The animation into the real picture was gold.

As sad as this situation was, knowing there was a chance Carl was possible knocked unconscious throughout the crash makes me feel a little better. Can’t imagine the fear of falling through the sky like that. Nobody should have to experience such a fate.

The way you matched the animation to the historic photo is amazing. We've all seen that photo, but your animation puts it into context of what was happening.

All because the executives wanted a photo.

My dad was a weights and balance engineer on prototype #2. . It was the 2nd plane he ever worked on.

Joseph Walker, who piloted the F-104, was a veteran of the X-15 program, and the only pilot to go above the 100km Karman line, which is commonly (The US Armed Forces uses a 50 mile limit instead) regarded as the edge of space, and he did it twice! He was also the first human to go beyond the mesosphere, until Yuri Gagarin went into space two weeks later. Walker deserves far more credit than he gets, and his incredible skill proves that the XB-70 accident wasn't due to bad pilots.

It's an impressive aircraft in person, if you're ever in Dayton the Air force museum is amazing.

I’ve always been curious to what caused it to roll over in more details, thanks mate!

I was watching this live on TV when this happened, I was living in Bakersfield at the time and many of the kids I went to school with had parents who worked at Edwards. I'm an A&P now and had a long love for aviation, about 20 years ago i met one of the men who helped build these fabulous aircraft. 👍❤️🇺🇸

F-104 is like a sardine compared to the XB-70 like a bass

Another bad thing is that this was the more capable prototype compared to the other one.

I am glad I didn't skip past this. This story deserves telling.

I remember seeing this plane flying over the desert.. it’s was really low and fast.. sonic booms were a regular occurrence out there in the California desert too..

The 70 was just stunning, so ahead of it's time.

They didn't know there would be consequences even you are near to an experimental aircraft.

Who would have thought there would be turbulent air on the side of a gigantic delta wing

They should make an auto eject system for stuff like this. GeForce is something else. If you ever feel the force it’s no joke, it’s like a 10,000 pound invisible hand, pushing you down. Once your caught your screwed you’ll pass out in seconds unable to breath and not move your stuck in one spot. The pilot only as moments to make the decision to eject from the jet when you’re in it, high speed spin. This is one of the reasons why pilots die unable to grab the eject handles above your head. If the pilot was able to see a certain word, then able to eject without reaching for the eject switch. If the pilot blacks out before that happens, it should be another device. They can determine if the parent needs to bail out. Technology is advancing with AI that’s soon it will be easier for pilots to eject safely without having to grab the eject.

This is the reason why I question why they have to fly so close to each other

"Hmm i want to do a maneuver"

I have, had, a signed photo of the plane signed by every one associated with the program must have been a couple hundred signatures, I found it in a storage unit I bought, we've moved 3 years ago and I haven't seen it lately i thought it was a great piece of memorabilia

Interesting that the Mach 3+ XB-70 was the heaviest plane to ever take flight in its time.

“Sheared off most of the fuhnz “. Funniest way I’ve heard “fins” pronounced! Hahaha😂

_Incorrect on several points._ The “left wing lost lift“ of the F-104 is not correct. Of the XB-70, the slow speed flight, the essentially flat-plate wing cross-section, and that large mid-body “splitter“, creating the new innovation of “compression lift“, created a considerable double vortex that flipped at over Walker, blundering too close in his F-104, having itself a _very_ low polar moment in roll. As for Carl Cross, who “went down with the ship“, personal anecdotes are sufficient to surmise that, because he had transitioned from the B-58 _Hustler,_ with superficially the same encapsulating ejection pods as the _Valkyrie,_ but requiring a different command sequence to start the process of ejection. It is known that Cross skipped the training procedures, but signed off on them anyway -- so he died. As Chuck Yeager had written in his autobiography, “No one ever reads the manual!“ Incidentally, you imply that the stricken _Valkyrie_ was quickly doomed, but this is opposite of the fact. If memory serves, it flew on for 40 seconds, all the while the other pilots in formation yelling _Midair! Midair!_ -- which Cross and White interpreted as happening to others; indeed, White later stated they heard nothing and felt nothing of the collision. You gotta read the manual.... As for myself, I sometimes idly speculate what may have happened if the pilots had simply lowered the tips down to their maximum position, and reballisted the fuel load. Because during supersonic flight the aerodynamic center shifts rearwards, these largest movable wings put on any plane ever, served the dual propose of entraining the compression lift effect, rebalancing the lift center, and whatismore increasing longitudinal stability -- which is to say they became addition rudder area. On paper it would have worked, _if_ a major hydraulic leak was not involved. The left (?) wing breaking off only happened _after_ the craft had entered its roll and flat spin.

Cool animation on an amazing plane. Wish it’d been put into service. You got my subscription guys and keep up the good work.

Rip to those brave souls lost in the air ❤

Why was the ejection system for co-pilot not activated by the PILOT ejecting? He really couldn't stick around and fly the plane now could he?

I lived just outside of Edwards Air Force Base and witnessed many awesome things.

2 super cool planes lost, rip

In the late 1970’s I was stationed at Ramstein Air Base and there was a major that worked for the CinC USAFE (now Europe and Africa) who had actual photographs of this incident that he kept at his desk. I don’t recall if he was in one of the chase planes or in a plane that was flying at a distance to photograph the formation. I was shocked to see it. I might have been a 20 year old Airman at the time. It was only until I looked into the history of the aircraft that I realized it’s fate.

E known about turbulence, slipstreams and etc. for a long time now. That was pilot error.

Former USAF Combat Camera here. I got to watch the original raw footage of this heartbreaking event from the AF archives at Norton AFB.

Of course it was the F-104 Starfighter Better known as the Widowmaker

The perceived threat of the xb-70 by Soviet Union caused them great expense in developing the Mig 25 & later the Mig 31 which is still in service today. That's a considerable expense by an adversary to counter a perceived threat that never came to fruition. Reminds me of how they spent tons of money out of fear of Reagan's Star Wars program!👍🙏

All the technical data on the crash is great and all but the real cause of the accident was the need to have a photo shoot with the aircraft in order to drum up support for spending hundreds of millions on planes to fight a war that would never be fought.

It was big news when it happened. I had models of both planes.

God dammit F-104

All for a GE photo op.

There needs to be a way pilots can eject eachother incase of another passing out/injured if there isn't already.

There are 2 concrete above ground bunkers about 6-8 miles where I live in central Pennsylvania,that were test cells for engines like what was used in the XB70. Curtis Wright,Piper aircraft,and even Martin Marietta all has things going on in these secluded mountains at one time

Another day of learning something new on KZfaq. Much appreciated bro

No, that wasn't a stalled wing. Before the left wing of the F-104 would've reached AoAs beyond stall, it first would've created enough lift to roll the F-104 to the right with quite some rate. That didn't happen. What happened from my point of view, is that the pilot got close enough for whatever reason, encountered the right rolling tendency of a slight increase in AoA on the left wing, the pilot managed to keep the plane from rolling right while continuing to get closer to the giant XB-70. At some point of still getting closer while keeping a left stick input to counter the right roll tendency, the F-104 got sucked into the powerful wingtip vortex of the XB-70 and together with the left stick input held constantly by the pilot has hit the vertical fin on the XB-70. The pilot simply didn't have time to react to the very abrupt and high changes in the rolling moments generated on the plane. The pilot couldn't get directly into the vortex without initially getting an amount of rolling moment that initially rolls the plane away from it. The pilot insisted and got caught in it with no reaction time.

The “widowmaker” strikes again

Sound of the animation is insane! Well done!

The Valkyrie has always been my favorite aircraft. It could move it's 535,000 lbs and a huge bomb load at Mach 3.1! It had a ceiling of 77,350 feet. It was 196 feet long and had a wingspan of 105 feet! An incredible plane!

Of course it was an F-104. Those things are notorious for being unstable.

That plane was an engineering marvel. They have one at Write Pat.

On 4-1-1985 my big brother was killed in an airplane crash. The pictures have haunted my family and myself to this day. It's been the same for this family. It's like pulling the scab off a fresh wound everytime someone brings it up or some article is printed about it.

Good simulation

the f104 have a well know pitch up snap roll tendency while flown in close formation. it was even portraits in some user guide under comic strip form

My old university aero professor has a piece of the xb-70 on his desk

If you haven’t visited the National museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton Ohio to see the only remaining xb70, I highly recommend you do so. It looks not of this world. Simply incredible.

amazed at the sudden interest in a 60 year old experimental plane.

What happened to the pilot in the fighter?

Others have said this, but to add to the voices, that little edit there with the picture and animation may be one of the finest pieces of editing I've ever seen. Brilliantly done mate.

Why in 2023 are we not grown-up enough to see the full video, you know it exist. Snapshots of something that they purposely videoed and we have nothing.

That starfighter pilot wasn’t the sharpest

My Grade School is named after the fighter pilot, Joe Walker

Already knowing this story from Dads bookshelf at 12 or 13, arriving at Dayton and seeing the other one up so cloae was just mind boggeling...somber majesty...wow...thx Dad

They are not called fins. The correct name is a vertical stabilizer.

He didn't eject because he's neck was already broken by the sheer amount of g force's in the initial crash

At the time, the pilot in the 104 was known as the guy with the most hours above mach 3. This was just a photo op....

Amazing editing 👏 👌 🙌 😊

I knew a guy who said that in the late 60s and 70s you could visit the crash site with dune buggys he said that he got a bunch of castings and scrapped them ,I think it was 68

The original photos don't show that collision.

This is the most information I've encountered about that incident in years

Like my dad used to say "one midair will ruin your day". He was a commercial pilot among other things and had what one might call a "wierd sense of humor". Miss him every day.

Valkyrie

Man imagine that knock on the door 🚪😢

The xb-70 was a radical piece of Machinery if it wasn't lost it would have created another legend like the black bird

Hard to believe that happened clear back in the mid 60's.

I’ve been out to that crash site in the middle of nowhere. Still pieces of the XB laying around there and a small memorial

Such a massive aircraft. Still mind-boggling

The grandmother worked for North American Rockwell. I would get all the commemorative books and trinkets that they made over the years, and one of them was a book about North American Aviation. The picture of that f-104 turning into a giant smokestack is forever burned into my memory as a child.

If you would like to see the only one left , I highly recommend going to the USAF in Dayton Ohio. The XB 70 is absolutely massive and beautiful!

GE still got its million dollar photo and still have it somewhere in a hallway over their main office building

The F-104, with its tiny wings and the resultant high loading, was famously unstable in most flight regimes. This accident is one of the most notorious in test flying history because it was so avoidable. I have about three hours as a passenger in the Starfighter, and I was amazed at how much stick force was required to start a roll.

You can still find pieces of the aircraft on the ground.

We have an XB-70 here at the Wright Patterson Air Force museum in Dayton.

“You’ve got a hole in your left wing!” iykyk

Damn it, tragic. Brave men doing a dangerous job.

My late Dad was one of North American Aviation's lead tooling people, and worked extensively on the production of both XB-70s. I still remember the shock and horror felt by the whole aerospace community in the Antelope Valley after the accident. (BTW, the crash happened in 1966.)

No 2 had that extra angle in the wing fold too - coolest plane ever built.

New studies find that High g spins like that with a lack of serious neck support results in broke neck bones highly crompressed and severed vertebrae that being said he might have had a broken neck fairly quickly and that’s a lights out kinda thing with rotating forces resulting in no ejection

That animation really brings it to life..

I was in science class when this happened.

I believe that the F-104 got close enough to the XB-70 to get caught up in the wake turbulence/vortex created by the bomber. Very little was known about wake vortecies until the early-mid 1970s. An infamous account of a commercial wake vortex accident was at the old GSW airport (Greater Souhwest Int'l Airport/Amon Carter Field) near DFW airport property. Back in the day, simulators were not as advanced as recent day, so some pilot training was completed by crews actually flying the aircraft in which they were training. In about 1971-1972, an AA DC-10 was landing at GSW with a Delta DC-9 following. The DC-9 got caught in the wake vortecies of the AA jet on short final, causing the much smaller DC-9 to flip over and crash, killing all crew on board, which was 5 persons, IIRC. I believe this is what happened to the F-104, as it barrel rolled over the top of the XB-70.

Wow your editing skills are insane

Very well made explanation, didn't know about this incident yet. The transition between animation and photos felt so impactful, specially with the music and your commentary. Will you make more shorts about aerospace incidents? If so, I've subscribed for more in advance! 🙂👍

Vertical stabilizers/rudders we’re sheered off. Although I guess it’s OK to call them fins.

I remember the story I read in a military aviation magazine about this event. I don't know if it was true or not but it impressed me a lot. Here's what I remember. One of the pilots pulled eject and was ejected. Straps tightened around the other pilot and he was coffined in, but his elbow prevented the capsule to close well and it wouldn't eject. In pain, he had to struggle to pull his broken elbow in as the XB70 disintegrated. Finally the capsule sealed and ejected but heating wouldn't work. He fainted and began to undergo hypothermia. The capsule dropped several tens of thousands feet without releasing chutes. It hit ground on a steep slope and slid down several hundred metres. I cannot remember whether he lost his life or hypothermia kept him alive those interminable falldown minutes. Too many decades have passed.

This was a fantastic depiction.

The ejection systems of the time were plagued with problems too, the F-111 famously had to redesign the system 8 times before it would fire correctly. The surviving pilot here still got his arm crushed by the ejection capsule closing mechanism, sadly it's entirely possible that the co-pilot engaged his capsule as well and nothing happened.

Your voice and the soundtrack are very inspirable

Grew up in Barstow, this must be the plane crash that my mom talked about.

It’s cool to see things like this still being done. I watched documentary after documentary back in the early 90’s and late 80’s. The XB-70 was one of them. Awesome aircraft.

The XB-70 looks very similar to the later MiG MFI 1.44, but only larger. The delta wings and the twin tail section, the fuselage and front section resembles more like the Sukhoi and MiG design philosophy later on in the 70s and 80s.

The XB-70 was such a beautiful aircraft and this was one of the nails in the coffin stopping it from being used as a high speed bomber. RIP to the pilots that died in this horrific crash.

Close formation flying is dangerous.

I always assumed that the 104 pilot simply crashed onto XB-70 due to manual error, but turns out it is the work of low pressure zone over the wings. Very well made video indeed

Nice animations! The pilot, White had his arm crushed by the clam shell escape capsule the XB-70 used.