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 This page would not have been possible without the help of Dr. Ray Puffer and all the other folks at the Edwards AFB history office.  Special thanks to the photographic archives section of the Air Force museum, and to Boeing Corporation.

 

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In Flight Over Palmdale, Ca	Here's a shot that really shows the size of the intakes. It's a couple of guys sitting in the intakes going over some plans.

 

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XB-70 Modelers  Diagram

 

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Here's a grab from video of both aircraft together. The downside is that you only see the necks of them. For the astute, notice that the underside of Ship Two's nose is painted black. It also shows the differences in the nose-ramp-up and nose ramp-down positions.	Both XB-70's on the ramp at Edwards. This is only the second picture I've seen with them together, both are black and white, and both poor. I'm still looking, though.
Another grab from video, taken just after Ship One returned from its Mach 3 flight. I've circled the damage suffered to the leading edge -- It's not highly visible, but it's the best I've seen of it.	A black and white shot of Ship One from above.   This isn't a super big image or anything, but for the sake of completeness, and the fact that I liked it, it's included!

 

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Another odd item, the Soviet SU-100, which was blatantly a Soviet copy of the XB-70. A kind reader sent me a copy of an article on the aircraft, which has a rather interesting history -- most notable, it was one of the first fly-by-wire aircraft (the Soviets simply avoiding the high-temperature hydraulic issue entirely) (The Avro Arrow was apparently a FBW aircraft as well -- thanks to Dan Garcia for pointing this out). It made a total of ten flights, which a best speed of M1.4. It was to weigh somewhere around 225,000 pounds, and have about 140,000 pounds of thrust, to achieve Mach 3. (Note the vastly higher thrust to weight ratio the Soviets figured they needed!). I suspect that, without lowered wingtips to add stability, and with the troubles of an early fly-by-wire system, at M1.4 it must have been quite the white knuckle ride!

 

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