N A A B - 7 0 VA L K Y R I E VA R I A N T S

A Future That Never Was...

EDITED BY:TONY R. LANDIS

WRITER/ARCHIVIST, HQ AFMC HISTORY OFFICE
B-70 VALKYRIE VARIANTS: A FUTURE THAT NEVER WAS..

Like flying cars, human colonies on Mars and so many other futuristic ideas, the 1950’s vision of the tomor-
row was filled with grand ideas that are just now coming to fruition. As expected, aircraft engineers of the
time had similar visions as they began taking their ideas from their minds, placing them on paper, then asking
manufactures to bend steel and other exotic materials to create the planes of the future. Engineers hoped
that one vehicle, one that they perceived as the last manned bomber, could change the future of aerial bom-
bardment. Yet, politics, money, and technological advancements put an end to the B-70 Valkyrie, a Mach 3+,
nuclear-capable super-bomber. Those varying factors killed the dream even before the first vehicle rolled
out of the North American Aviation assembly plant.
This document provides just a small glimpse into the minds of designers and engineers during the 1960’s of
what the future of aerospace just might entail. Though none of these proposals saw fruition, they quite possi-
bly sparked the imaginations of future designers and engineers.
The story of North American Aviation’s masterpiece is well documented. Published works such as ‘The
Manned Missile’ by Ed Rees; ‘North American XB-70’ by Steve Pace; ‘XB-70 Valkyrie: The Ride to Valhalla’ by
Jeannette Remak and Joe Ventolo, Jr; and ‘Valkyrie: North American’s Mach 3 Superbomber’ by Dennis Jen-
kins cover the development of this vehicle in very good detail. Often overlooked is the potential that military
and civilian designers had envisioned for this aircraft prior to cancellation.
Alternate concepts for the XB-70 ranged from cargo and personnel transport, supersonic tanker and reusable
launch vehicle to name a few. Some topics have enjoyed brief coverage in previous publications, yet most of
what you will find on the following pages came from the archives of the Air Force Materiel Command History
Office, a research facility located at Wright-Patterson AFB. Our research revealed a variety of gems, many a
simple mention or illustration in an obscure report while others came from archived materials supplied by
the manufacturer. We hope you enjoy this glimpse into what could have been.

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B-70 VALKYRIE VARIANTS: A FUTURE THAT NEVER WAS..

B-70 ALERT POD

Top: Chase pilot’s view showing

the bottom of XB-70 Air Vehicle
(A/V) 2.
Middle Two: The Alert Pod could
have been utilized as a stand
alone support unit for the B-70
during operational deployments
negating the need to send cargo
planes full of aircraft ground
equipment (AGE).
Bottom: The full-scale XB-70
mockup awaiting military inspec-
tion. A mockup of the Alert Pod
can be seen behind the main gear
in the background.
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B-70 VALKYRIE VARIANTS: A FUTURE THAT NEVER WAS..

B-70 RECOVERABLE BOOSTER

Top and Bottom: The proposal to use the B-70 as a Recoverable Launch Booster received the
most attention from military and civilian contractor engineers. Instead of utilizing expensive, dis-
posable booster rockets with small capsules, having the Mach 3 Valkyrie launch an orbital space-
plane or hypersonic test vehicle would allow the entire system to be used again.

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B-70 VALKYRIE VARIANTS: A FUTURE THAT NEVER WAS..
All: Surprisingly, the relatively
small X-20 Dyna-Soar could be car-
ried internally in the B-70 with only
the additional boosters requiring a
large belly fairing. This concept was
appealing enough to make wind
tunnel testing a requirement before
it could proceed. With the cancella-
tion of the Dyna-Soar program, the
Air Force stopped all research.

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B-70 VALKYRIE VARIANTS: A FUTURE THAT NEVER WAS..
Left: Some vehicle
types, such as the
Martin SV-5 lifting
body suborbital test
vehicle, required only
forward and aft fair-
ings instead of a full
enclosure.

Below: Lockheed built the RM-81 Agena originally for the WS-117L reconnaissance satellite
program. After WS-117L split into three separate programs, the Agena became an upper stage
booster and satellite carrier. Launching the Agena from a recoverable booster such as a B-70
would save significant cost over the large, disposable rockets of the era.

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B-70 VALKYRIE VARIANTS: A FUTURE THAT NEVER WAS..

All: Some fanciful proposals went so far

as to propose launching NASA’s Gemini
manned missions from the Valkyrie
mothership. It appears engineers were
desperate to come up with a mission for
the aircraft and if a space-bound vehicle
was small enough to be carried in this
fashion, then a report was created to
launch it from the B-70.

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B-70 VALKYRIE VARIANTS: A FUTURE THAT NEVER WAS..

All: In addition to hard-

ened launch silo’s
equipped with the LGM-
30 Minuteman II ICBM,
having a fleet of mobile
missiles standing air-
borne alert on a Mach 3
carrier aircraft would
have struck fear into
anyone thinking of
attacking the United
States or its Allies.

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B-70 VALKYRIE VARIANTS: A FUTURE THAT NEVER WAS..

All: The very success-

ful X-15 program pro-
duced a follow-on
proposal for a delta-
winged variant capa-
ble of even higher
speeds and altitudes.
In order to maximize
the potential of this
new vehicle, launching
from the Mach-3 Val-
kyrie appeared to be a
perfect match. The
cancellation of both
vehicles ended this
concept quickly.
Inset: Fictional logo
for the M-70 Valkyrie
Mothership program.

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B-70 VALKYRIE VARIANTS: A FUTURE THAT NEVER WAS..

Top: The General Purpose Missile (G.P.M.)

concept proposed using a common shape with
different warheads adapted for different tar-
gets similar to today’s smart weapons. Carry-
ing no less than 14 of these, this B-70 concept
is ready for anything.
Left: Speculative artwork of an Alert Pod-
equipped B-70 with GAM-87 Skybolt missiles.
North American proposed using a special silver
finish to reduce the infrared signature which
the aircraft needed as shown below.

Above: Modifications required to convert the YB-70A into the reconnaissance/strike RSB-70A included
swapping of avionics boxes, the addition of strike cameras and the installation of a rotary bomb rack which
would not become standard on bomber aircraft for at least another decade.
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B-70 VALKYRIE VARIANTS: A FUTURE THAT NEVER WAS..

All: 1960’s aerospace research cen-

tered around new technologies to
go higher, faster and further than
ever before. It was thought that
Scramjet technology would be the
breakthrough needed to achieve
these goals, yet it would take an-
other five decades to achieve this.
From manned test vehicles such as
Republic’s manned hypersonic ve-
hicle shown at top and center to
nuclear missiles shown at right,
Scramjet propulsion offered an
attractive solution to many propul-
sion issues.

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B-70 VALKYRIE VARIANTS: A FUTURE THAT NEVER WAS..

B-70 TRANSPORT
Passenger and Cargo
Left: Modifying a B-70 into a Super-
sonic Transport, a quick and logical so-
lution to having an operation SST in
the shortest amount of time.
Middle and Page 13 Bottom: North
American was so convinced they could
sell a transport version of their latest
vehicle, they added temporary
‘windows’ to XB-70 A/V-1 during a
maintenance layover in Palmdale, CA.
Bottom: One Air Force report on the
subject included this art of a ‘C-70’ in
the markings of the Military Air
Transport Service.

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B-70 VALKYRIE VARIANTS: A FUTURE THAT NEVER WAS..

Right: Standard seating arrangements in the

new transport could accommodate 80 passen-
gers seated in an offset arrangement while the
high density offering added an additional 27
seats in somewhat cramped quarters. During
medical emergencies, the Valkyrie transport
could be configured to include a nurses station
along with patient litters for forty eight
wounded personnel.
Below: Modifications to create the transport
aircraft included a modified upper aft fuselage,
the widening of the main cargo area, a lower
cargo door and the addition of seats at the
cost of a reduced fuel load.

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B-70 VALKYRIE VARIANTS: A FUTURE THAT NEVER WAS..

All: In an attempt to sell a pure cargo vari-

ant, engineers truly embellished their find-
ings by attempting to show that the cargo
capacity of their supersonic transport was
equal to, or better than, larger transports
such as the C-133 or KC-135. Loading of car-
go through a swinging nose similar to a Lock-
heed C-5 or Super Guppy, or the use of ac-
cess doors in the bottom and sides were just
some of the problems to be overcome. The
use of a detachable pod appeared to be the
most logical solution.

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B-70 VALKYRIE VARIANTS: A FUTURE THAT NEVER WAS..

B-70 Miscellaneous
Left and Below: Having a supersonic
tanker could alleviate the need for
high-speed fighters and bombers to
slow down during in-flight refueling,
though having two aircraft in such
close proximity at speeds above the
speed of sound created issues dealing
with the shock waves from each air-
craft.

Left: A number of proposals submitted in the

1960’s called for the use of a retractable Parasail
to give aircraft a Short Take-off and Landing ca-
pability. The XB-70 and the F-100 Super Saber
are just two of the aircraft proposed to receive
this modification.
Below: As surface-to-air missile capabilities of
hostile countries improved, the high and fast
mission of the bomber fleet became obsolete.
Low-level terrain-following missions had become
the new standard.

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B-70 VALKYRIE VARIANTS: A FUTURE THAT NEVER WAS..

B-70 AMERICAN SST RESEARCH TESTBED

Right and Below: Creating a Su-
personic Transport (SST) became
a high priority for many countries
including the United States. Utiliz-
ing the XB-70 as a testbed for the
technologies required for such an
effort made the US a frontrunner
in the development of an opera-
tional SST.

Below and Bottom: When the United States

abandoned the effort to create an SST, engi-
neers altered their plans to the use of an XB-70
as a propulsion testbed for all types of engine
and inlet designs.

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B-70 VALKYRIE VARIANTS: A FUTURE THAT NEVER WAS..

B-70 OTHER DESIGNS

Right: The basic shape
of the B-70 lead North
American and other
manufacturers to
adopt similar charac-
teristics for their pro-
posed high-speed ve-
hicles. North American
Aviation’s true SST de-
sign bore a striking
resemblance to the B-
70 Valkyrie.

Above: North American’s Valkyrie had obvi-

ous influence on Douglas Aircraft Corporation
engineers when they created their SST design
known internally as Model 2229.

Right: Northrop designed their SST to utilize

the innovative Laminar Flow Control (LFC)
technique on the wing and tail surfaces.
Northrop believed the application of LFC
would reduce the weight of the vehicle by
approximately 60,000 pounds.

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B-70 VALKYRIE VARIANTS: A FUTURE THAT NEVER WAS..

Above: Bell Aircraft Corporation, Buffalo, New York created some of the most outlandish proposals based
off of the Valkyrie’s basic design. The eight-engine, Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) passenger
transport among the most creative.

Right: Another Bell

Aircraft proposal
used the lower por-
tion of the vehicle
combo as mother-
ship to launch the
hypersonic, passen-
ger-carrying, rocket
on top for reaching
overseas destina-
tions in just over an
hour.

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B-70 VALKYRIE VARIANTS: A FUTURE THAT NEVER WAS..

Above: One of the earliest design proposals to come out of the B-70 program is this October 1959
concept for a Recoverable Booster Support System (RBSS). Whether manned or unmanned, pas-
senger or cargo carrier, launch vehicle or nuclear bomber, the B-70 Valkyrie design inspired the im-
agination of engineers and designers across all of the aerospace industry during the 1960’s.

Above: The basic design of the B-70 continues to inspire engineers to this day. This 2018 proposal for an
unmanned hypersonic design from Boeing’s Phantom Works shows its lineage to the Valkyrie. With no offi-
cial designation, the media have attached such nicknames as ‘Son of Blackbird’ and ‘Valkyrie II’. (Boeing)
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