They did not do "bombing" but did do air to ground because they could get scrambled faster than anything else and provide RESCAP. That involved orbiting downed aircrew and keeping Victor Charlie's heads' down by low passes, and even firing off some AIM-4's in his direction if required.
Early F-102's had four 2.75 inch FFAR launch tubes built into the weapons bay doors as well as the AIM-4's. I'll bet they wished they had some of those.
They also were known to use their IR scanners to look for VC campfires and fire IR AIM-4's if they had a good lock. At least one of those must have hit someone's dinner being cooked by an ammo dump because they got secondary explosions that went on for a couple of days.
F-102's deployed to Vietnam were flown by ANG pilots.
That makes sense, though I never knew they were used for RESCAP. I knew they were used for attacking vehicles along the Ho Chi Minh trail, and I'd almost swear they were used to cover B-52's sometimes.
Early F-102's had four 2.75 inch FFAR launch tubes built into the weapons bay doors as well as the AIM-4's.
Actually they had 3 tubes in each door with 2 x 2.75" FFAR one behind the other making for 24. For safety purposes they usually only carried half that when carrying 6 x AIM-4. When they were carrying AIM-26's, the inner doors for the center bay were replaced and brought the capacity down to 6 x 2.75" FFAR, with provision to 12 x 2.75" if they were carrying two back to back in each tube.
F-102's deployed to Vietnam were flown by ANG pilots.
The F-102's were able to scramble much faster because other aircraft had external ordnance which had safety pins that had to be pulled at the end of the runway before they took off. The F-102's had only internal ordnance so they could just hit the AB and take off.
I don't see how they could have used it for attacking vehicles on the trail. The view out the front was terrible and they had no gunsight..
The F-102's were able to scramble much faster because other aircraft had external ordnance which had safety pins that had to be pulled at the end of the runway before they took off.
The IR scanner on the F-102 could not pick up the heat from a truck engine. An officer I served with said that IR scanner in that thing might be able to detect a big campfire on a cold night.
The F-102's were able to scramble much faster because other aircraft had external ordnance which had safety pins that had to be pulled at the end of the runway before they took off. The F-102's had only internal ordnance so they could just hit the AB and take off.
I don't see how they could have used it for attacking vehicles on the trail. The view out the front was terrible and they had no gunsight..
They were not using the optical sight and I don't think they even had it installed in the simulator when I watched a pilot doing a intercept. Gven that they had a shade and splitter in front of the panel I don't think it would have even worked in aircraft so equipped. Funny thing about the F-102 radar display is that when they locked on it looked just like the display in the original Battlestar Galactica Viper fighters; that probably was not a coincidence.