The electronics and weapons developed for the program would become common on US designs, including the AIM-4 Falcon missile and a variety of Hughes Aircraft–supplied radar and fire control systems.
These were all subsonic aircraft, and it was felt they would have insufficient performance to effectively intercept high-speed jet bombers known to be under development in the Soviet Union.
To counter these threats, ADC prepared a request for an entirely new aircraft expected to perform "hot war" interceptions at supersonic speeds.
In the past, aircraft airframes, engines and weapons were fairly common in size and general layout, allowing existing designs to be modified to change any one component with relative ease.
In January 1950 they sent out the MX-1179 contract tender to eighteen electronics contractors, but only Bendix, General Electric, Hughes Aircraft, North American Aviation, Sperry, and Westinghouse responded.
Existing designs like the P-80 Shooting Star and F-84 Thunderjet were outperformed by the MiG, and while the newer F-86 Sabre was more than capable of holding its own, it was not clear that would be the case in a war situation in Europe against "front line" Soviet pilots.
With the introduction of these programs, work on the Republic XF-91A, originally slated as an interim interceptor, ended in October 1951 in favor of the new designs.
This design had originally[citation needed] been ordered by Strategic Air Command (SAC) as a long-range "penetration fighter" to escort their heavy bombers.
When newer bomber designs offered performance so great that the F-88 could not hope to keep up with them, TAC then took over the work and started modifying it as a low-level nuclear-armed fighter-bomber, renaming it as the F-101 Voodoo on 26 November 1951.
They rejected modifying the F-101, mainly due to its high cost, and suggested solving the problem by increasing the numbers of F-86Ds and speeding up work on the F-102.
NACA wind tunnel tests in early 1953 showed that the maximum altitude of 57,000 feet and combat radius of 350 miles predicted by Convair were too optimistic.
Drag turned out to be higher than expected, but NACA was able to suggest the application of the recently developed area rule to combat this problem.
Convair did not immediately put these recommendations into effect, and the initial two flying prototypes, of an order of 42 aircraft, continued with the original design.
When these flew starting in October 1953, NACA's estimates were proven correct, and the F-102 had only a marginal performance improvement over the F-86D it was supposed to replace.