The proposed X-15A-3 was a stretched, delta-winged version intended for extended duration flight at Mach 6+. As with the X-15 and X-15A-2 versions, the plan was to launch the X-15A-3 from a B-52 underwing pylong. However, North American Aviation proposed launching it from atop a B-70 bomber. The theory was that the B-70 could get the X-15 up to around Mach 3 prior to separation, thus greatly improving the rocketplanes performance. However, launchign winged vehicles from the back of supersonic aircraft is non-trivially difficult… as the M-21/D-21 crash demonstrated.
The X-15A-3 shown here is an early design. The final version featured diamond-shaped wingtip fins.
You can download a 12 megabyte JPG file of the artwork; the link is HERE. To access it, you will need to enter a username and password. The username: the first word in the body of the text on page 3 of APR issue V2N6. The password: the first word in the body of the text on page 4 of the same issue. Note that both are case sensitive.
Hmmm. I’m getting “page not found”.
Hmmm. Seems the file has a spurious additional “.jpg” at the end.
[…] studies that examined the possibility of supersonic air-launching a rocket-ramjet-scramjet powered delta winged version of the X-15 from the back of the XB-70 at Mach 3 that had a small expendable upper stage rocket for carrying […]