Name the Plane: May, 2005

WHAT
AIRPLANE IS THIS?

The first ten
years of powered flight provided rapid advances in airframe and
engine development that made this period an exciting time to be
in aviation. But as exciting as that time was, and as rapid were
the technological developments, those first ten years would be hard
pressed to rival the exciting times of 1945-1955. For these years
saw the changeover from piston to jet power.

Jet power caused
a revolution in aircraft design and performance that was so stunning
in its swiftness and far reaching in its effects that even the engineers
were not completely certain about the final results. New jet fighters
were designed, tested and put in service only to be obsolete in
a year. (Something like today’s computer world, but with guns
attached.)

The first American
jets were straight wing airplanes like the Bell P-59 and Lockheed
P-80. Our first jet in service, the P-59, was underpowered and didn’t
have much performance advantage over a P-51H. In fact, the “H”
was faster and a steadier gun platform. The first P-80’s could
barely reach 500 mph, well 502 mph, but in a few two years, one
modified P-80 reached 623 mph. The F-80C pictured in photo 1 below
was the last operational version of the “Shooting Star”.

The P-80 protected
Berlin in the 1948 crisis, facing but never engaging, Russian fighters
across a narrow border. The P-80 also served with distinction in
the air war over Korea, first as a fighter and then as a fighter-bomber
once the F-86 Sabre Jets arrived. In fact, a P-80 scored the first
all-jet air victory over a Mig 15 on November 8, 1950.

Early in the
P-80’s career, about 1946, Lockheed found out that the US
Navy was buying P-80’s to use as trainers, calling them TO-1.
Never one to pass up a marketing opportunity, Lockheed stretched
and re-engined a P-80, (USAF serial number 48-356) put in an extra
seat creating the T-33 Thunderbird. Probably one of the finest jet
trainers ever made, the “T- Bird” taught thousands of
pilots from dozens of countries the essence of jet flight.

Also not a
company to waste development effort, Lockheed then took 48-356 and
remodeled it one more time. They installed an even more powerful
engine with an afterburner. Jet engines were gaining power nearly
daily in those days. Then a new nose with room for radar and electronic
equipment was added. Large fuel wingtip tanks were mounted for increased
air time as air-to-air refueling was not yet being used.

The F-94A Starfire
Night Fighter (photo 2) was born. With advanced radar and four 50-Cal.
machine guns, the F-94A went to Korea. There it worked in the dark
destroying enemy night snoopers and discouraging night attacks.
A later version, the B model, also served in Korea. But back at
home, concern was building about how to stop Soviet bombers from
attacking America with nuclear weapons.
The problem was that every bomber had to be stopped, not just crippled.
Unlike WW II, merely making an attack “expensive” to
the attacker by destroying 20% of the attacking aircraft was not
enough. Nuclear weapons had to be totally destroyed on the first
pass. Guns don’t always do that.

But rockets
usually do. So Lockheed again took the venerable Shooting Star airframe
and made some major modifications. Instead of an engine in the 6,000
lb. thrust range, they installed one with 8,750 lb. output. The
idea was to make the airplane climb to bomber altitude while quickly
catching them still far from our borders. The wings were made thinner
for less drag while the tail was swept back.
New fire control radar was added, the then ultimate Hughes E-5 automatic
fire control system. This system directed 24 small 2.75 in. Mighty
Mouse rockets fired from the nose. These were the same rockets that
later armed the F-86D Sabre and the F-89D Scorpion. They were unguided
after firing but aimed by the fire control system to intersect the
bombers course down range. This worked if the bomber did not maneuver
in the meantime. Later, another 24 rockets were added in pods mounted
mid-wing, as in the contest photo, for additional firepower.

The F-94C was
such a different aircraft, mostly internal differences except for
the swept tail and nose, from the A and B models, that it was originally
given its own number, the F-97. But in the end, the C designation
was added since the aircraft shared the same roots.
Strictly speaking, the F-94C was designed as an all-weather fighter
unlike the A model which was a night fighter. As one of the first
USAF all-weather fighters, it could takeoff, find, track and destroy
enemy bombers (and hopefully then land safely), even when the weather
was lousy. This is important if stopping delivery of nuclear weapons
is high on your priority list. But an all-weather fighter was also
good at night fighting and the “C” model flew many of
its missions in the dark.*

The F-94C Starfire
entered service in 1950, with the last ones being delivered in 1954.
But like so many of those early jets, while they served with distinction
and protected America from its enemies, their time was short. With
all the rapid advances in aircraft and engines, the F-94C was obsolete
even before deliveries had ended.

The F-104 Starfighter
and F-100 SuperSabre for example, first flew in 1953 while the “C”
Starfires were still being delivered. Both these supersonic fighters
could fly higher and faster than the Starfire and the F-104 was
later modified to fulfill the Starfire’s all-weather interceptor
role.

The last F-94C
flew for the USAF in 1958. The National Guard gave up their Starfires
in the summer of that year. Because their times “on stage”
were so short, many of these fine aircraft have been forgotten.

But that is
unfair as these aircraft, and the men who flew them, performed dangerous
missions with distinction in a time when avionics, night and all-weather
flight were in their infancy. We are glad that we were able to highlight
those early contributions performed by the men who flew the “forgotten
F-90’s” aircraft. You will probably see more of those
airplanes in future contest photos just for this reason.

As to the clues:

The Republic
F-84 Thunderstreak was a "gun only" fighter and could
not carry wing-mounted air-to-air rocket pods, just individual air-to-ground
rockets. – The contest aircraft clearly has no nose guns
but does have large rocket pods mounted mid-wing.

Not all night fighters were painted black in the jet age.
– The contest photo airplane is silver. This clue was to avoid
making entrants think “night fighter” had to be wrong
since night fighters are supposed to be black.

Since the
Lockheed P-80 was already a low-cost, easy to maintain, COIN fighter
by most jet-age standards, there was no need to try building even
one two seat, T-33 COIN version. – The pictured aircraft
looks nothing like a T-33 Thunderbird even though the first Starfire
versions were made from the T-33. By the time the “C”
model was developed, the Starfire had an airframe of its own.

All Grumman
F-11-F Navy fighters had highly swept wings. – The contest
photo aircraft has a nearly straight wing so this clue eliminates
the F-11-F answer.

*We try to
make our contest photos easy to identify and we usually avoid using
model designations (such as F-94C) in our answer to avoid possible
confusion. Some entrants may think the model designation adds another
layer of complexity to what is supposed to be a fun contest and
might start looking for “trick questions”.

Except for
the swept tail, there are no large, obvious external differences
between the “A” and “C” models. True, the
nose is different but that difference can be easily overlooked.
The A and B Starfires were night fighters. Since we didn’t
want to use model designators and as there were 464 F-94 A and B
models made against 387 “C” models, we used the night
fighter term since the majority of Starfires were made that way.
This may have caused some unintentional confusion, but if the clues
were followed, there could be no confusing the correct answer.

This month’s
contest aircraft however, does use “model designators”
in a different form and we will see if this causes any comments.

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