I always thought the XB-70 was a badass plane, but whether it was so complicated, expensive, complicated, and over-engineered that it may never have ever gone into production is another question...but a plane that size, carrying a nuclear payload while traveling at Mach 3, yeah.
It sure as hell scared the bejeezus out of the Soviets.
Heck. It reminded me of the last “Jurassic World” movie where they engineer a scary dinosaur that is white, and the woman in charge asks her boss “Do you think it will scare the kids?” and her boss says “Kids? It scares me.”
There is something both cool and brilliant, yet scary about it with those canards, and the look of the cockpit windows and that giant bank of huge jet engines all lined up in a row pointing aft...and that sloped back. Just wow.
It did kind of look like a large, predatory Valkyrie in my mind. Seeing one in the Air Force Museum was a pretty cool experience.
that one you saw is the only one left
they only built two, and one of them crashed after getting nicked in flight by an escorting starfighter.
the valkyrie taught the USAF, and NASA, much about + mach aerodynamics, and a host of other stuff.
cool concept..obsoleted by SA-2 systems by the time it actually flew.