Ed - I just found the Discovery Channel video on-line, and watched it.
Thanks for the reminder of this piece of history. As to the accident,
one comment on a different coverage of the event shed some light on the
reason that Joe Walker got in so close to the XB-70 tip. The commenter
said his father worked in telemetry at Edwards at the time, and that the
photo plane had asked him to move in closer for another shot. It seems
they underestimated the strength of the wing tip vortices, which flipped
the F-104 on its back and over the top of the XB-70, damaging the
vertical fins and the left wing tip, leading to its loss of control.
Jim Nichols
Tullahoma, TN USA
On 6/2/2015 11:19 AM, Sawyer, Edward wrote:
Very cool that you got to work on that. It was a tragedy one of them was
lost in that accident. At least one still survives at WP. I will have to
get out there to see that one day. Definitely an impressive plane, ahead
of it¹s time really.
Anyone who is interested in planes should definitely read up on the XB-70
Valkyrie.
Those were different times, no doubt.
-Ed
Yes, what finally ended up as the XB-70. It was fun, in those days,
because the USAF was funded well enough to maintain expensive facilities
and carry out intensive ground test programs. Things are much different
now. :-(
Jim Nichols
Tullahoma, TN USA
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