Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!cbnews!military
From: ham@hpcc01.hp.com (Bob Hamilton)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: SeaDart
Message-ID: <1990Aug15.032235.26328@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 15 Aug 90 03:22:35 GMT
References: <1990Aug10.010802.29891@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Organization: HP Corporate Computing & Services
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From: ham@hpcc01.hp.com (Bob Hamilton)

> I think you have confused the XF92 and the Convair SeaDart (numbers not
> remembered).  The SeaDart did indeed take off from water and there were in
> fact, troubles, not the least of which was an explosion (which may have
> been near the San Diego area...not certain).  The XF92 proper, though, was
> only for use on dry runways.....  :-)

Correct.

I grew up in San Diego and saw both planes.  The XF-92 (precursor to the
XF-102, later the F-102A) had delta wings, and a round air intake at the
front of the nose (similar to the F-84).  It did most, if not all, of its
flying out of Edwards AFB.  I saw it on static display at some kind of open
house that CONVAIR, (the manufacturer) held in the early 50's.

The SeaDart (may have been XFY-1... I was eight years old at the time,
don't remember too well) had delta wings, a pointed nose, twin air intakes
high on the fuselage aft of the cockpit, and most unusual: retractable
water skis, on which it took off and landed.  I watched some of those
flights from my home overlooking San Diego Bay.  As I remember, they built
two SeaDarts.  One day one of them blew up in flight.  I was sitting in
third grade class, and heard the explosion.

--Bob Hamilton
  Corporate Quality Information Systems
  Hewlett-Packard       Mail Stop 29AK
  3172 Porter Drive
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  (415) 857-6025   ham@hpsdesis.corp.hp.com