Summary and Key Points: The North American XB-70 Valkyrie, conceived in the late 1950s, was an ambitious project to create the world's fastest and highest-flying bomber. With its futuristic design, six powerful afterburning engines, and advanced technology, the Valkyrie aimed to bypass Soviet defenses through sheer speed and altitude.

-However, the advent of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and changing military priorities led to the program's cancellation.

-Despite its promise, only two prototypes were built, with one now displayed at the National Museum of the United States Air Force. The XB-70 remains a symbol of Cold War innovation and unfulfilled potential.

In the late 1950s, the North American XB-70 Valkyrie looked like it had been ripped straight out of the pages of a science fiction comic book. With a sharp, angular design, six afterburning engines, and the latest targeting, navigation, and electronic warfare systems America could muster, the XB-70 was to become the world’s biggest, fastest, and highest-flying bomber in history… Until it wasn’t.

Today, the Valkyrie serves not just as a reminder, but arguably as the very pinnacle of the Cold War aviation philosophy of circumventing defenses through ever higher and faster platforms. The XB-70, like America’s famed SR-71 Blackbird and its defunct interceptor sister the YF-12, aimed to deliver on both in classic American style: by burning through budgets like jet fuel.

Born on the precipice of the missile age, the Valkyrie may have become America’s go-to nuclear deterrent, had the technology to build it been available just ten years sooner. But time waits for no man nor machine, and the Valkyrie was no exception.

The program that was to eventually produce the Air Force’s B-70 supersonic bomber began in the mid-1950s, thanks to rapid advancements in the science surrounding supersonic flight. In an incredible bit of irony, the XB-70 was intended as a replacement for the brand-new-at-the-time B-52 Stratofortress, which despite having incredible range and payload capabilities, was already vulnerable to Soviet intercept fighters by the time it entered service in 1955. Now, nearly seventy years later, the XB-70 is merely one of the many bombers to fail to dethrone America’s mighty BUFF; a list that is soon to include the retiring B-2 Spirit and B-1B........

© The National Interest