KerbalX

A Return Home

Many of you know that I’ve been building replica planes in KSP for a long time. One of my earliest builds was a U-2 that I accidentally sent into space thanks to how odd the old aerodynamics were. This was long before I considered ever posting my craft online, and even longer before I considered myself any good at it.

I don’t remember what prompted me to explore replica planes, since this was in the days before the Jet-of-the-Day collaboration I did, but something possessed me to build and upload my replicas of the entire century series. They released on 12-31-2016, and the past three years have seen nothing my constant improvement in my craft and the entirety of the KSP replica community.

Last year, I decided to mark the anniversary with a replica of my personal favorite of the series, the RF-101 Voodoo, to compliment the F-100 Super Sabre I had uploaded earlier that year. Each of these craft marked leaps forward in my craft quality, a trend which only continues now.

This year, I returned to my roots again, building a F-105 in classic 1:1 scale, but it didn’t feel special enough. So I gave myself a challenge: complete the Century Series in four days, and in classic JotD fashion, make it special in the fact that it was completed. Now, with six hours to midnight, I present the next plane in my newest lineup of the Century Series:

Details

• Type: SPH
• Class: aircraft
• Part Count: 372
• Pure Stock

The F-102 Delta Dagger

Convair’s F-102 is a story of engineering progress and the boundaries of technology in the 1950’s. With the sound barrier shattered by research aircraft long ago, it was time for the stage to be dominated by supersonic warplanes. Convair was among the companies tapped to build supersonic fighter jets, and they delivered the YF-102 in 1953. However, an interesting problem plagued the YF-102 in that it could barely reach the high transonic regime (Mach .98) despite the aircraft theoretically being able to reach Mach 1.5+.
As every aerodynamics geek knows, the problem lay in the implementation of the Whitcomb Area Rule, which governs drag in flight surrounding the sound barrier. In short, the smoother the cross-sectional area of an aircraft changes with respect to length, the less drag the object will experience as it tries to break the sound barrier. The first research aircraft lucked into this by being shaped more or less like bullets with very thin wings, but the YF-102 had a delta wing and large intakes which made the problem worse.
Over the course of the next two years, engineers redesigned the YF-102 by pinching the fuselage, redesigning the air intakes, and adding shock bodies around the engine nozzle to smooth the transonic drag. Ultimately, the redesigned F-102 entered service in 1956, reaching speeds of Mach 1.25 and altitudes of 53,000 feet, where it served for 23 years in USAF and US Air National Guard units.

Flying the Delta Dagger

There’s really not a whole lot to say about the replica itself. It’s noticeably distinct from the F-106 (a much modified update on the F-102), both in real life and in the replicas here (if you don’t look too close at the cockpit, that is). It performs well given its size and weight, but it’s a 1:1 replica so don’t expect too much out of the performance. If you want a fun plane to fly, check out the F-101, F-104, or the F-105 in the series.
Updated Century Series
F-100
F-101 RF-101
F-102 - Here
F-104
F-105
F-106