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KommandantDex@reddit

The later numbers of the Century Series were indeed odd designs.

F-106: Updated F-102, pretty much just needs the pilot to fly it to the target and it would do the rest.

F-107: The Super-Duper Sabre.

F-108: The fighter pilot's XB-70.

F-109(?): F-104/F-8 hybrid with four wingtip VTOL lift jets, two on each wingtip, housed in what looked like a scaled down English Electric Lightning engine configuration. Actually known as the D-188A.

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Poagie_Mahoney@reddit

Unlike North American with the subject XF-108, Bell got enough money from the Air Force and Navy to make a full size mockup of the D-188A. I wonder what became of it. A quick search yielded no straightforward results, but this (blog) article contains some nice photos of the mockup as well about information of the project: https://www.jetsprops.com/prototype/d-188a-bells-eight-engine-vtol-jet.html

Not only did it have the 4 wingtip swivel jets, but 4 more in the fuselage. 2 aft for normal horizontal/longitudinal thrust, and 2 behind the cockpit for assisting with VTOL. I also wonder the latter 2 had exhausts that could swivel—similar to Harrier jets—or if they were just dead weight in normal horizontal flight. Neither the above article nor the Wikipedia entry clarifies it.

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HumpyPocock@reddit

Art of the D188A in VTOL mode depicts the forward powerplant‘s installed config having four hatches that open outboard, one induction hatch and one exhaust hatch per engine. Exhausts are canted forward circa 10° per the diagram below. Induction is a whole other problem. Plus lack of afterburners, etc.

TL;DR rather certain those are dead weight in flight.

PS the Characteristics Summary circa 28 Feb 1958

Hm were one to open the hatches at Mach 2 tho…

Guinness Book of World Records

LOUDEST FATALITY via IMITATION FLUTE

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Foreign_Athlete_7693@reddit

using curved plates that rotate around the pipe 180 degrees to redirect the flow downwards is an interesting idea ive not seen before....

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amazingperson124@reddit

Was this at all related to the EWR VJ 101? The similarities seem uncanny

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SpaceInMyBrain@reddit

Not much of a dogfighter, lol. But if Lockheed built it they would've also marketed it as a fighter-bomber.

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Occams_rusty_razor@reddit

The aircraft was designed at a time when it was believed that dog fighting was a thing of the past. Plus, I believe this aircraft was designed as an interceptor for Air Defense Command (ADC) so it was intended to deal with Soviet bombers. In that case I believe the AIM-47 missiles were expected to be tipped with nukes. Fire a nuke into a bomber stream and there is no need for maneuverability.

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SpaceInMyBrain@reddit

My bad, I didn't include the wink emoji. This reminded me of another interceptor for the ADC, the F-104. Despite its unsuitability for the role Lockheed sold it to Germany as a fighter-bomber. Ditto for Italy (and others?).

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Occams_rusty_razor@reddit

Don't worry about it. I was too picky. Yes, Lockheed got into a lot of hot water over that. Some execs may have even gotten jail time if you can believe that. The F -104 had its good points. There is a great scene in the movie The Right Stuff that depicts Chuck Yeager supposedly taking an NF-104 'for a spin'. I doubt there were any spontaneous flights though fun to think about. He did fly it at least once in an attempt to break the altitude record held by the Soviets at the time. The accident more or less happened as is shown but Yeager was never able to perform anymore test flights. A miracle he survived. For the record, the kid that stops Yeager, all burned and carrying his parachute actually said "Gee mister, you look like shit!" - at least according to Yeager l .

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SpaceInMyBrain@reddit

Don't get me wrong, I love the F-104. One of my favorite planes, especially as a kid. It was an F-104 that intercepted the Starship Enterprise when a time-travel accident brought them to 1965 (66?). And the NF-104 was beyond cool. I wonder whatever happened to the Florida outfit that bought an old TF-104 and was going to mount a small rocket engine on it to duplicate the NF-104. Tourists would pay to ride in the backseat.

I remember the scene from the movie and an old interview with Yeager. Some burning fuel from the ejection seat got past the edge of his face mask, IIRC.

Re my initial thoughts - I've long said that if it has wings and an engine the Air Force will at some point put bombs on it. Ditto for the army and its wheeled vehicles - it'll get a machine gun mounted. Hell, even a Piper Cub ended up armed as a tank-buster in WW2. An L-4 Grasshopper, more accurately. Look up Bazooka Charlie.

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Occams_rusty_razor@reddit

I loved that Star Trek episode! I don't think I'm familiar with that particular Florida outfit. I wonder what the FAA thought of that. Although I think it's the NTSB handles passenger safety.

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SpaceInMyBrain@reddit

Useless bit of trivia: The Air Policeman (AF version of an MP) in that episode was in a pretty faithful \~uniform of the Strategic Air Command Elite Guard uniform. It was designed by Curtis LeMay himself. Yes, they were officially designated the Elite Guard, with capital letters. Even the revolver was correct, a chrome S&W Model 15 in a cross draw holster with stag horn grips. A year ago a clip from the episode showing the cross draw holster and stag grips sent me deep down that rabbit hole. The only questionable accuracy is whether the Air Force base involved hosted the SAC Headquarters - only SAC HQ had the Elite Guard.

I surmise Gene Roddenbury, an ex-cop, must have known of this somehow and been enamored of it.

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Occams_rusty_razor@reddit

That is a very interesting story. I never knew that about the guard in that episode. You must have a good eye for detail. My Dad was a government civilian and at the time I knew the gate guards didn't quite look like that. That's an amazing amount of detail you've compiled on a single episode. It all falls into place though. Thank you for sharing. You are definitely an interesting fellow.

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fred_ditto@reddit

Basically our try at what the Mig 25 ended up being, except we called the end of the XF108 while we were still ahead and spent money on other things instead.

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EventAccomplished976@reddit

Well it made sense to build the MiG 25 since it had an actual mission, which was to keep the SR71 out of soviet airspace. And it was successful at that job, though by that time spysats were getting good enough to make these super extreme reconnaissance planes mostly obsolete anyway. The XF108 made no sense since the soviets never built a target for it.

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fred_ditto@reddit

I thought the Mig 25 was specifically to counter the B70, which never went into service.

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EventAccomplished976@reddit

It was the main envisaged mission, fair, but the SR71 meant there was a reason to keep it around even after the nuclear deterrence role moved to ICBMs.

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NF-104@reddit

Actually designed to escort the B-70; uses the same J93 engine.

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Shaun_Jones@reddit

Do you have a source for it being an escort fighter? Because everything I’ve seen calls it a long-range interceptor.

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Plump_Apparatus@reddit

The XF-108 was designed from the get go as a interceptor to be used against possible supersonic Soviet strategic bombers. It stemmed from the original 1949 RFP for jet powered interceptors to defend US air space against Soviet bombers. This resulted in the WS-201A program, or the 1954 interceptor program. This lead to development of the F-102 and F-106 interceptors, along with the XF-103 which wasn't adopted for service.

In 1955 Long-Range Interceptor, Experimental (LRI-X) project was issued. Which led to the XF-108.

The manufacturer, North American, proposed that it could be used as a escort to the B-70, although SAC lost interest being it has marginal range in comparison to the B-70.

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BandofRubbers@reddit

It is nuts that this plane was designed by a company started by the man who designed the best Triplane ever seen, less than 15 short years after he died.

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Occams_rusty_razor@reddit

Not sure what you are referring to but Clement Melville Keys was a financier who founded North American Aviation. He is not known to have designed any aircraft let alone a triplane. It sounds like you are referring to Anthony Fokker who may have designed the Dr.1 but he had no connection to NA.

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BandofRubbers@reddit

Anthony Fokker had a very direct connection to North American. He started Fokker in Europe, in the interwar he came to America and started Atlantic Aircraft Corporation, which became Fokker of America. GM later bought it, so Fokker left. GM stuck the North American Aviation holding company on top of their General Aviation Manufacturing wing which was basically Fokker America, minus Fokker, renamed right after a Fokker plane crash killed a famous Notre Dame coach due to wood rot.

“North American Aviation” at that time, was just a fresh name that owned an airline and some scraps.

GM had a good name, and a company that needed to ditch a name that was just excessively sullied, and had equipment and personnel with plenty of spirit still in them and world-class experience and expertise.

And GM allowed the North American we know today to become a legend.

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Occams_rusty_razor@reddit

That is such a stretch. Thankfully GM had little to do with NAs successes GM deserved to have their name sullied for pushing leaded gas right down America's throat despite being fully aware of the effects lead had on health. A much better choice would have been alcohol fuel derived from corn which besides being safer would have eliminated knock. GM has never had a good name.

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BandofRubbers@reddit

Dude what. Fokker got dragged through the mud after the Notre Dame coach crash in Kansas.

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NF-104@reddit

You’re right, I was thinking of something else.

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StormBlessed145@reddit

I've never seen anything about being an escort either. What little I can find says long range interceptor, possibly replacing the f-106

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flightist@reddit

As I gather it was simply proposed as a possible escort by North American, in view of it being the only thing capable of doing so and probably helping sales.

It was an interceptor by design.

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Ornery_Year_9870@reddit

Imortalized in a now very hard to find model kit. Launching the F-108 like that appears to be ITCs idea.

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Occams_rusty_razor@reddit

I forgot about the vertical take off. Who has time for taxiing and all that

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Tussen3tot20tekens@reddit

Wauw! Awesome kit.

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Ornery_Year_9870@reddit

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danielismybrother@reddit

I can smell the Testors already..

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SpaceInMyBrain@reddit

Zero-length launch was experimented with for several US jet fighters, e.g. the F-84 and F-100. Who knows how many other planes it was contemplated for, aircraft manufacturers were very optimistic back then about how many ways their planes could be used. The pics I've seen used a much shallower launch angle. The only aircraft that I know of that launched at that angle is the German Natter of WW2, a last ditch rocket plane. Part of the structure failed on the one and only launch, killing the pilot. That was at the very last days of the war so no other attempts were made. If it had been developed a few months earlier and with a stronger canopy it might have actually flown.

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KokoTheTalkingApe@reddit

Took me a minute to realize how big this thing was. It approached 90 feet in length. Just the radar weighed over 2,000 pounds.

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/xf-108.html

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Garf_artfunkle@reddit

Yeah it's only in the last couple of years I started realizing how big the dedicated interceptors could get. I suppose a mission profile of "get to altitude right fucking now and knock down a bomber formation" makes for a rather more robust design than air superiority birds.

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Occams_rusty_razor@reddit

Approach bomber stream 2. Launch a nuclear tipped missile into bomber stream 3. Go home. Mission completed

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KokoTheTalkingApe@reddit

Yep. Those GAR-9 missiles it carried weren't small either.

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CoastRegular@reddit

Interesting to read that this was a proposed replacement for the Convair Delta airframe (F-102 Delta Dart/F-106 Delta Dagger)... shows just how fast aviation was moving in the mid-1950's, that designs that were just coming into service were already considered obsolete. A lot of contemporary aircraft were supposedly going to be phased out by newer, later shiny objects, especially ones that could clip along at Mach 3+. The Valkyrie was going to consign the B-52's to the boneyard...

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Occams_rusty_razor@reddit

Convair tried very hard to keep the F-106 relevant to the Air Force. Even going to some extreme designs as you allude to.

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One-Internal4240@reddit

In addition to being pure NAA jet-powered sex, this thing was a vision of the air combat of the future. Make a fukhuge superfast missile carrier, get into the high-threat domain fast as you can, fire gigantic BLOS missiles, scoot back home at 2x bullet speed.

The only thing they were really missing was AEWC and queueing. Granted, they did have SAGE, and the mission was primarily over NORAD coverage, sooooo . . . .

The basic geometry of this whole mission deal, plus stealth, is how an ideal air combatant is shaping up to look in this part of the 21st century. The Falcon missile gets a lot of shade - deservedly so, given some of the, ah, crime - but game knows game, this was a vision of the future.

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DeltaV-Mzero@reddit

XB-70’s awkward teen years

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KokoTheTalkingApe@reddit

And they share the same jaunty turned-down wingtips. Like the 80's popped collar.

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Vairman@reddit

XB-70's aren't always "jauntily" turned down. They're moveable. They went down at high speed and back up at slower speeds. Jaunty indeed!

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KokoTheTalkingApe@reddit

Yes, but I stand by my jauntiness assessment. Things don't become less jaunty because they can come and go. My example of the 80's popped collar is very relevant here.

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Vairman@reddit

the XB-70 was an amazing, beautiful, cutting edge aircraft - please don't compare it to frivolous 80s popped collars. Oh the humanity.

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KokoTheTalkingApe@reddit

You are absolutely right sir, I stand corrected. A more proper comparison would be to the stretch feature in work pants. A true advance, one that changed everything. There was a before, and there is an after.

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smady3@reddit

except this was the 50's..............

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KokoTheTalkingApe@reddit

So very, very true.

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Radioactive_Tuber57@reddit

Looks like the crew were in ejection pods like the Hustler.

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barrel_stinker@reddit

Iirc despite being cancelled, some of the research ended up informing the design of the A-5 Vigilante

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Garf_artfunkle@reddit

I always forget that was a North American project! IMO with the Mustang, Sabre, Rapier, Valkyrie and Vigilante they had some of the handsomest aircraft the US military-industrial complex ever pumped out.

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PatchesMaps@reddit

We considered a lot of crazy shit until we settled on ballistic trajectories.

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Little-Equipment6327@reddit

Where is this cutaway from?

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Matman161@reddit

Oh fuck yes, pure cold war shit right here

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LeafOnWind@reddit

Avro Arrow checking the back door is locked

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ne1c4n@reddit

Couldn't help but see the similarity to the Arrow when I first looked at the pic.

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joe9teas@reddit

The post-war British jets myth lives on

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xternocleidomastoide@reddit

Thought the Arrow was Canadian?

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joe9teas@reddit

Oh shit you're right. I'm deleting. That Arrow was world beating. I'm a bit drunk sorry

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kayl_breinhar@reddit

The NR-349 was actually even more insane: https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/frktd7/nr349_a_proposed_interceptor_variant_of_the_north/

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ChemistRemote7182@reddit

I often see designs like this and wonder what they could have done with a F-110 or two

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FujitsuPolycom@reddit

These old diagrams are so cool.

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Mietas2@reddit

Isn’t it crazy that the pilots only have less space than modern compact car and the rest is a hunk of steel, engines and fuel tank 😮

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CletusCanuck@reddit

Lotta mythology around the Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow but it seems to me it, the XF-108, and the BAC TSR-2 all got cancelled around the same time time, for the same reasons: Insanely expensive and complex developments, with limited mission profile, and their proposed missions had just been made obsolescent.

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Xeelee1123@reddit (OP)

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_XF-108_Rapier

Source: https://www.twz.com/41550/the-mach-3-xf-108-rapier-would-have-packed-its-big-missiles-on-a-revolver-like-launcher

Source: https://secure.boeingimages.com/archive/F-108-Rapier-Conceptual-Design-Cutaway-2F3XC5BICAD.html

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-47_Falcon