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Road to Top Gun — Bret Becker and his amazing North American XB-70 Valkyrie

GSNadmin

Staff member
Intended to be the ultimate deep-penetration nuclear equipped strategic bomber, the North American Aviation XB-70 Valkyrie looks like it jumped off the pages of a Buck Rogers pulp-fiction comic book. The six-engined bomber was capable of reaching speeds in access of mach 3 while flying at an altitude of 70,000 feet. The XB-70’s maiden flight was on 21 September 1964 and it first flew supersonic on it’s third test flight on 12 October 1964.



What a great subject for a Top Gun aircraft and Bret Becker thought he’d give it a try. Since learning to fly in the early 90s, competing at Top Gun has always been on his bucket list. So this year Bert is very excited to make it a reality and plans to get his feet wet competing in the Sportsman Class.



Originally from Los Angeles Bert have been living in Dayton Ohio for the past 2 years. He was blown away by the XB-70’s presence seeing it for the first time in the USAF Museum in Dayton. He had been planning to build one from scratch and reached out to my friend and fellow modeler Ray Cannon of Hemet, California for advice. Ray had built an XB-70 in 2001. He had limited success with the model and it spent many years in his basement after sustaining flight damage. He wanted to see it fly again but had lost motivation. So,



Bert was able to acquire the model and spent the past year restoring the model to flight condition.

Here are some specs:

Length: 8 ft.

WS: 56 in.

Weight 25 lbs.

The construction is of balsa and ply with a painted fiberglass finish. Power comes from four Schubeler HDS-30 (70mm) EDF units mated to Tenshock 1540-9 motors, and fed by YEP 80 amp ESCs and one 6S 4500 LiPo pack per fan. The landing gear are Robart 550 series, and Bert is using a Futaba 14 channel radio system.





Photos from inside the museum were taken by Victoria Thomas including some with his fiancé Wency.

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