Thanks wingman...
The F106 was a clean design thanks to Aviation Pioneer Richard
Whitcomb and his proposed "Area Rule" which greatly reduced drag
during transonic speeds... technically speaking before the F106 Delta
Dart there was the YF102 Delta Dagger... Designed as 1.5 Mach
Interceptor this new and hopeful prototype had initially proved to be
a big disappointment... On it's maiden flight in 1953 test pilot ****
Johnson was barely able to exceed Mach 1 only in a steep dive...
Transonic drag had exceeded the 14,500 pounds of available thrust of
the Pratt & Whitney J57... The Delta Dagger was really the Delta
Dragger... enter Richard Whitcomb... he was but one of the young NACA
engineers assign to probe the mysteries of drag approaching Mach 1...
he began poring over the photos of the wind tunnel models... he alone
discovered faint shock waves were forming behind the wings and this
accounted for the unexpected drag... he arrived at the Area Rule which
shrunk this critical fuselage junction and gave the F106 its unique
coke bottle shape... Following young Richards new "Area Rule"
recommendations Convair engineers redesigned the YF102... On Dec. 21
1954 Johnson took the coke bottle shape Delta Dagger up and this time
it "slipped easily past the sound barrier and kept right on flying"
With the validity of "Area Rule" and "Vortex Lift" established
Convair designed the F106 Delta Dart
NACA/NASA Langley engineer Richard T. Whitcomb was awarded the 1954
Collier Trophy for his development of the "area rule, " an innovation
that revolutionized the design of virtually every transonic and
supersonic aircraft ever built. Here Whitcomb inspects a research
model in the 8-Foot Transonic Tunnel at Langley.
At a glance the difference of the straight and coke bottle shape fuselages