Jim, thanks for the thoughts about that. I did read something along those
lines re: why the F-104 made that mistake. There was some discussion that
he couldn¹t see the wingtip proximity all that well either, possibly.
Defintely a tragedy for both plane and personnel.
It¹s always interesting to read about planes and learn more about the
history of their development. It¹s too bad the XB-70 never really came to
fruition. Partly it was due to the success of the SR-71, among other
things.
-Ed
On 6/3/15, 6:16 AM, "olympus-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
<olympus-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>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
>
--
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