A 1956 concept for a derivative/modification of the Convair F-106, equipped with canards, entirely new inlets, a noticably larger nose (housing a larger 40″ radar), an infra-red seeker at the top of the vertical fin and a weapons load of a single massive Convair “Sky Scorcher” missile. The idea seems to have been that the Soviets would send waves of supersonic bombers tightly packed into groups which could be blasted out of the sky with two-megaton-yield nuclear air-to-air missiles.
Not much seems to be publicly known about the “Sky Scorcher.” The drawing below depicting the missile may or may not be accurate in the details… no fins are shown, so either the depiction is vague and handwavy, or steering was accomplished by means of thrust vectoring or movable flaps on the aft conical flare. Also unclear is whether the missile was guided or not… normally you’d think that an air-to-air missiles, especially one witha nuclear warhead, would be guided to the target, but the one nuclear air-to-air missile that the US did field (the AIR-2 “Genie”) was unguided. When you’re chucking megaton nukes into large flocks of bombers, I guess precision isn’t important.
The Sky Scorcher was a substantial missile. Weighing 3400 pounds, when launched at Mach 2/55,000 feet it could cover its 125 mile range in 200 seconds. For continental defence, a force of 80 Advanced F-106’s would lob 14 Sky Scorcher missiles into the incoming waves of Soviet supersonic bombers, blasting some directly out of the sky, and forcing others to split off. The remaining bombers would be picked off by the remaining Advanced F-106s, which would carry a weapons load of four Falcon missiles and one Genie each.
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