Convair Kingfish

The Convair Kingfish was Convair's reconnaissance aircraft design in the 1959 competition to replace the Lockheed U-2 for the CIA's Project Oxcart. It followed the parasite Super Hustler and FISH concepts, which depended on the cancelled B-58B carrier, and was a delta-wing aircraft with two Pratt and Whitney J58 engines buried in the rear fuselage and twin tail surfaces, with intakes and exhausts shaped to cut radar cross section. It was meant to cruise at Mach 3.2 over about 3,400 nautical miles. On 28 August 1959 the CIA chose the Lockheed A-12 instead, partly because of Convair's cost overruns on the B-58, and Kingfish funding soon dried up.