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When one thinks of Mach 3 aircraft, what generally comes to mind is the Lockheed SR-71 or perhaps the MiG 25. But there was another Mach 3 design, one that was a good deal larger and five times heavier than the Blackbird or the Foxbat. Perhaps even more futuristic looking, the North American Aviation XB-70A Valkyrie was the culmination of General Curtis LeMay's quest for the ultimate strategic bomber. The beginning of the XB-70A story is intertwined with the development of a: nuclear-powered bomber something that could only have been imagined during the 1950s and a new Mach 3+ interceptor, the F-108 Rapier. All three of these programs were intended to share systems and components, largely as a cost-cutting measure, and the funding nightmare soon unraveled as first the nuclear-powered bomber, then the F-108, were cancelled. Today, the popular conception of a strategic bomber is the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress. A product of the 1950s, the B-52 recently made the nightly news while carpet-bombing the Taliban in Afghanistan. But WARBIRDTECH what is often overlooked, especially 50 years later, is that the B-52 was the second in a line of "interim" bombers. The first was the Convair B-36, a project begun when it was feared that World War II would need to be conducted entirely from bases within North America. The resulting aircraft was something of a technical triumph, but it was still a piston-powered aircraft born into the beginning of the jet age. Almost as soon as the aircraft appeared, the Strategic Air Command (SAC) began planning to replace it with the newer B-52. But the B-52 was also born at an awkward time. Although the aircraft that eventually emerged was blessed with swept win,gs and jet engines -'-resulting in a bomber that cruised almost twice as fast as the B-36 - it was still a subsonic aircraft at a time when the Air Force desperately wanted to go supersonic. The first supersonic bomber - the Convair B-58 Hustler - was an outgrowth of the preliminary studies that eventually led to the B-70. Sleek looking and fast, it was, at best, a medium bomber. As events turned out, the B-58 - magnificent as it was became a maintenance nightmare, pushing the state-of-the-art a little too far. Its tenure was very brief. What Curtis LeMay wanted was an aircraft with the range and payload capabilities of the B-52 and the speed of the B-58. Initially, the replacement for these bombers was
to be split between a futuristic nuclear-powered bomber (WS-125A) and a more conventional aircraft (WS-llOA) that used a new highenergy fuel. When these programs began to lag due to technical challenges and funding difficulties, the "interim" B-52 was supplemented with an "improved" B-52 that eventually emerged as the B-52G/H. There was, however, a dark horse that had been largely dismissed by the user command (SAC), but was high prized by the development commands (ARDC and AMC) and the politicians. The intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) was thought to be decades from operations. Then, rather suddenly, breakthroughs that resulted in smaller thermonuclear weapons and reliable guidance systems allowed the Atlas and Titan to be deployedmuch sooner than had been expected.

The authors would like to thank: Tony Accurso, Gerald H. Balzer, Randy Cannon, Joe Cotton, Archie DiFante at the AFHRA, Fitzhugh "Fitz" Fulton, Michael H. Gorn and
Dill Hunley at DFRC, Marty Isham, Denny Lombard, Michael J. Lombardi at the Boeing Archives, Betty Love at DFRC, Scott Lowther at Aerospace Projects Review, Yancy Mailes, Don Mallick, Jay Miller, Doug Nelson at the AFFTC Museum, Ken Neubeck, Terry Panopalis, Charles E. Rogers at AFFTC, Tom Rosquin, Mick Roth, Jim
Tuttle, Jack Weber at AFMC, and Jim Young in the AFFTC History Office.

Dennis R. Jenkins
Cape Canaveral, Florida
Tony Landis
Lancaster, California

Ref book: http://rapidshare.com/files/283178223/Warbird_Tech_038_-_Lockheed_F-104_Starfighter.pdf