Why did the government cancel the xb-70?

Question

that was probably the best bomber we could have ever made. top speeds at 2,400 mph, was huge and could carry many bombs, and was highly manueverable and could go at extremely high altitudes. could also get out of a dogfight. so why did they do it??

Answer 1

It required men to fly it, slow ordinance delivery time, limited payload, vulnerability excessively high. Replaced by ICBM's, unmaned, fast, stealthy, located in silo's around the free world. The X nominclature is experimental only. We learned what we needed to learn.
In 1961, President Kennedy announced that the XB-70 program was to be reduced to research only, citing high cost (over $700 million per prototype) and vulnerability. The Kennedy administration felt ICBMs were more cost effective because they were less vulnerable and were cheaper operationally. Although two XB-70 prototypes were built, with the first flight in 1964, the program terminated in 1969. The XB-70 had speed, range, and adequate payload, but it was expensive, not suited to low level penetration, and thus did not compete with ICBMs for strategic funds.

Answer 2

The idea was for a high speed, high altitude, low radar return bomber. However they failed on the last, since the radar return was waay too large for confort. Even with it's speed, it would have been easily detected.
The highly manouverable part, and able to get out of a dogfight, those were big IF's. If the aircraft was flying subsonic, it would have a larger manouverability capasity than most aircraft that size, however at high speeds, it's size limits the high G manouvers. Getting out of a dogfight is aerodynamically impossible for an aircraft this size.
It was also an financiall disaster.

Lessons learbed from the XB-70 were aplied to the B-1

Answer 3

The politics answer is correct for the XB-70.
And Yankee Killer the ONLY REASON THE SR was shut down was COST.

And while the SR was unarmed, there were plans by Kelly Johnson, Ben Rich, and Lockheed to make a bomber and Fighter versions. The fighter would be missile only, and the Bomber was his idea of the the ULTIMATE 1st strike Nuclear option. Believe it or not both these plans were killed by the USAF, in favor of the XB-70. Funny Old World Ain't it?

Answer 4

Cost and politics. We can argue if it was the best, but it sure was the fastest and the most intimidating. Sustaining Mach-3 for half an hour by a weapon carrying aircraft is sure a feat worth respecting.

BTW, XB-70 was never "highly maneuverable" and it had never dropped a single bomb.

I'd say that the Valkyrie was one of the most graceful thing ever to fly.

And I learned some new things from Yankee Killer, that the SR-71 was cancelled (I saw them flying during the Gulf war) and that would like to ask what sort of targets do you shoot at when going supersonic so that you overtake your own munitions?

Answer 5

After Russia shot down one of our U-2's in 1961, it became apparent that surface to air missile technology was coming along quite a bit faster than manned aircraft technology. The program was costly and many were concerned that it might not have been cost effective to put that much money into a plane that could be quckly made obsolete by the more rapidly evolving SAM's.

The XB did manage to rally some heavy support however, and i hear it was pretty tough fight to get the program terminated.

My personal opinion is that the decision was a political one, motivated by a loss in faith in high altitude manned aircraft after the seemingly untouchable U-2 was shot down by the Russians.

I found ya a pretty informative site on The XB and it's history, hope I was helpful :)

http://www.labiker.org/xb70.html

Answer 6

It was heavy and expensive. Remember this was made with steel and titanium, not the lightweight composites that make up today's combat aircraft. Also, the advance of Soviet anti-aircraft missiles in the 1960's made flying manned strategic bombers over the USSR risky no matter how fast they were. Loosing one when an F-104 pilot decided he wanted to be a "hot dog" in photo shoot probably didn't help either.

ICBM's could accomplish the same purpose more effectively. They had better response time, were harder to intercept, and had no pilots to put in danger of being shot down or having to figure out where to land after all their bases were turned to piles of radioactive rubble. The same time the XB-70 was being developed the Minuteman ICBM was being deployed. The Minuteman ICBM has been the backbone of the USAF's ballistic missile stockpile for the last forty -- approaching fifty -- years.

Answer 7

The same reason the SR-71 was cancelled - wasn't practical. The Blackbird would fly into its own bullets and it couldn't be completely refuled on the ground because of pressurazation problems. There's a lot of aircraft that just don't work out. That's why we've had B-1's and B-52's.

Answer 8

Politics reared its ugly head. That plane would have almost convinced me to switch from fighters to bombers.

For Yankee Killer: Pardner, the SR-71 was unarmed. It was never meant to be a weapons platform. It leaked fuel on the ground BY DESIGN! Wet wings that had to have room for the skin to expand with the heat of the 71 performing its mission, which was recon. It was taken out of the inventory because it had reached its design lifetime, and then some.

Answer 9

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Answer 10

In it's era, it looked good on paper, but it would never be a B2. If I am correct, there were only two ever made. One crashed and the other is at the Air Force museum at Wright Pat AFB.