The Convair F-106 Delta Dart was the primary all-weather interceptor aircraft of the United States Air Force from the 1960s through the 1980s. Designed as the so-called "Ultimate Interceptor", it proved to be the last dedicated interceptor in U.S. Air Force service to date. It was gradually retired during the 1980s, with the QF-106 drone conversions of the aircraft being used until 1998 under the Pacer Six Program.
I always admired the Delta Dagger (F-102) when I was a kid. Not as cool as the dart.
ReplyDeleteThe 106 was the upgraded 102 with a bigger power plant and upgraded weapons and avionics. Both cost the government so much money and preformed so badly that they were declared "strategic" and never saw a single air to air combat. They didn't go to NATO or Vietnam for the same reason that they went to the Air Guard in the early 70's. They couldn't out turn an F-4 Phantom II . In fact the 102's were so underpowered that when the USAF gave some to NASA as trainers, NASA shitcanned all of them after finding out they seldom could break Mach 1.1. The 106 was slightly faster being rated at Mach 2+ .But would only go faster than Mach 1.5 with a "clean" aircraft , and carried so little internal fuel that it counted its "ballistic" time, above Mach 1.25, in seconds. It WAS the "cutting edge" when developed at enormous cost in the late 50's . But was completely obsolete by 1969. The USAF kept it in service for so long because , like the F-35 Lightning II , today, they had to justify spending half of the USAF budget to get an unrealistic and unobtainable performance upgrade. So they kept aircraft in service that preformed no better than the F-100's they replaced for 25 years after they became obsolete.---Ray
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