XB-70 Valkyrie: The Cold War's Experimental Nuclear Aircraft 

Hey man Russias an enemy to all 😂

At least I'm not the only one that thinks stuff like that. Lol

@@ConnorFlynnNo1 No they are not! Just because governments tend to be crappy towards other nations as well as their own citizens does not mean that the people as a whole are bad, or that they even agree with what their own leaders do. I have Russian friends and they are just like people from other countries I have met.

@@jaymevosburgh3660 im aware lol me too, ive met many and they're very nice, but the government lol, ohhh the Russian government.

It's not like it would be a bad thing if humanity ceased to exist tbh

Yes! London Thames barrier too!

Yeah, I saw this request a while ago & very briefly Google/Wikied it. It looks really interesting!

If you're interested Tom Scott has made a video on that.

Up

i'm imagining the helicarrier from marvel.... but with hilarious tech problems.

Side project ?

Lookup gnal it was where they studied this in georgia

The russians actually flew their nuke powered craft a couple times.

Yes, more of that👆 please

You mean no please, you don’t want nukes flying around 24/7 just waiting to detonate

Well the B52 is still massive and has freaking 8 jet engine and SCREAMS at you at landing so still awesome 🤣

@@michagrill9432, the BUFF doesn't actually fly -- it's so loud and ugly that it scares the ground away.

That's hardly the only problem with this video. For example, Simon said something about "the missile gap" while going on to talk about the Soviet SA-2 surface to air missile (SAM). The "Missile Gap" had nothing to do with SAMs: it had to do with intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM). The "Missile Gap" issue had to do with which side had more ICBMs and what state of development they were in. Some intelligence assessments held that the Soviet Union had more ICBMs fitted with nuclear warheads and were growing their ICBM fleet faster than the US. Where this issue crossed paths with the XB-70 program lay in whether to put relatively short defense dollars against bombers or missiles. As for SAMs, the XB-70 would have been fast enough and flying high enough to avoid most SA-2s: the SR-71 was able to avoid everything ever shot at it. What really killed the XB-70 was the cost of maintaining a large fleet of high-tech bombers versus the cost of maintaining a smaller fleet of ICBMs. The bombers needed a lot of maintenance and the crews needed a lot of training. The ICBMs were stuck in holes in the ground and never flew anywhere. Another issue I have with this video is that NASA's research into high altitude/high speed flight wasn't covered. There was a gap between the 1966 accident and the final delivery to the Museum of the US Air Force in February 1969. According to NASA's fact sheet on this program, the XB-70 provided essential data for supersonic transport (SST) design and sonic boom research. This was critical to filling in gaps in knowledge of these questions about flight. Perhaps more interesting was the accident investigation report emerging from the 1966 crash of AV-2, and that wasn't covered at all, yet it was critical to the rapidly expanding air passenger market. It turns out that AV-2 was brought down by its own wing vortices. One of those caught the F-104 chase plane and swept the aircraft into the vertical stabilizers. Prior to that time, aircraft weren't big and fast enough to generate significant vortices, so the problem wasn't well known. But with aircraft like the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy, the L-1011 and the Boeing 747, wingtip vortices were about to become a problem. So the fact that the AV-2 crash report highlighted the problem before any of the jumbo aircraft made it into the air was significant.

@@johndemeritt3460 🤣🤣🤣

@@johndemeritt3460 The "missile gap" had to do with John F. Kennedy vs. Richard M. Nixon. Kennedy campaigned hard on the accusation that President Eisenhower (and by extension his Vice President Nixon) had neglected America's defenses, allowing the Soviet Union to significantly surpass the U.S. in throw-weight, range, and especially numbers of ICBMs. Kennedy and his handlers cleverly exploited the general anxiety of the Cold War amplified by the widespread panic caused by the Sputnik launch (4/10/57) to create a false narrative against Nixon. Eisenhower and Nixon knew the missile gap polemic was bullshit, but could not respond without compromising one of the most important secrets of the time: CORONA. American spy satellites coupled with nearly four years of U-2 overflights led the CIA to estimate the number of operational Soviet ICBM in 1960 to be "about a dozen". However, the so-called National Intelligence Estimate, a document co-authored by Congressional staffers and academics with no access to the most classified sources differed sharply, claiming the number was 500 or more. The NIE was leaked by Congressional Democrats to Washington Post columnist and Kennedy supporter, Joseph Alsop, who trebled the NIE number to 1,500 in his writings. Today the real number is known: 4. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-f-c6CbPTadA.html

i like glowing green rawwwwwwwwwwwww hulk

How about one on the star wars project?

I agree 110%

@@abk3400 um vader is that you? or is it reagan's ghost?

@Real Engineering has a great video on the General Electric nuclear powered long range bombers

kalon9999 read up on the Avro Arrow, it’s a real shame the project was cancelled, there was a lot of outspoken anger at diefenbaker the prime minister at the time who canceled the project, over making farmers a little fatter.

Don't bother. Summation: USSR: Nyet. Crew dead. USA: No, didn't accomplish anything at all. Side Note: Interesting that each country's name starts with the word "us."

So he makes the odd mistake, their are very few of his videos that don’t have pronunciation mistakes as far as I’m concerned (I’m British and have an RP style of speech) but given the amount of these he does and the volume of info he puts out, no one could learn all that pronunciation. I have a feeling that the program/web-site he uses is not exactly accurate.

Yes the history of flying reactors is part of the history of "small" reactors with highly enriched fuel. That is definitely a MEGA watt project.

@@ForgeMasterXXL Hi Rai, I'm talking about factual errors, not pronunciation. Received Pronunciation concerns accent and is used by at most 3-5% of the population and most of those are predominantly in South-East England. RP is not relevant to matters of fact. While yes, I agree with your points of volume and the inevitability of mistakes, what I refer to as "clangers" are mistakes that any basic researcher would spot, propellers on a B-52, for instance. The thing's been in service since 1954! The factual content of the programs must be held up against some standard, otherwise the content would be useless blather or at best unintentional misinformation. I don't think that is Simon's intention at all. Cheers from Canada

I stopped by Wright Patt in 2001 on a cross country trip and my (now ex) wife insisted we see it. Glad she did, fantastic museum and holy hell is that a big plane.

Just visited Wright-Patterson last Saturday, after having planned since my kids were small, they are in college now. Anyway, one needs to visit that museum to understand how serious Americans are.

I really need to get back to the Museum - it's been almost 20 years :(

What part is crazy / never been done since? Several Sukhoi models seem to be fairly imitative

@@ObservationofLimits I suspect Mach 3 for one.

@@ObservationofLimits Compression Lift. The XB70's wings kept folding downward the faster it flew to capture part the sonic boom created under the fuselage. This extra lift meant it was far more fuel efficient. I believe that's what Andy was referring to when he mentioned the unique airfoil that his grandfather helped design. Cheers!

@@ObservationofLimits In addition to other comments, this was also the last gasp of the US & the USSR focusing on high-altitude bombing as the primary means of asserting air superiority. By 1967, the USSR would introduce the MIG-25 & put the USA in full-on panic mode about the mystery fighter that could go higher & faster than anything the West had. Basically put the development of the next generation of fighters in the US into overdrive, changing strategic tack to asserting air superiority through dogfighting & controlling an airspace. The irony? The MIG-25 was made almost specifically for the purpose of catching & shooting down the XB-70.

Shield helacarrier

I believe the USS Akron airship was capable of carrying 3 small reconnaissance aircraft! It would deploy and retrieve them using a mechanical arm. As far as I remember it was going to be retrofitted to carry 5 aircraft, but the airship crashed before that was done.

And combine it with Project Orion

@@larsla SLAM missiles too

All you people of course realize that there is no such thing as a flying nuclear aircraft carrier, right? But the airship version of a flying nuclear aircraft carrier actually sounds like a great topic for a vid. And yeah. Thanks for a great show!

YES!!!

And the spy satellites that the Hubble may be based on operated by the NRO.

Great idea!

Or the James Web Deep Space Telescope

OI! SIMON!!........What this guy said.

Hype Ninja I came here to comment same. I guess Simon isn’t quite a plane buff. Makes me grateful he does any plane vids at all.

Hmm. Maybe he ment the b 36?

"The B-52, you know, the giant propeller driven plane?" B-52: "Am I a joke to you?"

The early B52s had props. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-52_Stratofortress#/media/File:GVG_B-52_Evolution_1.png

Gonna guess he was thinking of the B-29?

The math never changes, it just took lots of hours and skilled engineers.

If you think that is crazy, to develop nuclear reactors and weapons with only a slide rule is even more impressive

Most planes flying today were designed before super computers

Before the time when civilians had super computers. I don’t think that as the public we get anything good until at least 10-20 years after they have had it

@@mizzshortie907 who do you think designs the jets? It's not the military it's "civilian" engineers.

It is without a doubt one of the most beautiful

I remember building the model as a kid. It was so damn big! I think it was 1/32 scale. I could be remembering wrong to be honest. But it was MASSIVE.

The British V Bombers are pretty spectacular

I've loved it ever since the first time I saw the remaining aircraft in person, but (and this takes nothing away from my Valkyrie enjoyment)... The SR-71 was the better engineering design, though even that wasn't ever implemented in its proposed interceptor or bomber variants. As a bomber it's probably good the B-70 wasn't put into wide scale production. AA missiles were getting too good by the time she'd have entered service. But... It would really have been nice if they'd built a handful instead of the 2.5 we got. At least she got to fly for NASA for a while before retiring!

@@michaelpipkin9942 I think I built that one too. Like three feet long. Built it with the drooping wingtips and the gear down... I reaaally wasn't planning ahead just then... Had to stand on blocks.

Do you know that during the test flights for the B-52 they looped it..... interesting story

Still is a jet powered plane too.

@@chrisalfano589 I couldn't find a reference to the B-52 doing a loop but everybody in Seattle knows that in testing, Tex Johnson took the prototype 707 called the Dash-80 into a full barrel roll. Never been done before or since. That unplanned stunt sold a lot of Boeing airplanes. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-AaA7kPfC5Hk.html

Yup, and no propellers...which I think it what you were driving at. (The C-130 is also jet driven...but it uses turboshaft engines driving props. ) A&P Mechanic here. Cheers!

Nonna UdBidness the c130 is probably the most impressive machine I’ve ever seen in person. I’ve never flown in one but would love to.

The first "Wave Rider" I know of...

@Derek Charette Tu-160

@Derek Charette Tu-22M

He mentioned the wing tips, but said they were for increased directional stability or some such bs.

@@bob_._. Yea, his second error which got him my down... I expect better research

not Fasty McBombface?

If only. Maybe this is why they don't hold contests anymore.

I think that contest being faked. The US military has a maniacal need to name things either after badass weapons/creatures or with needlessly complicated acronyms. Theres no way they'd run the risk it didnt get called something like the Screaming Phoenix or the SSADNBWSNCV (super sonic aeronautically delivered nuclear bombing weapon system, non crashing version)

only one in loser as well.

@@omg_RANCORS indeed, I understand his initials are JP

I have a feeling he might have had the B-36 in mind, which I guess technically culminated in a crazy setup of 6 props and 4 jets lol. 6 turning, 4 burning.

correct me if im wrong but i thought the first B-52s were prop driven. maybe not but i could have sworn they were originally

@@THEHYDROFYRE there was a drawing for a turboprop b-52 but all actual flying b-52 were turbojet

@@THEHYDROFYRE The original XB-52 design, selected by the Army Air Forces in 1946, was for a straight-wing, six-engine, propeller-powered heavy bomber. On Oct. 21, 1948, Boeing Chief Engineer Ed Wells and his design team were in Dayton, Ohio, when the Air Force’s chief of bomber development told them to scrap the propellers and come up with an all-jet bomber. Over the following weekend, in a Dayton hotel room, the team designed a new eight-engine jet bomber, still called the B-52

This is what happens when you make a bunch of videos on topics you only feign intrest in

Mir would be great! The run down mobile home of space stations

very intresting

I would love to hear more about Skylab, I’ve heard more about Mir than Skylab.

I'm gonna keep saying this everytime someone suggests a space related topic...Simon should add yet another channel to his galaxy of channels that is all about space missions, both manned and robotic. He can do past missions, current missions and even future missions and the infrastructure for them. Most of them are not big enough for a megaproject video, but he could get a lot of interesting stories.

Micah Ross I second that notion.

My boy with the Blaze has you covered on Geographics.

Tshepang Letanta thanks for letting me know

He does have a few ancient Megaprojects episodes as well. Sorry, I don’t have the links handy. But yeah, I really enjoy them as well, and look forward to seeing some more!

6 Turning, 4 burning

Simon was wrong in one respect. The reactor in the B36 never powered the aircraft itself. It was for research purposes only

I think the Arrow looked like a dinosaur & it was a difficult but correct decision to cancel it. The UK TSR2 however was a different story :(

Yes please!!! All your Canadian fans would love that!

@@dandare2586 So ahead of its time that the Tornado's Terrain Following autopilot radar came from it. 20 years previously...

I think it would be a great idea. I thought so before and I think so still. :-)

dan dare What? For 1956 (the original year of its design development) the RL201 looked like a friggin’ spaceship for its time and still looks like a swan to this day, whereas the TSR2 always looked quite awkward, whilst still being incredibly capable. I think you’re off your rocker.

If only they build more than like 4, probably better than the 30 year old cf18's we have today :(

Good idea!!

Richard McCaig hey stop trying to reason. People are to focused on what could have been, and end up way over exaggerating. No doubt the aero and TSR2 would have been good planes for their time, but would have already been out dated by the time the F-15 came on line

I was hoping someone would pick that up. Nice one J Long Jnr. I dont know of any other aircraft that used compression lift, does anyone?

@@chrisbailey8810 The dynamics of this aircraft are totally astounding how air works in different velocities, it's a strange gap between low speed aircraft and hypersonic craft that are being tested by Boeing to this day. It such a great design to see.

B- 36 had a atomic powered version. They only made one.

I grew up in Indianapolis. I got to see this extraordinary aircraft on several occasions as a child. I later took my own children to visit. I'm going to Indy in a few weeks and hope to take my grandchildren to see it as well.

@@coopdeville377 If you went there when the AF Museum was only 1 building like it was when I was a kid, your mind will be blown when you go now.

@@gtv6chuck, I hope so! I work for an engineering firm now. The owner work on the BONE, Shuttle, and Space Station. We never run out of things to talk about on the countless hours of travel to clients in Montana.

How about XB-70A? It's the next generation after all.

Noice

That’s an awesome bike. I love those flat 6 monsters.

Tanner Atkinson Same here!

@@thomasmoeller3446 I'll do that for my valkyrie Rune.

Yes I've never heard it pronounced that way. Not just in America but in Europe either. But given the fact that Simon pronounces words that I wouldn't even try to I'm going to give him a pass on this one lol.

It's closer to the original Norse. English speakers tend towards the French pronunciation with the accent on the first syllable. It actually should have FOUR, not three syllables. val-KEER-ee-uh, or val-Koor-ee-uh if you are Danish.

I could swear he's saying "valkylrie" with an extra L in there. Although, to be fair, it's probably a difficult word for a lizard man to say.

@@Erkle64 that is what I heard every time . just saying - but with very uncommon linguistic slips for an 'Englishman' , and plenty of aristocratic diction - I'm leaning toward him actually being very clever and successful, but from offworld . well done you, and welcome to our current hell of greed on earth . please halp . :)

@@Erkle64 That's what I'm hearing too. I know our English pronounciation of 'Valkary' probably isn't accurate either, but 'Valkylrie' definitely isn't! Sorry Simon.

Correct. To test the viability of having a reactor in a plane. The plane itself was conventionally powered. not nuclear.

@@johngoldberg8949 It wasn't just that the shielding was too heavy. The problem was that they kinda got into a vicious cycle: You put in shielding to protect the crew, the plane gets too heavy, so you run the reactor at a much higher temperature to generate more power to compensate, but now the reactor is running hotter, you need more shielding, the plane is now too heavy again, so you run the reactor hotter, ect.

Yeah, it’s still there. Inside now.

What does ree mean?

@@ddpeak1 Means he's very angry.

@@ddpeak1 .. because the B-52 is a JET aircraft, originally having 8 engines (4 pairs).

Didn't the early B52s have props? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-52_Stratofortress#/media/File:GVG_B-52_Evolution_1.png

reckon he meant the b-36 lol

Not the only one. Also they were the choosers of the slain, no impact on life or death only who amongst the dead joined the Einherjar in Valhalla. Simple things, not hard to get right...

let's not mention that he thought a B52 was a propeller driven plane, everyone just forget that happened.

ikr, there's a whole Asia song on it too

Only if your American. You do realize Simon is English, right? They do pronounce many words differently than Americans, like con-TROV-ersy and skel-LEE-tel

@@misterflibble6601 Nope, im English, he's pronouncing it wrong...... Tomaytoe, tomaaaatoe. :) Great doc btw.

I hear 'Val kil rie'.

He’s British don’t be too hard on him

Go watch the Machu Picchu video. Every time he says the name I wince.

I'm not it just sounds like what he's saying. Yeah Mitch that is more along what he's saying I guess I should have said it sounds like he's going to say Val Kilmer

I has totally given up on doing any preparation whatsoever. I think he just turns up and reads it.

That was pretty bad. : (

I thought it was about women and tight jeans.

Upper Left Coast Chelsea Fan it was, until men started wearing skinny jeans. lol

There's a douglas adams reference to be made here I'm just too lazy to do it.

When whales fly lol

Whales do "fly"(jump). Blue whales don't actually clear the water, but other large whales do. So they can be said to have a takeoff weight. 😉

African Blue Whale, maybe. . . . Not some European Blue Whale. . .

I didn’t know mammoths had a service ceiling.

You mean the Avro Canada CF-105 "Arrow" (also known as just "THe Avro Arrow")?

Seconded.

@@BackYardScience2000 3rd How they got around not having a good enough wind tunnel was interesting. They fired a model out of a canon.

@@nekomasteryoutube3232 yep. I could not remember the full name. But you guys seem to know what I was talking about.

Yes

Different reasons, similar fate. I wonder how many Valkyrie engineers ended up working at NASA with the Arrow engineers?

Or what about a F22N sea raptor.

How about not because it is vaporware. NASA is no more going to the moon than SLS will launch.

Martin Ross There is a chance that they won’t but I see no reason for your level of pessimism. The literally had a successful SRB static fire last week.

@@willrehmus9952 they also just announced its going to cost 33% more than originally thought 😂💀 by the time its done she'll be the new JWST being completed in 2053 at 6 trillion 💀

@@Dr.RichardBanks Yeah fair, although 33% cost overrun is actually fairly decent. Most large programs have over 50% overrun.

@@willrehmus9952 its not done yet. We haven't even had a text flight. Those numbers will skyrocket.

Love that museum!

Quite large.... 😆. Under stating it a little!

There is a story, related in the book "Angle Of Attack- Harrison Storms And The Race To The Moon" that Harrison (chief designer of the XB-70) was called "The Creator" because, whenever some military type came into the place it was being built and they saw it, the initial reaction of ALL of them was "JESUS CHRIST"!

YES! Compression lift! High lift, low drag at Mach 3! This concept was further developed as the "Wave Rider" concept

And yet he made no mention of it.

@@Salty_reviews And that's why I did.

That would be a great Mega Project episode! I toured her in Groton Ct. in 1987 with my uncle who served on her last crew before she was decommissioned. Very tight quarters vs modern subs. She has an amazing history and set many records in her day.

Uh no, there is a big difference between Mach 2 and 3. The US SST project aimed to light years ahead of the Concorde and targeted mach 3 rather than the lowly mach 2 of the Concorde. Which was why the 747 was designed as a cargo plane. As the US airline industry expected mach 3 SSTs to debut in the 1970s.

@@zeitgeistx5239 lol, chill mate, it was just a title.

Besides near world destruction the Cold War was awesome 😂

@@icu_corey_rn_903 "Near"... so it's ok.

TR-3B

Riley, Nuke powered aircraft went nowhere. In a jet engine, inlet air goes through a compressor, fuel is added and burned in the combustor. The hot gas expands through the turbine and also propels the aircraft. The Nike idea was Heat was transferred from the reactor to a heat exchanger which replaced the combustor. The problem was it could not heat the air anywhere near as hot as burning fuel. End result, for the same power, was a huge, heavy engine. The research proved it would not work rather than could!

Clarence Cloaca that’s not the point mate. We want to listen about the designs, the concepts, the “what if’s” regardless about the actual effectiveness. It’s imagination. It’s not about the feasibility, it’s about the thoughts and concepts presented.

You gotta have some imagination and accept that there were concepts that would make great videos, even if they didn’t succeed as actual designs. For instance, I’d love to see a video about Project Habakkuk (the Ice aircraft carrier; I’m sure someone of your knowledge knows of it)

Riley k Sorry, I could not shake being a Mech Engineer (retired). I worked in Gas Turbines for awhile. Analysis alone would soon prove such an idea too heavy, reasons stated. At the time, the Cold War was on, and a lot of $$ spent on white collar welfare. Would not surprise that some contractor built a proof of concept nuke Plane GT. Troll the net for the B36 bomber and will find some info on nuke power planes. There have been successful closed cycle power generation gas turbines (coal fired) running helium. Current research on closed cycled CO2 gas turbines for thorium nuclear power. Another idea kicked around is nuclear particle accelerator for deep space travel. The concept is accelerate a train of individual atoms to near light speed, the reaction propels the craft. This saves launch weight.

What do you mean?

Maybe he meant the B-36 Peacemaker?

The XB-52 was the precursor to the B-52 and it used large turboprop engines

Gabe Curtis Uh, no, the XB-52 used the same engines. The only noticeable difference was the tandem cockpit.

@@camronpeterson1945 Yes you are correct. What we can say is that the B-52 was going to be a straight-winged turboprop-powered plane. The design received swept wings making it similar to the later Tu-95 'Bear'. The USAF decided they wanted a pure jet bomber. The rest as they say is history.

@@MegeGabe_Personal No it did not! That was just a drawing on paper.