The North American XF-108 Rapier was a proposed long-range, high-speed interceptor aircraft designed by North American Aviation intended to defend the United States from supersonic Soviet strategic bombers.

The North American F-108 Rapier, designed in response to a U.S. Air Force preliminary study of Oct. 11, 1955, was going to be the heaviest fighter of its era, weighing even more than the Soviet Union’s huge Tupolev Tu-128 “Fiddler.” It was also going to be quite numerous: the Air Defense Command (ADC) wanted 480 of them.

Jul 5, 2021 · It was born out of a need to protect the U.S. against the threat of approaching Soviet bombers armed with nuclear weapons if a war between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. ever broke out. As an interceptor, the XF-108 was designed for range and extremely high speeds, so it could greet and shoot down Soviet bombers long before they were over U.S. territory.

Jan 16, 2020 · At the time, North American stated that the F-108 would cruise and fight at Mach 3 speeds with a 1,000 nautical mile radius on internal fuel as well as having a combat ceiling in excess of 77,000 feet and zoom-climb ceiling over 100,000 feet.

the F-108 mock-up review. Over three weeks, more than 70 Air Force and civil-ian personnel had scrutinized the Rapier full-scale mock-up, offering comments and suggestions. “The mock-up gives the Air Force an opportunity to minutely examine what in effect is a three-dimensional blueprint,” Heston Cherry, North American’s F-108

Sep 8, 2020 · As told by Peter E. Davies in his book North American XB-70 Valkyrie, its main purpose was to climb to 81,000ft, reach Mach 3, and fly for up to 1,000 nautical miles to intercept incoming bombers using an automated fire-control system.

Feb 7, 2020 · The XF-108A was the largest American fighter design ever conceived up to that time (e.g., double the weight of the contemporaneous McDonnell F4H/F-4 being developed for the Navy and Marine Corps).

Apr 18, 2021 · The USAF Air Defense Command had planned to procure as many as 420 F-108 Rapiers to equip fighter-interceptor squadrons located at bases best suited to protect the US borders.

Oct 25, 2019 · In 1957, North American Aviation won a contract to develop the XF-108, a two-man interceptor capable of Mach 3 speed, a thousand-mile range and a maximum altitude of seventy thousand feet.

The F-108 aircraft was designed for a maximum speed of 1980 mph at 75,550 feet and for a 1020-mile combat radius. The pilot and radar operator sat in tandem individual ejector capsules in the forward cockpit.