![]() This teaming was an early product of Lockheed's Skunk Works, which surfaced again in the next decade to produce a line of high-performance aircraft beginning with the F-104. Lockheed's team, consisting of 28 engineers, was led by the legendary Clarence L. With the advent of more powerful British jet engines, fuselage mounting was more effective, and it was used by nearly all subsequent fighter aircraft.Ĭoncept work began on the XP-80 in 1943 with a design being built around the blueprint dimensions of a British Halford H-1 B turbojet (later called the de Havilland Goblin), a powerplant to which the design team did not have actual access. Other early jets generally had two engines because of their limited power and mounted these in external nacelles for easier maintenance. It was the first operational jet fighter to have its engine in the fuselage, a format previously used in the pioneering Heinkel He 178 of 1939, and the slightly later Gloster E.28/39 demonstrator of 1941. Like most early jets designed during World War II, and before the Allies captured German swept wing research data which showed the promise of much greater speeds, the XP-80 had straight wings similar to previous propeller-driven fighters. The XP-80 was a conventional, all-metal airframe with a slim low wing and tricycle undercarriage (landing gear). Air Force and Navy until the 1970s and many still serve in a military role or are in private hands. The closely related T-33 Shooting Star trainer would remain in service with the U.S. ![]() The F-94 Starfire, an all-weather interceptor on the same airframe, also saw Korean war service. ![]() Designed with straight wings, the type saw extensive combat in Korea with the United States Air Force (USAF) as the F-80.Īmerica's first successful turbojet-powered combat aircraft, it helped usher in the "jet age" in the USAF, but was outclassed with the appearance of the swept-wing transonic MiG-15 and quickly replaced in the air superiority role by the transonic North American F-86 Sabre. Designed and built by Lockheed in 1943 and delivered in just 143 days from the start of the design process, production models were flying but not ready for service by the end of World War II. The Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star was the first jet fighter used operationally by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF).
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