Vapor Trails - An alternate timeline

[LostCosmonaut]

Fairey Delta III


Avro Arrow Rollout Ceremony



An early version of Archangel:

[LostCosmonaut]

Bump for comments.

[IndefatigableRN]

Glad to see the Arrow make an appearance.

Out of curiosity, is anyone else going to buy the Arrow? Without that, there is little point in continuing production.

[LostCosmonaut]

Japan is purchasing a few dozen examples ITTL, after the Soviets flew a couple Badgers over Hokkaido. Haven't decided whether anyone else is yet. The British considered it for the F155T requirement, but unfortunately, the Arrow suffers from a debilitating case of "not built here" syndrome.

[LostCosmonaut]

April 1959: Development of the British Blue Steel missile begins. The nuclear tipped missile will be deployed on RAF Vulcans.



April 1959: The F-106 Delta Dart enters operation service with the USAF.



May 1959: The Soviet MiG-21 begins entering service. It represents a massive increase in capability over the MiG-19.



June 1959: The RCAF issues a requirement for an aircraft to be used in the nuclear strike role, as the Arrow is considered to be unsuitable. After much consideration, it is decided thatan Iroquois engined version of the American F-105 Thunderchief will be license produced by Canadair under the designation CF-113. It is expected that up to 120 CF-113s will be produced.


June 1959: The CIA selects the twelfth design of the Archangel program, the A-12, as its final choice for its reconnaissance aircraft. Production begins under the codename OXCART. The aircraft will use a derive of the massive J58 engine, modified for Mach 3 flight.


19 July 1959: The English Electric Lightning enters service. It is one of the highest performing interceptors in existence, however, it is only a stopgap until the Fairey Delta interceptor inters service.


September 1959: The B-58 begins to enter operational service.


October 1959: Deployment of the R-6 (Burya) cruise missile begins at sites in Belarus, Ukraine, and Kamchatka. This places most of Europe, as well as all of Japan and the west coast of the United States in range of the missiles. Each missile is equipped with a 600 kiloton nuclear warhead, and has a CEP of 7 km.



December 1959: The USAF issues a requirement for a new bomber aircraft with intercontinental range and Mach 3 capability. Boeing and North American Aviation begin design studies.


Throughout 1960s: Relations between the Soviet Union and China begin to deteriorate due to the differences in the variants of communism practiced: Leninism and Maoism. The Chinese, who support Maoism, are much more confrontational toward the capitalist countries, nearly to the point of advocating open war.


January 1960: The SM-64 cruise missile (Navaho) begins operational deployment. Initial sites are at air force bases in Maine, New Hampshire, and California. Navahos are also deployed in the Midlands area of the UK, under a dual-key arrangement.



13 February 1960: The first Chinese DF-1 missile is successfully tested. Mass production begins immediately. NATO is unconcerned and considers the weapon to be of little strategic value.


May 1 1960: No American aircraft enter Soviet airspace, therefore, none are shot down by surface to air missiles.


August 1960: Swedish colonel and Soviet agent Stig Wennerstrom obtains plans for the Rb 24, a Swedish variant of the American AIM-9. He sends a copy of the plans to his handlers in Moscow.


November 1960: The Sukhoi design bureau begins design studies into a research aircraft designed to operate at speeds of Mach 3-5. The aircraft will be carried aloft under a Tu-95, and use its rocket motor to accelerate to supersonic speeds, where a ramjet will ignite.


November 1960: In response to the deployment of the R-6, the US and Canada begin looking into developing an interceptor capable of shooting down the missile. The RCAF plans on fielding an advanced derivative of the Arrow, while the US looks to develop an entirely new aircraft.


November 1960: Democrat John F. Kennedy wins the US presidential election.


December 1960: After receiving information on the radar frequencies used by the S-75 surface to air missile, the RAF, in cooperation with the RCAF, begins development of the Green Jack, an antiradiation missile (ARM). The completed project will be compatible with the Vulcan and Canadian Thunderchiefs.


9 March 1961: First flight of the CF-113 Thunderchief. The aircraft will be equipped with nuclear freefall bombs furnished by the US. The aircraft is also equipped for the conventional strike role.


June 1961: The Tu-22 Blinder begins entering operational service in the Soviet Union.


August 1961: A senior USAF officer at the Pentagon finds out about the OXCART program. Intrigued, he contacts the Skunk Works to inquire about the possibility of the A-12 being used as an interceptor.


September 1961: The British Delta F.1 enters service. A reconnaissance variant, the PR.1, is also planned.


7 October 1961: The Lockheed A-12 makes its first test flight.


2 December 1961: Two Soviet MiG-19s, flying from Estonia, violate Swedish airspace over Gotland. They are intercepted by a pair of Swedish J35s. One of the MiGs fires on a Swedish aircraft, and in the ensuing dogfight, both MiGs are shot down. One Draken is damaged and makes an emergency landing on a nearby highway. Much Soviet saber-rattling occurs, including flying a pair of Tu-22s at supersonic speeds off the Swedish coast near Stockholm. Open war, however, is averted.



January 1962: In the Mach 3 bomber competition, the North American entry is judged to be superior and selected for further development. It receives the preliminary designation XB-70. Uniquely, the design uses compression lift to improve its performance at supersonic speeds.


February 1962: The first Green Jack test article is produced. The USAF makes an agreement to license produce the missile as the AGM-41.


March 1962: The Soviet K-13 (also known as R-3 or AA-2) missile begins to enter service. It is an almost exact copy of the AIM-9.


27 March 1962: Aircraft 60-6925, a CIA A-12, reaches a top speed of Mach 3.03 during flight testing.

[LostCosmonaut]

A-12 OXCART



XB-70 with Compression lift:


F-105D (Version that was modified into CF-113):





If somebody could make a drawing of the CF-113 in Canadian colors, I would be eternally grateful (my paint skills are an atrocity).

[MUC]

Very nice ATL.

Please, please, please give us this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superso...titude_Missile

[Simreeve]

Originally Posted by LostCosmonaut

The British considered it for the F155T requirement, but unfortunately, the Arrow suffers from a debilitating case of "not built here" syndrome.

At least it's "built in the Commonwealth" rather than, say, American or -- worse yet! -- French...

[LostCosmonaut]

Originally Posted by MUC

Very nice ATL.

Please, please, please give us this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superso...titude_Missile

Pluto is not going to happen, the environmental risks are too great, and within a few years in this timeline, there's going to be higher performance missiles and bombers with the range and performance to render Pluto irrelevant. I haven't decided yet whether to take the project as far as it got OTL, or actually testing a prototype and having it cause a Castle Bravo style fallout incident.

[LostCosmonaut]

I had some free time, so enjoy a mini-update:

*
*
*

Red Streak




0620 7 April 1962

45,000 feet (13700 m) above Northern Alberta

“Snow’s starting to melt.” Thought Major C. R. Petersen as he serenely cruised at Mach .9 over Northern Alberta.



Major Petersen had started off flying the CF-100, or “Clunk” as it was commonly known. A year ago, his unit, 409 squadron, flying out of CFB Cold Lake, had transitioned to the new Arrows that were heralded as the future of the RCAF. Petersen had nothing against his old ride, but it flew like an old truck compared to the plane he flew now, Arrow RL 219. In 219, he could easily make 60,000 feet at twice the speed of sound, 15,000 feet above and twice as fast as the Clunk. But Major Petersen wasn’t flying 219 today. Instead, he was flying a different Arrow, RL-217.

And RL 217 was not an ordinary Arrow.

While her sisters on the Avro Canada production line were getting fitted with the radars and weapon mountings that would let them track and kill Soviet Bombers from miles away, RL 217 was taken off to the side, into a separate part of the Avro Canada facility. She never got her radar, or the avionics and mounting points that would let her use Sparrow missiles like her sisters. She never even got a coat of paint, except for a single red stripe down the side, and a stylized maple leaf on the tail.



RL 217, did, however, get some things normal Arrows didn’t. Her inlets were tweaked, with the geometry varied by a few degrees here and there. Her Iroquois engines were modified, being less efficient, but producing 10% more thrust at full power. Her outer wing panels were replaced with a thinner, smoother section. Every access panel was smoothed and resmoothed. Even the canopy glass was modified, replaced with a special, reduced friction glass.


What the Avro Canada engineers hoped was that, while most Arrows topped out at around Mach 2.45 or so, RL 217 would be able to hit 2.7 or possibly even 2.8.



Two weeks ago, the British had pushed a modified version of one of their Delta interceptors out to Mach 2.63. That had been good enough to best the American’s best offering, a modified F-106 which had managed 2.57. (The Soviet’s fastest plane, a highly modified derivative of the MiG-21, was only capable of about Mach 2.35.)


Today, RL 217, with Major Petersen at the controls, would break all those records.


“Everything checks out, you’re good for the attempt.” Major Petersen’s squadmate, Captain MacAndrew, was flying chase in RL 283, one of 409 squadrons regular planes.


“Roger” Petersen applied full throttle, and angled the nose up, as 217 easily tore through the sound barrier. By the time he reached his planned altitude of 55,000 feet, he was already doing Mach 1.8. Once he leveled out, though, things really started happening.


1.9…2…2.1….2.2….2.3…2.35…..2.4…..2.45….2.5 The machmeter rapidly spun upward, as Petersen went faster than he ever had before. But 217 wasn’t done yet, and less than a minute later, it was screaming across the sky at Mach 2.7.


Major Petersen was no longer a pilot. He was the very embodiment of speed itself, an elemental force tearing apart the sky. The sparse wastes of northern Alberta were torn apart by a sound of thunder unlike anything ever heard before, as clouds appeared ahead and fell behind in mere seconds.



Petersen glanced down at the machmeter, and saw it fluttering around 2.79. He also noticed his fuel gauges moving perilously to empty. Gradually, he brought the throttles back, and began prepping for descent.



“Well, Mac, looks like we did it. I think I topped out at about 2.79.”



“Yeah. We have to wait for the eggheads to go over the data and confirm it, but it should be good for a record. About time somebody taught the Brits and Yanks how to fly.”


“Damn right.”




*
*
*








Meanwhile

84,000 feet above the Nevada – Utah border

“Control, this is Sierra 20, we have reached the target altitude. Holding steady at mach 3.2.”


“Roger that, Sierra. Proceed with the briefed test plan.”

[Asnys]

Oh, ouch. Well, if this is the SR-71, hopefully the Canadians will get to enjoy their record for at least a little while before it's declassified.

[LostCosmonaut]

2 April 1962: Aircraft RL-219, a modified RCAF Arrow, sets an official speed record of Mach 2.79 (The A-12 is still classified).

May 1962: The North American A3J Vigilante, after a protracted development process, enters service with the US Navy. The aircraft is optimized for low-level nuclear strike, and is capable of reaching Mach 2 at altitude, as well as supersonic speeds at low level. With the introduction of the A3J, the US Navy begins shifting its P6Ms from the nuclear strike role to an antishipping role.

May 1962: The McDonnell Douglas F4H Phantom II enters US Navy service. The Mach 2.4 capable interceptor, widely regarded as “The Triumph of Thrust Over Aerodynamics”, is the most advanced carrier based aircraft yet produced. Its armament of up to 6 AIM-7 missiles will enable to engage Soviet AShM carrying bombers at extreme range. The F4H is also produced for USMC service. Together with the A3J, the F4H represents a massive increase in US Navy aerial capabilities.

June 1962: Development of the Kh-21, an antiradiation missile tailored for use against the Bomarc and Nike Ajax missiles used in US air defense begins.

August 1962: Work begins on Project Rifleman, a successor to the SM-64 Navaho cruise missile.

September 1962: The S-125 surface-to-air missile enters service in the Soviet Union. The missile has been rushed into service in order to counter the development of the Green Jack antiradiation missile.

13 November 1962: The YF-12, an interceptor variant of the A-12, makes its first flight. The aircraft is equipped with the colossal AIM-47 missile, which has a range in excess of 100 miles.

December 1962: Work on the R-9, a successor to the Soviet R-6 cruise missile begins.

January 1963: The RAF issues a requirement for a supersonic bomber to replace the Vulcans and Victors in service. The new aircraft is planned to be capable of Mach 2.5 at altitude, with intercontinental range.

April 1963: The CF-113 begins entering RCAF service. By the end of the year, 406 Squadron will make its first operational deployment to Northern Germany.

18 May 1963: The first Green Jack test firing occurs at Woomera test range in Australia. RAF, RCAF, and USAF observers are present. The completed missile is expected to have a range of approximately 90 km, with a top speed of Mach 2.

22 June 1963: The first glide test of the X-11 (1) experimental aircraft occurs. The aircraft is dropped from the B-52 Balls 8 while flying at 40,000 feet, and successfully glides to a landing on the dry lake bed at Edwards AFB. The aircraft is constructed of a heat-resistant nickel alloy with a small tailed-delta wing, as well as a comparatively large vertical tail for directional stability at high speeds. It is hoped that the aircraft will be able to reach speeds of up to Mach 4 at altitudes near 200,000 feet (61000 meters).

19 July 1963: The Ye-155P prototype “Article 82” makes its first flight.

19 July 1963: The first B-70 prototype makes its first flight.

2 August 1963: The first XB-70 prototype suffers a structural failure while travelling at Mach 2.6, losing 18 of the right wing leading edge.
Fortunately, the aircraft is able to decelerate and limp back to base. All XB-70 prototypes are limited to Mach 2 while a fix is hastily researched.

7 September 1963: The X-11 ignites its twin XLR 19 rocket motors (2) for the first time. The test flight is short, with an altitude of only 60,000 feet reached. However, it is considered as success, as the engines and airframe perform nominally.

October 1963: The Tupolev design bureau begins work on a successor to the Tu-22. Early in the program, it is decided that the aircraft will incorporate a variable geometry wing to improve performance over a wide range of speeds.

9 October 1963: A YF-12 prototype successfully intercepts and destroys a QSM-64 target drone travelling at altitude.

12 December 1963: While flying at Mach 3.3 at 82,000 feet, a YF-12 prototype successfully destroys a target drone flying at an altitude of 250 feet.

6 January 1964: A USAF F-105 successfully fires an AGM-41 for the first time.

February 1964: Development of the Arrow Mk III begins. The aircraft will be slightly larger than the Mk II, and will feature revised intakes, and more powerful engines. However, the most notable difference is the four ramjets attached to underwing pylons. It is planned that the aircraft, due to its increase payload capacity, will be able to carry a pair of AIM-47 missiles.

19 March 1964: The first Chinese nuclear weapon is successful airdropped from a PLAAF H-5. The device has a nominal yield of 30 kilotons.

April 1964: The USAF places an order for six squadrons of F-12s. These aircraft will replace the remaining F-102s being used in the interceptor role, and will be used for CONUS air defense. Lockheed attempts to sell the aircraft to Canada, but is rebuffed.

7 June 1964: The Ye-155 prototype “Article 82” is lost after suffering catastrophic uncontained turbine failure at high speed. The test pilot successfully ejects while traveling at Mach 2.7 at 75,000 feet. The development program is halted, as the R-15 engines being used are unstable at high Mach numbers, and therefore unsuitable for usage.

September 1964: The first unit of USAF F-100s deploys to South Vietnam. Two squadrons of F-105s arrive one week later. The presence of these units is intended to act as a deterrent against further aggression by North Vietnam. This coincides with a general buildup of US forces in Southeast Asian, as the Vietnamese civil war escalates.

23 October 1964: The Soviet MiG-101 (3), a high speed research aircraft makes its first flight, when it is dropped from a Tu-95 and glides to earth. Unlike the X-11, which is powered by a LOX/Ammonia engine, the MiG-101’s main power comes from a Tumansky R-17 ramjet buried in the aft fuselage.

26 October 1964: USAF F-105s bomb an NVA depot in response for Vietcong attacks in South Vietnam.

15 November 1964: USAF F-105s again bomb an NVA installation in response to attacks in South Vietnam.

6 January 1965: China conducts the first test firing of the DF-2 tactical missile, which has over twice the range of the DF-1. For now, it is incapable of carrying the fairly bulky nuclear weapons in Chinese service.

2 February 1965: Groundhog Day incident. In response to Viet Cong attacks, eight F-105s are sent to bomb a newly constructed NVA barracks near the DMZ. However, North Vietnamese forces have anticipated the American response and heavily fortified the area with anti-aircraft guns, including multiple 57 mm pieces. One F-105 is shot down, and another is severely damaged by ground fire. To make matters worse, while struggling to reform their formation, the F-105s are attacked by a flight of NVAF MiG-17s. Heavily loaded, travelling at low speed, and unescorted, the American aircraft find it difficult to evade interception, and three F-105s are destroyed by the MiGs, which escape with no losses.

(1) Rough counterpart to X-15. Many of the “X-Planes” before the X-15 were actually sounding rockets, which wouldn’t have been developed ITTL. As a result, the X-15 gets a different designation.

(2) Slightly more thrust than the XLR-11. As a result, the X-11 is going to be quite underpowered compared to the X-15.

(3) Just a heads up, this thing might be important in the future.

[LostCosmonaut]

Bump for comments.

Also, I really need to get some paint skills.

[MUC]

Great TL so far, keep t up!

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

X11 is powered by loxlh2!?

Ayayay!

[LostCosmonaut]

Originally Posted by Dathi THorfinnsson

X11 is powered by loxlh2!?

Ayayay!

That's a fairly severe type, it's supposed to be LOX/Ammonia.

Should be fixed now.

[Shevek23]

Originally Posted by Dathi THorfinnsson

X11 is powered by loxlh2!?

Ayayay!

Yeah, there's really no reason it should be. Lox/kerosene is quite good enough, better in some ways--an aerodynamic rocket plane needs to limit its volume as much as its mass, and in the early state of the art (especially because no one is making ICBMs and hence not satellites either) a hydrogen rocket is much harder than a kerosene one to make its nozzle efficient in atmosphere, so you probably couldn't even realize a real advantage in terms of ISP in 1960. Since that's the only advantage hydrogen offers over kerosene for a rocket, there'd be less than no point, unless the project was funded under the conditon of pushing the state of the art to realize hydrogen rockets too. But why would anyone be doing that unless they are looking forward to deep space rockets?

Actually the OTL Oxcart project that led to the SR-71 being developed did call for hydrogen fuel--used as jet fuel in a high-supersonic (still not hypersonic) jet engine. OTL some of the homework done toward trying to make this first version of Oxcart work did have some bearing on the successful development of NASA's hydrogen/LOX upper stage rockets.

With an airbreathing engine you see, the weight of the oxygen doesn't figure and the question of how much the fuel alone weighs is more important, helping more to offset the greater bulk of LH tanks versus hydrocarbon tanks. With rockets, though, with either a ker-lox or LH2-lox version the oxygen is the major part of the mass and the difference in ISP (in vacuum) is less than 50 percent greater for the hydrogen version. That makes a big difference (if you can realize it, but ISP is cut down in atmosphere and this levels the field between them more in kerosene's favor) when we are dealing with orbital rockets trying to reach mission delta-Vs between 8000 and 10,000 meters/sec, hence several ISPs which fraction is taken to the exponent to get big differences in launch mass. Also of course, with a ballistic rocket launch, the upper stage engines are already well on their way out of the atmosphere when fired, so NASA's strategy in Apollo of using kerlox engines for the first stage (when the atmosphere would have robbed them of most of hydrogen's advantage anyway, and with ker-lox engines being easier to design for very high thrusts, which are badly needed during the initial launch) and then hydrogen on the upper stages paid off well.

But using the rocket essentially as a jet engine to sustain aerodynamic flight, it all comes down to ISP, and at best that means hydrogen gives maybe 30 percent better performance, at the cost of a much bigger fuel tank (one with all kinds of expensive and risky special requirements too, like being kept just a couple dozen degrees above absolute zero while the plane is barreling through atmosphere heated to thousands of degrees by shock compression).

If the engine were using atmospheric oxygen it makes a much more worthwhile difference to accept the liabilities of hydrogen and get the benefit of a fuel load that weighs considerably less than half as much, which is why Oxcart OTL tried (and failed) to make it work in this same time frame.

Actually I think it's weird you're going with any rocketplanes in this timeline yet, since the whole spirit of the thing is "WI rockets were a dead end, at least for a couple decades, and we pressed on with non-rocket tech instead?" The X-11 is of course experimental and designed mainly to test out high supersonic/low hypersonic flight regimes, that transition to essentially vacuum, so presumably an operational hypersonic Air Force interceptor is not around the corner.

But yes, the X-11 engine should be kerlox, not hydrogen burning.

Unless there are plans to use rockets to accelerate up to scramjet speeds and then use hydrogen for scramjet fuel. But that would be a different X-plane. (One I think would not be so easy to make, since we've yet to achieve much success on those lines OTL). If such a scramjet were being developed, it would pretty much have to use hydrogen fuel--under those circumstances a case could be made that they might as well integrate all its fuel into one, which would mean any subsonic/low supersonic jet engines and any transitional/orbital maneuvering rocket engines should also burn hydrogen, since we have to make the dang tank for the scramming phase anyway--might as well make it a little bigger and get the benefit of using hydrogen in all phases since we need to carry it anyhow.

Or, if someone is pursuing a LACE type engine--and realizes, anticipating the OTL track of Reaction Engines Ltd that actually liquefying air on the fly is going unnecessarly far and they need to merely cool it down as a gas to the point of almost liquefying it, thus deriving a SCIMITAR type jet or even a SABRE type integrated jet/rocket engine--they need to use hydrogen because only it has the heat sink capacity to do the job of chilling the air.

If someone anticipates that either the scramjets or the cooled-air type engines are going to be the next thing they need to test, it might make sense to get used to the idea of using hydrogen right now, even though it actually makes less sense than ker-lox for the job immediately at hand.

[LostCosmonaut]

Yeah, LOX/LH is a very bad choice for an atmospheric test plane. I'm honestly not sure how that even got in there, the engine is powered by LOX and Liquid Ammonia, like the OTL XLR 99. Performance wise, this timeline's XLR 19 is supposed to basically be a slight improvement over the XLR 11. Considering that the XLR 11 was developed in the 40s (indeed, it powered the X-1), the tech is fairly in line with what I'm planning this timeline. The X-11 is the same general concept as the X-15, but it's going to be severely performance limited compared to what we had OTL. No astronaut wings for any X-11 test pilots . In the general plans I have laid out, the first suborbital flight is probably going to happen sometime around 1967-1968, and orbital flights won't be for a few years after that.

Also, observant readers will note that the while the Americans and Soviets haven't been putting a whole lot of research into rocketry, others have.

[LostCosmonaut]

6 February 1965: President Kennedy authorizes large scale conventional retaliation against North Vietnamese forces.



9 February 1965: Two squadrons of F-102s arrive in Thailand. A squadron of F-106s arrives four days later.


18 February 1965: Operation Flaming Arrow begins. The operations has two main objectives:
(11) Push NVA forces back from the DMZ, and limit their ability to support Viet Cong attacks in the south.
(22) Eliminate the threat posed by NVAF forces.

Due to fear of Chinese or Soviet action, targets within Hanoi city limits, as well as near the Chinese border, are off limits.


20 February 1965: First aerial combat of operation Flaming Arrow. A flight of four USAF F-102s engages a group of MiG-17s. No kills are achieved, but the MiGs are forced to abort their attacks against bombers in the area.


3 March 1965: The first North Vietnamese pilots arrive in the Soviet Union to begin MiG-21 conversion training.



11 March 1965: American F-105s bomb Gia Lam airport near Hanoi, destroying 8 NVAF MiG-17s on the ground. Two MiG-17s are shot down by escorting F-106s.


April 1965: The F-12 begins entering operational service.


April 1965: The RAF selects the Avro 740 as its new bomber design. Due to the technical issues involved, the new bomber is not expected to enter service until the early 1970s.


April 1965: The aircraft carrier USS Oriskany arrives off the coast of Vietnam to support operation Flaming Arrow. USN carriers will provide support for Air Force bombing efforts for the duration of the conflict.



18 June 1965: The MiG-101 ignites its ramjet for the first time, reaching a speed of Mach 3.05 at 76,000 feet.



2 August 1965: The Soviet R-9 cruise missile makes its first test flight. The missile suffers a guidance system failure and crashes into the Arctic Ocean after flying 1300 km.



19 August 1965: An X-11, flown by NACA pilot Bruce McCook, reaches an altitude of 145,000 feet at a speed of Mach 3.74. Development work has recently began on the X-11B, an improved version with more powerful rocket engines and improved aerodynamics. It is planned that this new version will be able to reach altitudes of up to 300,000 feet, near the edge of space.


8 November 1965: The first re-engined MiG-25 prototype makes it first flight. The aircraft has been equipped with the NK-25R engine, a modified version of the engine that will power the new Tupolev bomber project. The prototype receives the designation Ye-157.


4 January 1966: A USAF F-12, aircraft 65-0836, sets an official airspeed record, reaching a speed of Mach 3.42 at an altitude of 87,000 feet (26500 meters).


February 1966: The Sukhoi design bureau begins development work on a Mach 3 bomber aircraft, designed to be similar to the American B-70.


7 March 1966: Air Force colonel Robin Olds records his fifth and sixth kills of the Vietnam conflict, while flying an F-106. Combined with his 12 kills in World War 2, and 8 in Korea, he becomes the first pilot to become an ace in three separate wars.


17 May 1966: The Ye-157 test aircraft reaches a maximum speed of Mach 3.31.


May 1966: Work begins on the MiG-103, a successor to the MiG-101. It is planned that the MiG-103 will be launched from a high-speed carrier aircraft, rather than air-dropped from a subsonic Tu-95. This will allow for improved performance.


29 July 1966: The SM-78 Rifleman, an improved successor to the SM-64 Navaho, makes its first test flight. The missile breaks apart 57 seconds into the flight.


October 1966: The US Navy and McDonnell Douglas begin development on an improved version of the F4H. The new version is planned to counter future high-performance Soviet bombers, and is planned to have a top speed around Mach 2.8.


28 November 1966: The MiG-101 reaches a top speed of Mach 3.61 at an altitude of 124,000 feet.


December 1966: The B-70 begins to enter operational service. Due to spiraling costs, the USAF has decided to only purchase two squadrons of the aircraft.


1 January 1967: The Soviet Union tests the AN 710 nuclear weapon, known to the west as the “Tsar Bomb”. The bomb successfully reaches its design yield of 120 Megatons, and is the largest man-made explosion in history. Due to the large physical size of the bomb, the device is not a practical weapon, and is merely intended as a demonstration. Following the test, public pressure for the United States and the Soviet Union to begin disarmament talks begins.



7 February 1967: The Arrow Mk III makes its first flight. During the course of development, the aircraft has evolved to the point that it has little in common with the Mk II Arrow besides its basic configuration. The Mk III is significantly larger, and features two ramjet engines in addition to the main Iroquois engines.


March 1967: Due to severe delays in the development of its own Mach 3 interceptor, the RAF decides to purchase a small number of Arrow Mk IIIs to supplement its existing interceptors.


April 1967: The MiG-25 is approved for production by the Red Air Force.



5 June 1967: The SM-78 makes its first fully successful test flight, travelling 9,000 kilometers at a speed of Mach 3.7. The missile impacts within ½ mile of the target location.


19 July 1967: Arrow Mk III RL-607 reaches a speed of Mach 2.81 at an altitude of 83,000 feet (25000 meters).

21 July: Third Taiwan Strait Crisis begins.

[Asnys]

Originally Posted by LostCosmonaut

1 January 1967: The Soviet Union tests the AN 710 nuclear weapon, known to the west as the “Tsar Bomb”. The bomb successfully reaches its design yield of 120 Megatons, and is the largest man-made explosion in history. Due to the large physical size of the bomb, the device is not a practical weapon, and is merely intended as a demonstration. Following the test, public pressure for the United States and the Soviet Union to begin disarmament talks begins.

Good grief, they tested the full yield version? My vague memory is they projected it would add 10% to the total global fallout burden all by itself. Did the Limited Test Ban Treaty end up happening ITTL?