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By: - 12th October 2017 at 14:14 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
B-52 is still used because it is a big bomb truck that can launch missiles from 5000-10000 km aways. You don't need a fast aircraft that is several times more expensive to do that.
By: - 12th October 2017 at 15:26 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
what's more, the B-52 is an old horse that can be adapted to any needs.. the Russians had the Myasitchev M-50 even earlier in the pipeline which was disposed of in the early 1960's as they developed missiles to do the job (a lot cheaper to maintain).. same thing: the mission for which it was made disappeared
By: - 12th October 2017 at 17:01 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
B-52 is still used because it is a big bomb truck that can launch missiles from 5000-10000 km aways. You don't need a fast aircraft that is several times more expensive to do that.
5000 to 10,000 km?. what is price of those missiles?fast aircraft not expensive. Why all the time B1 flying in Middleast and NK.
By: - 12th October 2017 at 17:14 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
First since the B-52 is still a valued aircraft, why wouldnt an aircraft that flys twice as high and 4 times faster be better.
Because flying and maintaining a mach3 aircraft, one that had no obvious mission and weighted 50% more than a B-52, would have bankrupted the USAF.
Second, since the SR-71 was never shot down, why wouldnt the B-70 achieve the same results.
The SR-71 was retired in 1998, the Dragon Lady still flies, there´s a lesson in there.
Third, with all the large supersonic flying experience it would have had, cancelling it probably set aviation back 30 years. There is no reason we should not have supersonic transports flying all over the world right now.
It would have been such an invaluable experience for the civilian aviation having a great supersonic airframe flying around.
Hmmmmmmmmmm
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By: - 12th October 2017 at 18:16 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
@Mig 31.
The B 52 is not a bomb truck. Its a bomb hay wagon. The B 70, if configured to just be a bomb truck, would have been more efficent. Hard not to be.
I agree with the poster. The B 52 still has doggy low bypass engines ffs.
By: - 12th October 2017 at 18:21 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
@Sintra
The Concorde was not a failure. It flew til 2003 and 911 regulations and the resulting depression in the industry grounded it.
The crashes were not its fault most of the time. It had a good safety record.
By: - 12th October 2017 at 18:48 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Crashes? the Concorde crashed only once... one time too many, of course, but only once
The main problem of the Concorde was in two facts:
- the US protectionism that forbid it from flying over continental USA
- the 1974 crisis when oil prices jumped through the roof, resulting in the impossibility to make any profit with the Concorde (as the ticket price to make profits would have been so high that way too few people would be able to afford it). British Airways and Air France both had their part of the Concorde initial production which they kept flying for prestige reasons, even if they made no direct money on it
By: - 12th October 2017 at 18:52 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
KGB:
Concorde was a commercial airliner which couldn't repay any of its design & development or even production costs. Airlines could only afford to operate it when they were given it, free.
That's a failure.
By: - 12th October 2017 at 18:57 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
The B 52 is not a bomb truck. Its a bomb hay wagon. The B 70, if configured to just be a bomb truck, would have been more efficent. Hard not to be.I agree with the poster. The B 52 still has doggy low bypass engines ffs.
The B-70 would have less range than the B-52, carrying 1/3 of the bomb load, while consuming more fuel and an RCS that could rival the USS Gerald R. Ford.
By: - 12th October 2017 at 19:09 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
swerve
it became a failure after the oil crisis. the USA reaction (which was not unlike the tax they've put on Bombardier sale to Delta recently) was just another thing that made sure it would be profitable. if the oil did remain at the prices it had before, it would still have operated over a certain number of routes and potentially make profits.
By: - 12th October 2017 at 19:18 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
First since the B-52 is still a valued aircraft, why wouldnt an aircraft that flys twice as high and 4 times faster be better.
But probably a bazillion times more expensive to operate too.
Second, since the SR-71 was never shot down, why wouldnt the B-70 achieve the same results.
The Sr 71 never overflew enemy territory. For a bomber you would have to.
Nic
By: - 12th October 2017 at 20:00 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
No long-range missile - no effective aircraft
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By: - 12th October 2017 at 20:34 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
BTW thanks Logical1 for such a fun topic. There's not enough of these.
By: - 12th October 2017 at 20:46 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
@Toocool
There's still a myth lingering out there that the Concorde was dangerous.
The Concorde made it through the fuel price spike. It had little to do with the cancelling in 2003. Which was a time of very cheap fuel prices.
The cockpit dividing door regs was an issue after 911. There is no such door and for a reason. The structural stretch from the heat.
By: - 12th October 2017 at 21:12 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
@Swerve
This isn't an economics forum. But sure. In this era where air travel is Greyhound with wings, it was a failure. But maybe not.
Because part of that economic calculation had to do with the way the industry was deregulated in some areas and not in others and how it all evolved.
You just cant deny that there would be demand for supersonic travel. (monarchs, pro sports, celebs, business tycoons) And we had the technology to do it. So if those 2 things are true, the culprit for its death or non profitablity lies in government regulation.
The whole noise pollution thing, if you look into it, was largely a scam. It had the same underpinnings of all neo-eviromentalists. The whole idea behind the movement was to slow down technology and capitalism. And the Concorde was a huge target because it represented Jetsons level technical advancement. But here we are 30 years later. We don't question the validity of the noise pollution issue. We just take it at face value. There were other ways, other routes and procedures that could have mitigated the noise. But nope. It was a clear win for the enviro lobby.
And this is relevant to the topic b/c it has to do with aviation evolution.
By: - 12th October 2017 at 23:10 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
The Sr 71 never overflew enemy territory. For a bomber you would have to.
Sure it did. Just not USSR/China.
At least Vietnam and N.Korea were oveflown.
By: - 12th October 2017 at 23:38 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
@KGB
The noise pollution thing wasn't a scam....I live on one of the flight paths to Heathrow Airport (almost 30 km away) one of the busiest airports in the world....when Concorde used to fly over the whole house would shake...if you were on the phone you had wait until it had gone to carry on talking...it really was awful! Hundreds of planes fly every day but you can't hear a thing....modern jets are silent by comparison ;-)
By: - 13th October 2017 at 00:16 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
XB-70 didn't even have a bay for bombs. That was a technical hurdle yet to tackle.
It made more sense in the electronics day & age to resurrect YF-12A as a standoff high-speed, high-altitude smartbomb-release platform. The B-70 was affordable if you operated like ten and cancelled B-52, FB-111A, and B-58 - and never initiated B-1A development - to offset operational costs.
By: - 13th October 2017 at 00:48 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
@Tony
Of course the boom was real. But they could have mitigated the noise pollution. Instead they banned it
By: - 13th October 2017 at 01:19 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
@KGB
Just to be clear the noise wasn't from the supersonic boom....it was noisy when flying relatively low and slowly over the suburbs on the way to the airport to land....the whole house literally shook when it flew over....the airport noise levels (I think around 120 dB from memory) already louder than other airliners were relaxed by the government for political reasons so the BA and Air France Concorde fleets could continue to operate.
The Rolls Royce Olympus engines were derived from the engines used in the Vulcan nuclear bomber of the 1950s. It was too expensive to build the brand new proposed engine (RB.169) so an existing engine based on the Mk.320 used in the cancelled TSR-2 nuclear strike aircraft was used instead.
Attempts were made to reduce the noise, including by SNECMA, but the attempts at noise mitigation such as spades projecting in the exhaust all failed. There was a proposal for a new engine with reduced air flow to mitigate noise but it was just too expensive to develop and build while there was a working engine which had superb Mach 2 performance and could supercruise (the real deal and not the watered down LM version! :D)
Someone has already nailed why the B-70 was cancelled....it was just too expensive and would have eaten up the USAF budget....there were other, cheaper methods of delivering nuclear warheads into the USSR using missiles....there no longer was a mission to fly bombers into one of the most heavily defended places on Earth....the shoot down of Gary Powers U-2 showed the writing was on the wall.....some people might say Mathias Rust landing his plane unchallenged in Red Square put some question on to whether the celebrated Soviet air defence was all that! :D
Posts: 162
By: logical1 - 12th October 2017 at 14:03
More and more it is looking really stupid that the B-70 was cancelled. Here are about 3 reasons why.
First since the B-52 is still a valued aircraft, why wouldnt an aircraft that flys twice as high and 4 times faster be better.
Second, since the SR-71 was never shot down, why wouldnt the B-70 achieve the same results.
Third, with all the large supersonic flying experience it would have had, cancelling it probably set aviation back 30 years. There is no reason we should not have supersonic transports flying all over the world right now.
Cancelling the B-70 was just a stupid political move.