Republic XF-103 Interceptor

Hi!
I imagine that 1954 design had direct forward view through narrow slit.
1956 final design did not have missile bay.
 

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Hi! I ordered this book.
 

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It seems to be a good book. I will check this carefully.(52pages printed in Japan)
 
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Hi! Larger image of mockup in 1954 and power unit mockup.
www.aflcmc.af.mil

FLASHBACK: Triplesonic Interceptors: The F-103, F-108 & YF-12A

"Speed is life," is a phrase used by fighter pilots and it was never more prevalent than in the late 1950’s when post-war technology was advancing at a rapid pace. The technological advancements in
www.aflcmc.af.mil
 

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A curious quote from the linked page, "It was sunk because it was sinking the convoy ships .My dad got that from a man on the convoy". Classic.
 
overscan (PaulMM) said:
Skyraider3D said:
Thanks for the heads-up, I won that item ;D
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So, tried scanning any frames yet?

<drool>
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I had this digitised in 2K-ish quality last summer as several heatwaves had caused the film to start smelling of vinegar :eek: I've stored it in a cooler place now but the damage is done, sadly. Luckily the digitisation was pretty much in time, with minimal deterioration of the film being visible.
The film itself was disappointing, however. Besides the few frames shown in the original eBay post, there isn't a lot of additional material. Some model shots last for 10+ seconds and seem completely pointless. Also the film has been edited weirdly and some parts of the film are backwards. I still need to decided what to do with it as digitising it was pretty expensive.
 
I'm curious too. The author, Hugh Harkins, has put out a lot of seemingly short publications. Are they originally researched though or simply coalitions on online data?
 
Hi,

I think there was a book from 1979,talked about Republic Aircraft,
and had a more drawings,can anyone remember me ?.
 
AeroFranz said:
Maybe i'm missing something...but how was the XF-103 supposed to takeoff with the landing gear that far back?
it looks like there's no room to rotate and at any rate the landing gear is way aft of the cg, requiring a lot of download. Was its stance on the landing gear nose high, such that the wing had some angle of incidence even without rotating the body?
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AeroFranz, I'm glad I'm not the only one who was wondering that! Even in it's nose high configuration and coupled with a copious supply of JATO bottles the XF-103 would almost definitely had to have some type of variable incidence wing with leading edge slats to generate enough lift just to get airborne, especially in warmer climates.
 
As mentioned by Paul in Reply #140, the aircraft was meant to be nose high. That said, one must remember that this aircraft was still in the design phase, and that there would have likely been changes to the overall design had it been built.
 
From blackkite's post #150:

"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_XF-103
Wikipedia says that....
"Wings and control surfaces
All of the control surfaces were pure delta wings. The main wing was swept at 55 degrees, and could be rotated around the spar to provide variable incidence. For takeoff and landing, the wing was tilted upwards to increase the angle of attack while keeping the fuselage nearly horizontal. The length of the fuselage made it difficult to achieve the same end by tilting the entire aircraft upwards, which would have required a very long extension on the landing gear. The system also allowed the fuselage to fly flat to the airflow at various speeds, setting the trim angle independent of the aircraft as a whole. This decreased trim drag, and thereby improved range."
 
The more relevant quote is from Republic Engineer Boris Beltzer earlier in this topic:

Lead engineer: "We've got another 75 pound drop in take-off thrust. But I think Wright's shading the truth. It will probably be worse than that."
Weights and Balance engineer:" Not to mention another 53 pounds take-off weight increase this week."
Kartvelli:"What does that do to our take-off run?"
Lead Engineer: "We can manage that with more Jatos -- now that we're going to jettison the package and stuff after use."
Weights & Balance:" We've just got to lose 300 pounds. It has to be done!"
Structures Engineer:" Can't be done. There isn't 300 pounds to lose in the entire 60,000 pound aircraft."
Kartvelli: "What's the projected landing run?"
Aero: "10,500 feet -- but we've got four miles of paved runway at Edwards."
Kartvelli: "What's the landing run without the drag chute?"
Aero: "Ten miles --maybe twenty if you want to use the tires and brakes again."
Kartvelli: "What does the drag chute weigh?"
Structures:"312 pounds."
Kartvelli: "How miles of salt flats beyond the runway."
Flight Test:" Almost 40 miles."
Kartvelli: "Take out the drag chute!"
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The entire design was unviable at cancellation.
 
Hi,

I want to know the competitors from Lockheed and Convair ?.
 
Read this thread with my jaw sorta-dropped onto cat sprawled across track-ball arm...

Then deja-vu struck: Okay, the turbo/ram jet is 'atop' fuselage rather than a pod to each 'quarter', but is X-103 any kin to Bomarc ??
 
Nik said:
FWIW, I may have missed explanation, but why did the US-licensed Olympus refuse to 'Play Nice' for them ??
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As I understand it, the concise version is Curtiss-Wright over-invested in the R-3350 (great in the short term) and underinvested in their turbine section. There are difficulties inherent to anyone converting a design from Imperial to US measurements (even Packard didn't have entirely smooth sailing with the Merlin although in hindsight they did an outstanding job). By the time CW got the J67 in some semblance of order, the home-grown, all-American, we don't need to pay no stinking licence fee J75 had surpassed it in all significant respects*.

TLDR: Curtiss-Wright were kings of project mismanagement in this era! They got left behind.

*Of course the Oly had some more to give on this side of the pond but CW didn't have rights to those variants.
 
"TLDR: Curtiss-Wright were kings of project mismanagement in this era! They got left behind."

Ah, like Brewster mid-war, and Boeing today.
{Weep...}

FWIW, one of my BILs mentioned sub-contracting on a 'Classic' refurbishment project at Lairds' yard. IIRC, his unhappy corner was the oil-ways and lube lines etc of a big, old engine. Snags including everything falling skew between modern standard sizes, uncertain criticality of converted clearances and tolerances, and concerns about pressure / flow balances. Happens his book-shelf included a lot of old 'steam' stuff, which allowed him to 'reverse engineer' and solve most of the issues. Still, he had to contrive some remarkable work-arounds such as drilling out and lining umpteen capillary oil-ways probably compromised when the massive block had seized, torqued, cracked...

That may have been the time he used lots of custom 'Nitinol' tubing, slid chilled into long holes, then expanded to a secure fit. Sorta inverse process to shrinking red-hot rims onto wagon wheels, or hoops onto barrel staves...
 
Here is a short film (11min 20 sec in length) created by Republic Aviation, entitled "Development Progress - F-103 Capsule," concerning testing and development of the escape capsule for the F-103. The film was posted on February 3, 2023, at The Film Gate page on YouTube. The footage includes animation of the F-103, wind tunnel test articles in various capsule shapes, and drop test footage of capsules from a B-47.
Unfortunately, embedded playback has been disabled by the poster, so, one will need to click on the link in the YouTube window below to view the aforementioned film.
YouTube - The Film Gate: "F-103 supersonic escape capsule - Stock Footage"
 
One thing about the escape pod on the XF-103: If the engine took a dump on takeoff and the pilot had to bail out you know (and he knew) they would be turned into a high-speed agricultural implement pretty quickly. Sometimes I wonder had the 103 succeeded past the developmental stage into full scale production the ejection system would have been changed to an upward style system. Even the F-104 Starfighter at first was to be built with a downward ejection system until pilots complained and safety concerns arose causing it to be redesigned to an upward system.
 

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Hi!
After World War II, the US Air Force, growing increasingly afraid of a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union, was frantically developing an interceptor, but it felt that the subsonic interceptors F-94, F-89, and F-86D would soon become outdated and would not be able to compete with the high-performance Soviet bombers that would be coming into service in the future. On June 18, 1950, the Air Force requested each company to develop a supersonic interceptor for 1954. Convair's proposal, which would later become the F-102 and F-106, aimed for a Mach 2 speed, but Republic's proposal went even further, aiming for a top speed of Mach 3.7.

The company had broken through Mach 1 with the XF-91, which was equipped with a rocket engine, but the XF-103 was powered by a mixture of turbo and ramjet engines to enable flight at Mach 3 or faster, and to withstand the high heat generated by high-speed flight, titanium, an unknown material at the time, was used instead of aluminum for the aircraft. To minimize air resistance, the XF-98 (AIM-4) missiles were built into the aircraft, the capsule-style cockpit had no canopy, and the pilot had to look forward through a periscope (later installed on an F-84G for testing), and the escape method was downward ejection of the capsule.

A mockup was completed in March 1953, and development began with the first flight scheduled for 1960, significantly delayed from the original 1954 date. Despite difficulties in developing the engine and titanium alloy, production of the first aircraft finally began in January 1957, but development of the jet engine just did not go well, and further delays and rising development costs could not be tolerated, so development was finally canceled on August 21st. The development of the XF-103, whose goals were far too ambitious for the technology available in the 1950s, ultimately failed despite spending $140 million on the project. However, the titanium alloy manufacturing and processing techniques established by this aircraft were useful for many subsequent aircraft, particularly the YF-12/SR-71, and contributed greatly to the development of aviation as a whole.
 

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"Thunderwarrior" was never an official or even proposed name for the XF-103. A writer, here, admitted he made it up years ago because it sounded awesome and fit the "Thunder" motiff.
 

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