Having grown up on Air Force bases, it's almost inevitable that I would develop an interest in planes. There's the coolest plane ever, the P-51; the thank-FSM-it-wasn't-ready-in-1940 ME262; the U-2; the X-15 and my favorite of all, XB-70 Valkyrie (via this great site):
The origins of the Valkyrie date back to the 1950's, when a supersonic long-range bomber was proposed. After a tortuous R&D phase, 2 of the finished design were built by North American Aviation (now Rockwell_International). Sadly, one of them was destroyed in a horrible midair collision during a freakin' photo op and ended up as a smudge on the floor of the Mojave Desert. The other is a still-popular tourist attraction at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio. For a young son of an Air Force flight engineer, the XB-70 simply was what The Future was going to look like. Of course, history isn't really concerned with what 8-year old boys want!
1 comment:
Thank you! I didn't know they picked up on it until I saw your comment.
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