Cancelled projects

Over the years there have been a ton of designs and proposals that could have been great, but ultimately for whatever reason they were destined to never enter service, and some never to even get off the ground. I read a recent article in the Sept. issue of Airpower about North American Aviation’s F-108 Rapier design. I’d always heard of it, but I didn’t know much about it except that it was to be fast, and that early design proposals for it looked like the XB-70 in many ways.

After reading the article (I highly recommend it if you can get your hands on a copy of that issue of Airpower) I must say I’m really interested in finding anything more about the XF-108 that I possibly can, especially drawings and artist conceptions.

Additionally I was hoping we could have a good discussion on what some of your favorite “not-to-be” aircraft projects were.

Some good examples that come to my mind are:

XF-108 Rapier (North American)
XF-107 Super (Ultra?) Sabre (North American)
CF-105 Arrow (Avro)
Tu-144 (Tupolev)
Yak-141 (Yakovlev)
XP-55 Ascender (Curtiss)
XP-56 Black Bullet (North American?)
XF-91 Thunderceptor (Republic)
TSR.2 (Blackburn?)

There are a TON of others, but those are some of the ones off the top of my head.

Anyone with cool pictures of the XF-108 please post them. I find it a most fascinating aircraft. And in a way it’s legacy lives on the AN/AWG-9 & AIM-54 combo that arms the F-14A and F-14B.

(I has originally thought the AN/ASG-18 and AIM-47 (GAR-9) that helped develop the F-14’s weapon system was originally for the YF-12A, but apparently it was for the F-108 first and the YF-12 got it as a “hand-me down” system.

P.S. Here’s a screenshot from the game AirForce Delta Strike for the PlayStation 2 game console. The XF-108 (one of the earlier design proposals, and in fact the final canarded-configuration that was used until the design was changed into one without canards) is flyable, and when firing missiles you even see the weapons bay open and the missiles fly out from it. The cockpit in-game is much like the cockpit was in the XF-108 mock-up that was built, and as would be expected that thing is FAST! Just thought you guys would get a kick out of that.