Not sure how true it is, but IIRC, it's been said the XB-70 inspired the entire MiG-25 project, and the whole "Sustained Mach III, although the engine has to be replaced afterward"-capabilitythat one can either view as a "feature" or a liability, depending on one's point of view.
Makes me wonder if we couldn't have "Reaganed out" the USSR a decade earlier if we'd kept up with such things.
Yes, I've heard that too. Except the Russians kept the MiG-25 project going. In the mid 1970s Russian MiG-25 pilot Victor Belenko defected from the USSR with a example of this plane, landing it at a Japanese airport. Our intel guys went over it with a fine tooth comb and debriefed Belenko.
What we found included the fact that:
1.) The MiG-25, while developed to counter the B-70 Valkyrie, would have never been actually capable of intercepting one.
2.) Could not out dogfight the then 20 year old F-4 Phantom.
3.) Had radar & avionics powered by vacuum tubes. Although crude by American standards, it could "burn through" much of the electronic countermeasures then available. It was so powerful it killed rabbits & small fauna on the runway ahead of the plane, prompting one tree-hugging bunny-lover Russian General to order his pilots to keep the radar off until they were airborne.
4.) Could fly above Mach 3 speeds but only through the sacrifice of its enormous Tumansky engines, and then only at high altitude where friction would not melt the fuselage.
The B-70 Valkyrie was a fascinating aircraft in itself. One serendipotus effect was the fact that due to its configuration, interference patterns that would normally cause drag and slow down an aircraft, actually helped accelerate the B-70.
