The F-102 Delta Dagger (Was GWB as a Nat'l Guard Fighter Pilot threads.)

"Alan Minyard" wrote in message
...

The six also had an area-ruled fuse, that is significant for a +mach bird.


So did the deuce.

"Alan Minyard" wrote in message
...
The six also had an area-ruled fuse, that is significant for a +mach bird.

Al MInyard

As did the F-102. See Joe Baugher article at
http://home.att.net/~jbaugher1/f102_1.html part of which I quote below. The
XF-92A is the aircraft which did not have "area rule".

Tex


The F-102 project was in serious trouble, and if a fix for the performance
problems could not be found, the entire project was in danger of
cancellation.

While eight more YF-102s (Model 8-82, serials 53-1779/1786) were being built
to the same standards as the first two aircraft, Convair embarked on a major
investigation and redesign program in an attempt to save the F-102. The
salvation of the project turned out to be in the "area rule" devised by NACA
scientist Richard Whitcomb. According to the area rule, the total cross
sectional area along the direction of flight should be a constant in order
to achieve minimum transonic drag. In order to achieve this, it was required
that the fuselage be narrowed down in the region where the wing roots were
attached, then broadened back out again when the wing trailing edge was
reached. This gave the aircraft fuselage a characteristic "wasp-waist" or
"Coke-bottle" shape. In order to achieve this, the length of the fuselage
was increased by 11 feet, and a pair of aerodynamic tail fairings were added
aft of the trailing edge, these fairings extending beyond the end of the
afterburner tailpipe in a pair of characteristic protrusions. These tail
fairings were for purely aerodynamic purposes and had no other function. A
new cockpit canopy with a sharper leading edge was fitted, although it had
an adverse effect on overall visibility. Cambered leading edges were fitted
to the thin delta wings to improve the behavior of the thin airfoil at high
angles of attack, and the wingtips were given wash-in.

In message m, David
E. Powell writes
Third. did the F-102 have a gun or just internal missiles in a weapon bay?

Falcon missiles (six IIRC) in the bay, plus 24 x 2.75" rockets (launch
tubes in the bay doors). From memory there were twelve tubes each with
two rockets nose-to-tail: this was sometimes downloaded to twelve, and
F-102s in Vietnam did some very light ground attack (using their IR
sensor to find targets like campfires and the rockets to engage). My
recollections may be at variance with the facts, so check before using


*There was a massive "Was GENIE a rocket or a missile" debate on another
group, which I won't get into here. I think the verdict was a rocket, which
it was, guided missile or not.

Unguided (and hence unjammable, but demanding to use correctly)

--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk

"Paul J. Adam" wrote:

In message m, David
E. Powell writes
Third. did the F-102 have a gun or just internal missiles in a weapon bay?

Falcon missiles (six IIRC) in the bay, plus 24 x 2.75" rockets (launch
tubes in the bay doors). From memory there were twelve tubes each with
two rockets nose-to-tail: this was sometimes downloaded to twelve, and
F-102s in Vietnam did some very light ground attack (using their IR
sensor to find targets like campfires and the rockets to engage). My
recollections may be at variance with the facts, so check before using


*There was a massive "Was GENIE a rocket or a missile" debate on another
group, which I won't get into here. I think the verdict was a rocket, which
it was, guided missile or not.

Unguided (and hence unjammable, but demanding to use correctly)

Jack Broughton was less than confident about the Genie's accuracy. He compared
firing one to tying a piece of string around your finger and the other end
around the trigger of a shotgun. When you wanted to fire the shotgun, you threw
it away from you and it fired when the string pulled taught, with the accuracy
you'd expect under such conditions. He goes on (I've left his spelling
unchanged):

"Two specific cases made me a non-Geenie [sic] fan. The first Geenie that was
test-fired from an F-106 came right back up, blew the nose off the aircraft, and
killed the pilot. Years later I got a chance to go to Tyndal [sic] with my
F-106 squadron. ADC had saved their resources too well and wound up with a
large number of Geenies that only had a few days to go before they would run out
of shelf life and have to be destroyed. The plan was to fire as many of them as
fast as we could, so for a week straight we saturated the Gulf of Mexico with
every Geenie that we could get to accept the firing signal and leave our
aircraft. They took off in all directions, but very seldom towards the target
drones. One particular Geenie turned hard left as I fired and I watched it do
lazy concentric barrel rolls as it headed straight down to my left. I knew that
if it was for real the boom only had to be close, but suppose straight down and
to the left was the area I was supposed to be defending? Well, the other theory
of the times was that we would be intercepting all the invading bombers way up
north someplace, where I wouldn't know anybody living off to my lower left."

[quoted from "Going Downtown", by Jack Broughton]

Guy

"Guy Alcala" wrote in message
. ..
"Paul J. Adam" wrote:

In message m, David
E. Powell writes
Third. did the F-102 have a gun or just internal missiles in a weapon
bay?

Falcon missiles (six IIRC) in the bay, plus 24 x 2.75" rockets (launch
tubes in the bay doors). From memory there were twelve tubes each with
two rockets nose-to-tail: this was sometimes downloaded to twelve, and
F-102s in Vietnam did some very light ground attack (using their IR
sensor to find targets like campfires and the rockets to engage). My
recollections may be at variance with the facts, so check before using


Thanks! I hadn't known about the 2.75 rockets, sounds like the F-94
Scorpion. The Falcon must have been a decent missile, the -106s and other
fighters used them into the 80s and early 90s.

*There was a massive "Was GENIE a rocket or a missile" debate on
another
group, which I won't get into here. I think the verdict was a rocket,
which
it was, guided missile or not.

Unguided (and hence unjammable, but demanding to use correctly)

OK....

Jack Broughton was less than confident about the Genie's accuracy. He
compared
firing one to tying a piece of string around your finger and the other end
around the trigger of a shotgun. When you wanted to fire the shotgun, you
threw
it away from you and it fired when the string pulled taught, with the
accuracy
you'd expect under such conditions. He goes on (I've left his spelling
unchanged):

"Two specific cases made me a non-Geenie [sic] fan. The first Geenie that
was
test-fired from an F-106 came right back up, blew the nose off the
aircraft, and
killed the pilot. Years later I got a chance to go to Tyndal [sic] with
my
F-106 squadron. ADC had saved their resources too well and wound up with
a
large number of Geenies that only had a few days to go before they would
run out
of shelf life and have to be destroyed. The plan was to fire as many of
them as
fast as we could, so for a week straight we saturated the Gulf of Mexico
with
every Geenie that we could get to accept the firing signal and leave our
aircraft. They took off in all directions, but very seldom towards the
target
drones. One particular Geenie turned hard left as I fired and I watched
it do
lazy concentric barrel rolls as it headed straight down to my left. I
knew that
if it was for real the boom only had to be close, but suppose straight
down and
to the left was the area I was supposed to be defending? Well, the other
theory
of the times was that we would be intercepting all the invading bombers
way up
north someplace, where I wouldn't know anybody living off to my lower
left."

Over tundra or ocean would have been the ideal use considered, I guess....

[quoted from "Going Downtown", by Jack Broughton]

Guy

On Fri, 13 Feb 2004 14:05:42 -0500, "Kevin Brooks" wrote:


"Alan Minyard" wrote in message
.. .
On Thu, 12 Feb 2004 16:03:28 GMT, "Mark"
wrote:


"David E. Powell" wrote in message
ws.com...
OK. I have seen the debate over GWB as an F-102 pilot, so I was
wondering
about a couple of things.

First, was the F-102 taken out of service in the early 1970s? I have to
ask
because as a kid I remember the Guard around here flying F-106s up to
around
1990 or 1991 or so, and they were closely related to the F-102. Though
I
recall them being (much) faster. Mach 1.8 vs. Mach 2.32 IIRC.

HANG (Hawaii) flew 102 until 1977 (last unit as best I can find out).
Now
the be TOTALLY correct Deuce was flown much longer than that as drone.

The Six was faster due to the fact that F-106 had engine with more thrust
(J75 vice J57). Not sure, but don't think Deuce had variable inlet
either
(open to correction)

The six also had an area-ruled fuse, that is significant for a +mach bird.

Actually, Al, the 102 used area rule--the lack of area rule resulted in the
first protype YF-102 being firmly subsonic. Redesign to incorporate area
rule yielded the F-102A, which was our first supersonic interceptor.

Brooks


Al MInyard

OOOOPS, thanks for the correction, I was probably thinking of pictures
of the prototypes.

A;l Minyard

On Fri, 13 Feb 2004 12:41:07 -0700, "Tex Houston" wrote:


"Alan Minyard" wrote in message
.. .
The six also had an area-ruled fuse, that is significant for a +mach bird.

Al MInyard

As did the F-102. See Joe Baugher article at
http://home.att.net/~jbaugher1/f102_1.html part of which I quote below. The
XF-92A is the aircraft which did not have "area rule".

Tex


The F-102 project was in serious trouble, and if a fix for the performance
problems could not be found, the entire project was in danger of
cancellation.

While eight more YF-102s (Model 8-82, serials 53-1779/1786) were being built
to the same standards as the first two aircraft, Convair embarked on a major
investigation and redesign program in an attempt to save the F-102. The
salvation of the project turned out to be in the "area rule" devised by NACA
scientist Richard Whitcomb. According to the area rule, the total cross
sectional area along the direction of flight should be a constant in order
to achieve minimum transonic drag. In order to achieve this, it was required
that the fuselage be narrowed down in the region where the wing roots were
attached, then broadened back out again when the wing trailing edge was
reached. This gave the aircraft fuselage a characteristic "wasp-waist" or
"Coke-bottle" shape. In order to achieve this, the length of the fuselage
was increased by 11 feet, and a pair of aerodynamic tail fairings were added
aft of the trailing edge, these fairings extending beyond the end of the
afterburner tailpipe in a pair of characteristic protrusions. These tail
fairings were for purely aerodynamic purposes and had no other function. A
new cockpit canopy with a sharper leading edge was fitted, although it had
an adverse effect on overall visibility. Cambered leading edges were fitted
to the thin delta wings to improve the behavior of the thin airfoil at high
angles of attack, and the wingtips were given wash-in.


Thank you very much, Tex.

Al Minyard

In message m, David
E. Powell writes
Thanks! I hadn't known about the 2.75 rockets, sounds like the F-94
Scorpion. The Falcon must have been a decent missile, the -106s and other
fighters used them into the 80s and early 90s.

No, it sucked really badly (less than 5% Pk in Vietnam, although against
fighters at low level with some hostile factors) but it was a low
priority for replacement or enhancement.


--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk

"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message
...
In message m, David
E. Powell writes
Thanks! I hadn't known about the 2.75 rockets, sounds like the F-94
Scorpion. The Falcon must have been a decent missile, the -106s and other
fighters used them into the 80s and early 90s.

No, it sucked really badly (less than 5% Pk in Vietnam, although against
fighters at low level with some hostile factors) but it was a low
priority for replacement or enhancement.

Whoa - Considering how long they served I would have thought the opposite.
Maybe it was felt they had better odds against bombers. Or there was some
sort of upgrade by the '80s. Considering alot of ANG fighters that escorted
bombers up and down the seacost in the Cold War carried them.

I wonder if GWB ever flew with the nuclear version....?

DEP

Maybe that's why the F-106 got a cannon....

--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk

"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message
...
In message m, David
E. Powell writes
Thanks! I hadn't known about the 2.75 rockets, sounds like the F-94
Scorpion. The Falcon must have been a decent missile, the -106s and other
fighters used them into the 80s and early 90s.

No, it sucked really badly (less than 5% Pk in Vietnam, although against
fighters at low level with some hostile factors) but it was a low
priority for replacement or enhancement.

The real deal is that most F-106s were decoys, by the mid 1970s.