to the Potter Stewart test: If you've spent any time either flying one IRL or in a good sim like X-Plane, you'll just know the difference when you see it. And it's massive.
I do hope the Museum holds all of the documents that brought this aircraft together. Engineering and flight education and construction plans would be a great research and education tool for those interested in aeronautical engineering history. If the museum holds all of the documents for most of the modern aircraft on display ( barring classified stealth tech ) it would probably cover a good portion of the smallest display structure.
I would PAY to be able to go inside the XB70😍what a masterpiece of aviation technology. I don't suppose she has open cockpit events does she? I'm flying over from the UK just for that if she does👌😂
At 1:03 we have a "steam gauge" or mechanical attitude indicator. -In 1993 I flew Dash-8 turboprops for United Express. One day in Newark we had an 8 year old kid come in the cockpit and look around, and he immediately noticed the "steam gauge" or mechanical attitude indicator. He asked "I thought modern cockpits had ring laser gyros", to which I replied we did, but our airline selected the cheaper mechanical displays instead of an EFIS display, and that the ring laser gyros were still steering the airplane.....
AWESOME VIDEO!! THANK YOU! I would love to see an interview of exactly what they had to do to get her to fly. So much i want to know. Again, thank you!!
As l walked around the Dayton Airforce museum and looked at all the beautiful Aircraft l couldn’t help feel a little sad at all these once noisy alive machines sitting silent … but obviously so much better off than the alternative of the scrap yard
That's a *real* man's airplane, right there🛫💪🏾 Also, where did the bombs go?? Like, I've never been able to determine where they would put the bomb bay...it's all engines and cockpit
Seeing all that tremendous aeronautical engineering in an airplane that was developed in the 60's, it does not cost me anything to think about the development of a time machine at the same time but in another government plane .....
What a great video - I’d always wanted to see the inside of that amazing aircraft! As others have commented, although I know the era it’s from, and I’m familiar with the appearance of the cockpits of similar vintage aircraft (I used to fly a Sabreliner - there are definitely some familiar looking switches and instruments in there, though the overall package is obviously quite different!), it’s still somewhat surprising to see what is now such a dated cockpit on an airframe that still looks futuristic. I also have to make my standard comment on that aircraft: Expense and utility be damned, they should have built 1,000 of them just because it looked so good!
Thank you for this presentation. My uncle Al Houser worked on that aircraft. He had intimate knowledge of every part and sub system. I can hear him now as I watch this, explaining in detail all the functions and parts he put his hands on.
The museum added a fourth building a couple of years ago and moved the aircraft from it's former spot to the new building. I think there's a video about it somewhere on YT.
Visited WPAFB in '86 when it was outside, and recently in '19. So glad the Valkerie and other treasures are indoor where they belong. I wish more of my tax $ was spent on things like this.
Cool video but also kind of sad to see the ol' girl sitting on the ground when she'll never be back in the sky where she was meant to be. Just the same, thanks for sharing.
