AVIATION: Supersonic Delta Wing

Consolidated Vultee, whose giant B60 lost out to Boeing’s 6B-52 as the Air Forces’ intercontinental bomber of the future, this week won a contract that may put it out ahead in fighter planes. It got the first production contract in the U.S. for a delta-wing jet fighter, the F-102. The new 20,000-lb. plane will be powered by Pratt & Whitney’s J57 jet (TIME, May 28, 1951) and will be armed with rockets fired automatically with new controls developed by Howard Hughes’ aircraft company. Convair expects its supersonic F-102 to be the world’s fastest military aircraft.

The F-102, which will not be in quantity production for two years, has been a longer time abuilding. Convair started work on it in 1945 when one of its engineers, Adolph Berstein, read about delta-wing experiments in wartime Germany. Not till three years later did Convair turn out the XF-92, the first known delta-wing fighter to fly. Convair turned it over to the Air Force, which has been testing it since then, while Convair has improved the design.

All told, Convair and the Air Force have spent $15 million on the plane, though the production model will look little different from the XF-92 A (see cut). But Convair and the Air Force think the money well spent. If the F-102 lives up to hopes, the Air Force will eventually make it the No. 1 plane for defense of the continental U.S., use it to replace such current fighters as the FSg Scorpion, the F94 and the F-86D Sabre.