Warbird Information Exchange

Check out this article at RetroMechanix.com on a Lockheed P-80A Shooting Star procured by the U.S. Navy in 1945:



The aircraft received several modifications for carrier use, including the addition of an arresting hook, catapult hooks and holdback. The accompanying image gallery features 21 high resolution photos of this rare P-80 variant, including close-ups of the arresting gear. Ideal for modelers or enthusiasts of historic naval aviation!

-Jared

The MoF restoration facility @ KPAE has a TV-1 that was rescued from the base kiddy playground when N.A.S. Sandpoint was surplussed moons ago. It was partially restored in Yakima but the guy doing the work was involved in a meat grinder car accident and the airframe came back to this side of the mountains and sits with lots of brownish red primer and about 2 feet of dust on it in the row of bits and pieces that runs through the middle of the hanger along with a DH VAMPIRE. BUAERO # 33841.

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

We've posted a follow-up article on the early navalized Lockheed P-80A at RetroMechanix.com:



Based on material provided by naval aviation historian Tommy Thomason, the article features 6 photos of the aircraft under evaluation at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland in 1946. The high resolution photos provide close-up views of both the bridle and pendant configurations which were tested for catapult launch of the aircraft.

-Jared

Landing gear sure looks puny on that thing.

The Navy had just three P-80As (lots of TV-1s, of course, but only the trio of single seaters). Against the odds one of the three, BuNo 29689, survives, having been rescued in the fifties by Walt Soplata and parked in his "Aladdin's backyard" for decades. It is now on show nicely restored in polished metal at NMNA in Pensacola. Here it is as it looked at Walt's in summer 1982. (When I did a diorama of part of Walt's place some years ago, I had to remember to forget to put a weight inside the nose of the MPC F-80C kit I used to represent "689"!)


S.

Very interesting - thanks for posting!

-Jared

What has become of Walt's P-80? We've got several flying T-33s in the world, it'd be nice to see a P-80 airworthy.


Chappie

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Brrring. Dispersal? TWO SECTIONS SCRAMBLE!!

Chappie--

It turned up for sale in one of the magazines (Warbirds Worldwide?) circa 1990, following which it went to NMNA at Pensacola where it is now on show in polished metal. I agree, it'd certainly be nice to see a P-80 in the air. Perhaps the front end of a P-80 airframe could be mated to the remainder of a T-bird...?

S.

Actually Steve the Navy had many single seaters as the TV-1/TO-1. The Navy equivalent of the T-33 (2 seat) was the TV-2. Many people still think that the TV-2 was carrier-capable. That didn't happen until the T2V/T-1 but that was an entirely different airplane that "looks" like a T-33.

It was an amazingly sound basic design-P-80/F-80, T-33,F-94 A thru D, TV-1, T2V1, SKYFOX. What other basic design spawned so many disparate types of aircraft? Not derivatives like Me-109 A thru H P-51 A thru H et al?

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

Wow, the Skyfox. I remember seeing that airplane in the magazines. Cool jet. Was just the one jet built? Whatever happened to it?

Chappie

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Brrring. Dispersal? TWO SECTIONS SCRAMBLE!!

Only the one built, Boeing bought out SKYFOX and flew the airplane very briefly, jerked the engines and it now sits gathering sand and critters @ Rogue Valley airport in Medford, OR. and, like 'The Dead' don't even play concerts in Medford anymore either man-

Did you know that the XP-80 had a second seat in it for a while? It was for an engineer on early test flights to monitor gauges and the seat displaced some fuel tankage in the front between the engine intake trunks in the fuselage below the cockpit (from Tony LeViers autobigraphy)

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

The third installment in our unplanned series on an early navalized Lockheed P-80A is up at RetroMechanix.com:



The article presents a re-discovered U.S. Naval Air Test Center (NATC) report dating from June 23, 1947 on flight tests of the Shooting Star as an overload fighter with wing tip auxiliary fuel tanks installed. The accompanying image gallery reproduces the entire report, including several rare photos of the aircraft with wing tip tanks attached.

-Jared