mike-wsm
All thanks to ChristiaanJ for some pics of F-104 wingtips with ancilliary hardware removed. I've cropped and enhanced a bit but the geometry is as original photo.
That looks very supercritical in nature, especially in the second picture you can see a definite inverse camber and due to the particular curvature, it looks like it would do very well supersonic. It would appear that the small curvature to the top was to compensate for the inverse camber on the bottom.
bearfoil
Now, can we discuss the "anhedral"?
Sure, as I understand it was added to deal with the size of the T-tail and something called a "wing-on-rudder" effect which, as I understand it was either a form of dutch-roll, or a tendency for rudder-application to roll the airplane. Adding some anhedral would fix the problem.
Interestingly, I have speculated that the anhedral could have also had an additional benefit (whether realized or an unintended consequence) of producing some kind of compression-lift effect. My reasoning was based on the fact that a wing with no sweep would have a shockwave along the whole leading-edge, and with it a pressure gain on any convex portion of the top and bottom of the wing; if you canted the wing down 10-degrees you'd have more pressure confined to the bottom.
This had to do with a curiosity of mine as to how the aircraft still retained a good degree of agility when supersonic. Straight wings experience large shifts in the center of pressure when transitioning from subsonic to supersonic speeds, which often results in high trim-drag. My guess is that the high-thrust available, the large tail, and the fact that the overall drag of the plane was low got around that. Still, L/D ratios drop when supersonic which affects sustained-agility. To some degree, ram-compression helps drive up thrust at supersonic speeds, but I figured the anhedral actually helped drive up the L/D ratio when supersonic and produced an overall better L/D ratio allowing improved sustained maneuvering performance.
Regardless, with the inverse-camber of the wing, it's L/D ratio would be good at supersonic speeds because inverse-camber works well when supersonic, and if the anhedral did actually produce a compression-lift effect by confining the pressure gain on the bottom that would explain a lot.
PBL
Let me put in my vote for this as a fine thread. I am learning a bunch of stuff, all of which I don't really have the time to look up, but which I am glad I now know.
I'm glad we're all of help
I even sent a note off to Boeing about the XB-15
The XB-15 had a symmetrical airfoil?
Brian Abraham
Not supercritical Bear.
True enough. It does have an inverse camber though
bearfoil
Are you sure? I figured the chord was "flat on top" to escape the need for area ruling.
I thought the F-104's fuselage shape did incorporate some area-ruling to it
BobM2
It should be noted that the first 2-stage supercharger was on the P & W R-1830 in the F4F-3 Wildcat. Unlike the AAC, the US Navy didn't pursue turbochargers
I'm surprised they didn't pursue turbochargers earlier. If I recall the F6F and F4U had them though...