Jarlaxle
Gold Member
That's probably more about training and operator error than design flaws since it was used as a drone well into the 1980s.The F106 Delta Dart (aka "manned missile") was a vicious plane to fly...I recall the highest accident rate of any US jet fighter before or since.
The Navy and Marines had a very high accident rate in the 1950s and early 1960s. NATOPS (standardization) helped reduce that accident rate significantly. I expect the Air Force instituted a similar program to reduce accidents.
As for the ejection seat, early seats were "cannon" seats and had a relatively narrow ejection seat envelope. Too low/slow or too fast, especially in a supersonic interceptor, and the ejecting pilot wouldn't survive. That was common among all fighters at the time.
Nope. It was always a vicious aircraft to fly. The ejection seat fix took years (guess what the drones don't care if the ejection seat works) to fix and no, it was a particularly difficult aircraft to develop a seat for. Weber worked for years on a Zero/Zero seat. Convair gave up in frustration and contracted out of house for the fix.
As I recall, ALL deltas-including the MiG-21, the B-58, and the Delta Dagger-are vicious, unforgiving planes. (I also recall that is one reason the "cranked arrow" F-16XL was never put into production.)
Then again, many successful fighters-from the Sopwith Camel to the Me109 to the Spitfire-were unforgiving to fly.