Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!ucsd!pacbell.com!pacbell!att!cbnews!military
From: pspod@venus.lerc.nasa.gov
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: US Fighter Designations
Message-ID: <1990Aug8.030251.25276@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 8 Aug 90 03:02:51 GMT
References: <1990Aug5.042539.28495@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
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From: pspod@venus.lerc.nasa.gov
In article <1990Aug5.042539.28495@cbnews.att.com>, henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes...
 
:>F102: Delta Dagger? (I get this and the F106 backwards sometimes) ...
:>***     Yep. You got it straight. NASA is currently using one to study
:>***     lightning. They fly it into a storm and dare lightning to strike...
: 
:Sorry, slight misidentification here.  The NASA lightning-research fighter
:(it does other jobs too, including aerodynamics work on highly-swept wings)
:is an F-106.  I think it's specifically an F-106B, the two-man trainer
:version.  It is scheduled to be retired before too very long, as the costs
:of operation and maintenance are starting to be very high now that it's a
:one-of-a-kind aircraft.  They chose it for the job primarily because it is
:a high-performance jet fighter with 100% non-electronic controls -- it's
:old enough to be all hydraulics etc.  Not an easy thing to find nowadays;
:I'm not sure what the replacement will be.

I think the replacement is the F-16XL which is now being used to test
boundary layer control.