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

In article ,
"Paul J. Adam" writes:
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.


As an anti-fighter weapon, it suffered from 2 serious flaws:
It had an extremely long initialtion time - the delay between when you
decide to fire the missile, and the missile has to be woken
up, (The batteries started, gyros brought up to speed, the seeker
receiver warmed up & tuned, for a radar missile, or, in the case of an
IR Falcon, cooled for more sensitivity, and then the missile is
"briefed", if you will, by the Fire COntrol System on the airplane, so
that the seeker is looking at the right target, and the range &
velocity gates are set correctly. With a Falcon, as I understand it,
this could take 5-10 seconds, which is a danged long time, in a
dogfight. But, then, a MiG-17 pulling 8Gs on the deck is a different
matter than an Mya-4 pulling 2 Gs at 36,000'.

The second problem was that the Falcons never got a Proximity Fuze.
Prox Fuzes are just about the most difficult systems that a missile
will have - they have to take into account the shape of the fragment
pattern of the warhead, and the velocity that the fragmants will
have. A simple "Closest Approach" fuze will inievietably fire late.
It's much more difficult for a missile than for an artillery shell,
becasue the missile has to deal with a larger variety of closing
velocities adn aspect angles. Almost all Falcons had to actually hit
the target to detonate the warhead. That's perhaps, not unrealistic
when you're firing a salvo of them at a big bomber-sized target, but
it's very unlikely that it will be successful against a maneuvering
fighter.

(Secret Analysts Trick - When somebody boasts that they've invented a
"Hittile", a missile so accurate that it doesn't need a Proximity
Fuze, that menasn that they couldn't get one to work, and thas are
trying to make a feature out of a bug.)

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster