From the first of the 95 flights made by the Air Force's two XB-70 Valkyrie bombers since 1964, the mighty, 2,000-m.p.h. experimental craft has been gremlin plagued. On Valkyrie 1's maiden flight, a runaway engine had to be shut down and four tires blew out. Two months ago, Valkyrie 2 was saved when its copilot used a paper clip to short-circuit a crazed computer and free its locked-in landing gear (TIME, May 13).
Last week Valkyrie 2's luck ran out. The cobra-cowled bird lunged into a cloud-flecked morning sky from California's Edwards Air...
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