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George W. Bush flew the F-102 when he was in the TX ANG. The F-102 had a huge radar screen directly in front of the pilot’s line of vision. On final approach, the F-102 assumed a high angle of attack — a fault inherent in the Delta wing at slow speeds — and the pilot had to look out the sides of the windscreen. The F-102 was considered to be a pilot killer in the USAF. Their best use was as QF-102 target drones.

Liberal bed wetters also minimize the risk that W took just flying them. From the German ME-262 to the last of the century series aircraft, some of the planes had a tendency to explode. Engine and fuel system technology finally caught up to the demands of keeping the bricks in the air. Before around 1975 pilots were flying time bombs in some cases.

George W. Bush flew the F-102 when he was in the TX ANG. The F-102 had a huge radar screen directly in front of the pilot’s line of vision. On final approach, the F-102 assumed a high angle of attack — a fault inherent in the Delta wing at slow speeds — and the pilot had to look out the sides of the windscreen. The F-102 was considered to be a pilot killer in the USAF. Their best use was as QF-102 target drones.

Good article on the F-102, and George W. Bush's service flying it, can be found here. One good quote:

Since North Vietnamese pilots generally avoided combat with their American counterparts, the F-102 had few opportunities to engage in its primary role of air combat. However, the Deuce was adapted for close air support starting in 1965. Delta Daggers armed with unguided rockets made attacks on Viet Cong encampments to harass enemy soldiers, and the aircraft's heat-seeking air-to-air missiles were even used to lock onto enemy campfires at night. Though the F-102 had not been designed for this type of combat, the plane was surprisingly effective and pilots often reported secondary explosions coming from their targets. An Aviation Week article of the period credited the 509th FIS, an F-102 squadron stationed in Vietnam, with destroying 106 buildings, damaging 59 more, sinking 16 sampans, and destroying one bridge during 199 sorties over the course of 45 days. The manufacturer Convair proposed a series of upgrades to build upon these promising results and further improve the design's ground attack capabilities, but the concept was dropped due to Air Force funding constraints.

If Bush flew an F102 and it was anything like an F104, the man has bigger balls than I was thought.

I had the opportunity to walk around and evaluate an F104 back in the late 60’s. BTW I had already heard about the German air forces pilots dropping out the skies at a very high rate. High rate of pilot error they said. I started to think about that as I walked around the plane.

It’s a very very small plane. Sleek, built like a lawn dart with a rocket engine. I don’t remember the wingspan, but it was incredibly short. It didn’t look the least bit reassuring. All I could think of was how many ways I could could stall, stall, stall and not recover. It didn’t look like the it had enough control surfaces to recover at any low altitude and speed. I never looked up the survivability envelope (graphs) on one of these babies. But I bet they were very scary.

I think it was probably cool as long as it was doing its job going from A to B in the shortest time. After all it was designed as an interceptor, not a fighter.

Does anybody know what is the landing/stall speed for the F104?