page_title: Convair XF-92
section_title: Influence
hierarchical_section_title: Convair XF-92 / Operational history / Influence
caption_attribution_description: English: Landing accident of the Convair XF-92, October 14, 1953. Nose gear collapsed; ended use of the aircraft by NACA.
context_page_description: The Convair XF-92 was an early American delta wing aircraft. Originally conceived as a point-defence interceptor, the design was later used purely for experimental purposes. However, it led Convair to use the delta-wing on a number of designs, including the F-102 Delta Dagger, F-106 Delta Dart, B-58 Hustler, the US Navy's F2Y Sea Dart as well as the VTOL FY Pogo.
context_section_description: The delta wing's thin airfoil cross section, low weight and structural strength made it a good candidate for a supersonic airplane. The large surface area of 425 ft² (39 m²) gave a low wing loading which in turn led to good low-speed performance. Very slow landing speeds could be achieved, at the cost of extremely nose-high landing angles and the resulting poor visibility. The combination of good high-speed and low-speed characteristics was very difficult to achieve for other planforms. Although the XF-92 itself was not liked, the design concept clearly had promise and the delta wing was used on several Convair designs through the 1950s and 1960s.
  Of particular interest to aircraft designers was the unexpectedly good low-speed behavior Yeager had noticed on his second flight. The aircraft continued to remain controllable at very high angles of attack (alpha), where a conventional layout would have stalled. The reason for this turned out to be the unexpected creation of a large vortex over the top of the wing, generated by the airflow between the fuselage and leading edge of the wing at high alpha. The vortex became "attached" to the upper surface of the wing, supplying it with air moving at speeds much greater than the aircraft's forward speed. By controlling the flow in this critical area, the performance envelope of the delta could be greatly expanded, which led to the introduction of canards on most delta-wing designs in the 1960s and 1970s. More recently "mini-deltas", in the form of leading edge extensions, have become common on most fighter aircraft, creating the vortex over a more conventional wing planform.
caption: Landing accident, 1953
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