XB-70 accident discussion

[DaveG]

On our XB-70 Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/groups/XB70Valkyrie/) a guy recently posted a link to a website that contained the memories of a former North American Aviation employee (http://www.skypark.org/aero_memories/Gene_Burton.html). Mr. Burton covered a lot of ground as he reminisced about his 26 years with NAA, but one memory in particular jolted us. He reported that Carl Cross, the co-pilot on the Valkyrie during it's ill-fated final flight, had not properly trained on the seat ejection simulator and had simply initialed the forms, indicating that he had practiced the procedures but actually hadn't. Burton suggests strongly that this is why Cross was unable to eject and was trapped in the spiraling, doomed aircraft as it fell to the ground.

As part of the discussion, Graham Simons, a noted aviation writer, researched what he could find about the claims and has published three essays about them.

1) http://gmsenterprises.blogspot.com/2015 ... ident.html

2) http://gmsenterprises.blogspot.com/2015 ... ent-2.html

3) http://gmsenterprises.blogspot.com/2015 ... ent-3.html


While we do have some former NAA employees who participate in the page, we don't have any that have spoken up regarding the report on Cross. Can anyone point me to some other resources (living histories from NAA, etc) or other reports that might corroborate or contradict the report?

Thanks,

Dave

[GregP]

Saw it fly about 1,000 feet overhead off Destin, Florida (couldn't read the tail number as it was overhead) while fishing as a kid with my dad, but only read the accident reports. Never thought of investigating them on my own, and I knew maybe 20 former North American employees at one time or another. The subject never came up. Now that it has, it would be interesting to know what the ejection procedure was and how it might differ from other North American products of the time.

I realize they had capsules due to the high speeds at the top end, but figured the actual procedures would be familiar if not the same, with the rest taken care of by the systems. Perhaps that is just wrong ...

[wendovertom]

Interesting discussion and something I had not thought of before. Also I an really jealous of the author who got to actually get up onto the flight deck of the XB-70!

AS a side note, I had a close friend who was a PJ at Edwards AFB when these planes first came out and were doing a lot of testing there. He said that one day he and another guy were 'recruited' to dress in flight suits, helmet mask and all to go sit in the XB-70 while the NAA guys filmed them going through the motions of a pre-flight and then acting like they were 'flying'. Before he passed away he always wondered what happened to that footage.

Tom P.

[Forgotten Field]

Sorry to hear about this. Things like this happen all the time in technical fields. Call it what you will- pencil whipping, dry-firing, fraud- it is bad and a lesson to anybody who is involved in any engineering field which requires human experience to operate a system. Train, train, train some more. And then validate your training.

[zorro9]

Dave G:

Hi! Interesting info/data of a sad day over the Calif Desert.c.60s. I'm glad someone pursued the research of the real version of events on that tragic day.

Will ck the XB-70 page for other info. Do you know whatever happened to the statement made my the Chief designer of NAA XB-70 program when he mentioned that for some reason in the sequence of events the "wing inlets" were not placed in the down position after the initial mid-air collision?? Pic below one of the finest shots that you'll ever find of a fine flying machine! Photo via Wix/AEC

[Kyleb]

[color=#4000FF]Dave G:

Hi! Interesting info/data of a sad day over the Calif Desert.c.60s. I'm glad someone pursued the research of the real version of events on that tragic day.

Will ck the XB-70 page for other info. Do you know whatever happened to the statement made my the Chief designer of NAA XB-70 program when he mentioned that for some reason in the sequence of events the "wing inlets" were not placed in the down position after the initial mid-air collision??

The wing tips were not placed down because the pilots couldn't see that their vertical stabilizers had been sheared off, and because in the few (<20) seconds the airplane continued controlled flight, none of the other aircraft concisely pointed out on the radio that the B-70 had lost its vertical surfaces. So the crew had no idea of the damage to their aircraft, or what actions to take.

[GregP]

All those test pilots and nobody thought to tell them of the damage? That is almost ... stupid.

[cwmc]

I thought all of the comm antennas were in the verticals.

[GregP]

Maybe ... but don't know.

But if anyone had transmitted, it would have been heard on the ground as I'm SURE they were being monitored. Flying the XB-70 was a big deal and it was still experimental.

[CAPFlyer]

The second blog post clearly shows where Maj. Joe Cotton clearly transmitted and stated that both verticals had been sheared off but that "Al" was doing okay and they were going to stay with them all the way down. It sounds to me like if Al heard the call, he decided he didn't really have time to begin manual translation of the tips (which were normally automatically controlled in AV-2) or he didn't think of it in the short time he had as he was evaluating other things before the first spin. Also, note that he pretty quickly put himself into the capsule according to his account (in part 1) but spent the better part of a minute afterwards dealing with his elbow and getting out. Once he started that procedure, he no longer had access to wingtip control. He had very limited access to anything other than pitch trim and the throttle retard button.