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Archive 1


Query

Do any of you know the wing loading for P-80. It would be good if it's P-80A.

Thank You.

New Refrence

The P-80 seems to appear in a new video game, Fallout 3, on a destroyed aircraft carrier. The game takes place hundreds of years after world war III has come and gone in a world where America never left the sterotypical culture of the 50s, largely in the irridated ruins on Washington D.C. The largest, most prosperus settlement in the game is known as Rivet City, and is in fact a beached and broken aircraft carrier, and if you go up on deck, what appears to be P-80s are everywhere. Just thought I'd add the refrence if anyone here cares to mention it in the article, since as you can probably tell from this post I'm not the best person to be editing actual aritcles HA! Lich —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.235.153.251 (talk) 20:02, 14 December 2008 (UTC)


Notes

The original version of this article is below:

Lockheed Chief Pilot Milo Garrett Burcham, age 41, was killed at 5:11 PM on Friday, 10/20/1944 while flying the second production prototype YP-80 aircraft. He took off from Lockheed Air Terminial (now the Pasadena/Burbank airport), flamed out on take off and crashed into a gravel pit in North Hollwood. He purposely directed his aircraft away from populated areas in an effort to bring it down away from houses. My Uncle, the late Gene Gerow, a TWA check pilot in Connies, said he was on the ramp that day, and let Milo take off before him. Gene may have been one of the last people to talk to Milo in this world.

As it says in the Book of John, "Man hath no greater love than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."

(Notes by Mike Gerow, San Diego, CA)

Units

In what units should thrust be written? In units of mass (e.g. kg or lb) or in units of force (e.g kN or lbf). I am a bit confused because of the pound-force. Best regards. --XJamRastafire 03:08, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)~

As kg and lb

I prefer to list thrust in lb and kN rather than in kilograms. It seems more appropriate. -- ArgentLA 23 Dec 2004

Thrust is a force and thus measured in newtons. (Pound-force and kilopond (kilogram-force) were used historically, too, but are not SI units and thus obsolete.) --172.183.240.241 21:25, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Both pounds-force and kilograms-force are still in use. And historically, most rockets in both the U.S. and Russian space program were originally measured in one or the other of these units, and the original measurement should be retained as a good indication of the precision of the measurement and as a check on the correctness of the SI values which are necessarily conversions by someone. And the SI units are newtons, not Newtons. It's pretty weird that you use both the kilopond and kilogram-force names of that unit, and link the article titled "Kilogram-force" to your kilopond rather than to your kilogram-force. Gene Nygaard 21:48, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Kiloponds are officially obsolete since 1978, and they had replaced the kilogram-force long before that - my link deliberately uses the least obsolete name. --172.183.240.241 23:44, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
First of all, whether they are called kiloponds or kilograms-force is mostly a matter of geography, not of chronology.
Second, I have no idea what event of 1978 you imagine to be significant.
Note that kilograms-force have never been a part of the International System of Units, and have never been on the lists of units acceptable for use with the SI. The SI was introduced in 1960.
But the one thing that you don't seem to understand is that there is no general requirement that we use the International System of Units.
The units used to measure thrust are not in general regulated. There are a number of various types of standards-setting bodies which might throw in their two cents worth on this issue, but none of them has plenary, worldwide uthority in this area.
Some activities are regulated, and do require certain units--but this is not one of them. Some of the most heavily regulated areas deal with the sale of goods; but this discussion has nothing whatsoever to do with that field of activity. Note that there is nowhere in the world where kilograms-force are legal units for the sale of goods by weight. There is nowhere in the world where pounds-force are legal units for the sale of goods by weight. There is nowhere in the world where newtons are legal units for the sale of goods by weight. But both pounds and kilograms are legal for the sale of goods in the United States, for example. In the U.K. too, so far. And kilograms, at least, are legal for this purpose throughout the world.
Kilograms-force were the usual, customary units used for thrust in the Russian space program into the late 1980s or early 1990s, around the time of the breakup of the Soviet Union, though if anything that might have only slowed the changeover. Even today, I have seen several signs that kilograms-force remain the primary units for this purpose in the Chinese space program. Pounds force, of course, remain in use in the aerospace industry in the United States. Check the web sites of some of the engine manufacturers, for example.
But as I pointed out before, even if everybody involved in making these measurements were to instantaneously drop every other unit, and from today on never use anything but newtons, pounds force and kilograms force are still very relevant because they were the units in which many of the historical vehicles were measured. It isn't even possible to go back and remeasure most of them in newtons, even if anybody were inclined to embark on such a fool's mission. So they still very much have a place in Wikipedia. Gene Nygaard 04:36, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
UK and US gas turbines are measured in pounds (lb) static thrust (st), this is the thrust produced by the engine at sea level with the engine static, i.e., not moving through the air. European engines use metric measurements, i.e., kilograms. Because the gas turbine aero engine market was/is dominated by UK and US firms, the usual unit of measurement is still the lb despite metrication, but both are sometimes quoted.

Dimensions

I've put the dimensions in a new table at the bottom of the page, with both the XP-80 and the P-80A's dimensions, for comparison. (Both the old and new tables are at User:Logawi/P-80 dimensions temp.) This isn't standard, but it's useful to see how the sizes of the two versions compared. The change of engine prompted a significant redesign of the aircraft. I think it might also be instructive to include dimensions for the T-33 and/or F-94, although I don't plan on doing that right now. Logawi 21:18, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Agree. Also, since we've got capacities for the Ouragan & F-84, can we get how much fuel the F-80's tiptanks carried? And how much fuel total was usual? Trekphiler 10:51, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Answered. (Serves me right not just looking it up...) 8[ Trekphiler (talk) 12:14, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!

maru (talk) contribs 00:17, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Try http://www.nasa.gov/centers/hq/home/index.html

Trekphiler 11:01, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

rewrite

The timeline became a bit convoluted in the telling of who was killed flying what and when. My rewrite tried to simplify that and restore the chronology, also reducing the number of dangling short phrases. There were a few minor inaccuracies, also corrected. Most of the material seems to have come from Joe Baugher, a good source, but Baugher got his material (some of it word for word) from Dorr. So I went to Dorr for reference during the re-write.--Buckboard 14:45, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

--Specifications---

More realistic specifications about p 80 (which wasn't faster than Messerschmitt 262) at site: http://www.aviation-history.com/lockheed/p80.html

You can read about post war tests in USA which confirm that fact at wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_262 Part titled: Postwar evaluation, history and design influence

Spirit in the sky

The article says the P-80R was a modified prototype. IIRC, she was virtually hand-built, with features that would never appear (& weren't intended for) series aircraft, including a J73; again, IIRC, she was more like an F-94 prototype. Can anybody confirm? Include it? Trekphiler 10:59, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Early Development History

I believe this article http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/1993/2/1993_2_44.shtml describes the 180 day contract and delivery of the first P-80 better than the description in this article. The time was a bit longer to the first flight than is stated here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.33.99.141 (talk) 17:04, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree and its material is now summarized in the history and documented.--Reedmalloy (talk) 06:32, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Wing and a prayer

I'm not by any means expert, but from what I've read, the pos of the 262's jetpods was at least partly due to aerodynamic considerations of flow into the inlets. (Recall, they didn't have the fancy splitters & such common now.) Trekphiler 16:56, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

The Me 262 (like the competing He 280) had two engines because the-then (c. 1939/40) most powerful jet engines were not powerful enough to give a single-engined aircraft any advantage over the piston engined fighters then-current. This was the same reason the Meteor was also a twin. The advent of the Halford H.1 (Goblin) changed that, as it was more powerful than previous engines and de Havilland thought that with development it would be able to give an adequate thrust for use in a single engined jet fighter - hence the de Havilland Spider Crab (Vampire). This engine was then used for the P-80, which was also the first US single-engined jet - the Airacomet was a twin.
This relatively low-power of the early engines was the reason that the Vampire was designed with a twin-boom layout, as this minimised the length of jet pipe that was required, reducing the thrust losses caused by a long jet pipe. This is also one of the reasons that the Airacomet had its engines installed like they were, to keep the jet pipes as short as possible. By the time the P-80 was designed the Goblin had reached a stage in its development where such a short jet pipe was no longer a necessity.
Incidently, the reason that de Havilland was being generous in sending Lockheed the replacement Halford H.1 engine for the one destroyed in ground runs was because that was the only remaining engine de Havilland had built. As both the Spider Crab (Vampire) and the H.1 were built privately by the company, i.e., not under a government contract, they built two engines, one for the Spider Crab prototype, the other a spare. The spare was the engine sent over to Lockheed for the XP-80, and which was then destroyed in ground runs. This left only the remaining engine intended for the Vampire. Sending Lockheed this engine delayed the Vampire but allowed the US to get a usable jet fighter into the air before the end of the war - the UK already had the Meteor. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.40.254.21 (talk) 12:59, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

UK use

One P-80 was loaned to Rolls-Royce who were developing their Nene at the time. IIRC, it was based at Hucclecote. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.40.251.46 (talk) 22:35, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

That aircraft was 44-83027. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.40.254.21 (talk) 13:41, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
This aircraft (44-83027) has the distinction of being the aeroplane in which the first Rolls-Royce Nene was flown. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.4.57.101 (talk) 22:01, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
Picture of this aircraft - bottom of page - in a 1947 issue of Flight here: [1] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.147.13 (talk) 20:34, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Talking tiptanks

Did (do) the tiptanks affect the wingtip vortices generated at all? Does the change in position (tip to underslung)? TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 06:25, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

The Article completely disregards British Data/Aid.

British Jet Aircraft data which was sent as a gift to the USA during WW2 is the primary reason that the P80 was able to be designed so fast and enabled the USA to 'catch up' with the German AND BRITISH (not mentioned at all) lead over the USA in this area.

The article implies that it was USA 'excellence' alone, and Kelly Johnson/Lockheed who 'caught up' with the Germans in a very short time, with data that it took the Germans years to obtain.

I think the article should mention that the UK gave ALL of its data on Jet AIrcraft to the USA during WW2, and THIS allowed the USA to 'catch up', with the lead that Germany AND BRITAIN, had over them.

To not mention this is a distortion of history.

80.229.17.248 (talk) 04:27, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

That's a gross oversimplification of the issue. Nost, if not all, of the data given to the US by Britain was about jet engines, not aircraft airframes. This article is about the aircraft, not the engines. - BilCat (talk) 11:38, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
It's also wrong. No matter how good the engine, if the airframe is a dog, the engine alone can't make up for it, & there's plenty of examples. Moreover, the P-80 was re-engined within indig U.S. designs. It ain't all about the Brits. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 11:59, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
I think the intent of the original comment was that he felt there was a complete absence of any reference about British technical aid that led to the development of the P-80. What that extent may be is (obviously) open to interpretation, but I would agree with his "overall" point that something should be noted. Of course it would be helpful if he would have offered a possible sentence or sentences to be added rather than the typical Talk complaint of this article is lacking and "someone" should fix it. However to answer this point, I would respond with the fact that if the above questioner had simply read on, he would have seen just what he was looking for in the 3rd paragraph of "Design & Development":
The impetus behind the development of the P-80 was the discovery by Allied intelligence of the German Messerschmitt Me 262 jet in the spring of 1943. After receiving years of British jet aircraft research, the commanding General of the U.S. Army Air Forces Henry H. Arnold believed an airframe could be developed to accept the also British-made jet engine, and the Materiel Command's Wright Field research and development division tasked Lockheed to design the aircraft. With the Germans and British clearly far ahead in development, Lockheed was pressed to develop a comparable jet in as short a time as possible.
In my mind, this is exactly what he was looking for and therefore this is a moot point. Ckruschke (talk) 17:23, 21 March 2011 (UTC)Ckruschke
I think the original poster's point was that if the British hadn't provided the US with Whittle's work and an example of his W.1X engine, the US would not have had any jet fighters in WW II. The sole indigenous US gas turbine engine design was the Lockheed J37 which didn't run until 1946 - and then only as a turboprop. By then the British (and the US) had the Nene at 5,000lb st/thrust. This engine was later used by the USN as the J42.
Not only did the UK provide the US with the W.1X and the know-how to install and operate it, the de Havilland Company even gave one of the few examples of their Halford H.1/Goblin turbojet to Lockheed for use in the XP-80. The latter company then ignored advice from DH on installing the engine, which then resulted in a destroyed impeller. As a replacement impeller was unavailable in the US, DH generously arranged for their only spare flight engine to be flown over to Lockheed to replace the one destroyed in ground runs.
So the point is that if it hadn't been for the British, the P-80 would never have happened. A bit like the P-51 Mustang, although some would rather not admit this.
Therefore, the only reason the P-80 was able to be designed was because the British gave Lockheed an engine for it - you don't design and build a new type of aircraft using a radical means of propulsion without an engine to power it. And the J33 was based on Whittle's designs, so without the British the US wouldn't have had the J33 either. And Lockheed was the only US airframe company that were given a flight-worthy engine to design a fighter aircraft around. None of the other US aircraft manufacturers produced a usable jet fighter during WW II.
... in the period 1940-45 the only people with their own jet engines were the British and the Germans, and of these the only really usable, reliable engines, were British. And the US was lucky enough to get as much information as they wanted on the latter - the Goblin and Welland/Derwent had twice the power-to-weight ratio and half the specific fuel consumption of the German engines such as the Jumo 004B and BMW 003. The British engines also didn't usually disintegrate or explode randomly - a useful feature if you are flying something powered by one, as any pilot will tell you. When the British engines were tested in the German high altitude test cells after World War II the German engineers couldn't believe how good these engines were.
BTW, the Whittle W.1X that was given to the US is now in the Smithsonian Institution. Presumably they regard it as of some importance. It is after all, the origin of the entire US gas turbine industry.
Oh, and a Happy New Year and Best Wishes to our 'cousins' across the pond. It must be the influence of festive Jim Beam on me - one of my favourite things American, of many, this time coming the other way across the Atlantic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.24.215.233 (talk) 18:16, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

XF-90

This is a proposed mention of the obscure XF-90 which many aviation writers have noted as bearing a family resemblence to the Shooting Star as a follow-on if not a proper derivative design. It is not fair to call the XF-90 a derivative, but it pretty obviously shows that the F-80 was a starting point for the XF-90 and is not an unrelated design even if it did not share any parts, much more clear than the F-100 was related as a follow-on to the F-86. The F-104 was also based on fighter pilot input from the Korean War. North American and Republic fielded successful swept wing trans and supersonic fighters (F-86, F-100, F-84F) while the XF-90 was a dead end before the F-104 was introduced. Redhanker (talk) 22:04, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Unlike jets such as the Grumman F-9 Cougar and the Republic F-84F Thunderstreak which were based on straight-wing jets, the F-80 was never developed into a swept wing variant. However the final 1947 layout of Lockheed's next Lockheed XF-90 emerged reflecting experience with the F-80 adapted for near supersonic flight.[1] It retained air intakes forward of a low-mounted wing with wingtip fuel tanks, but with a sharply pointed nosed and a swept wing. Designed as a penetration fighter to escort bombers and perform ground attack, it could exceed the speed of sound in test flights but it never saw production[2]

http://www.vectorsite.net/avf104_1.html

The first XF-90 prototype.
Not a chance. This is mainly pure hokum. Kelly Johnson set out the design team of Dan Palmer and Bill Ralston who came up with as many as 65 different configurations based around the Penetration Fighter proposal. None of these were either derivatives or modifications of the basic F-80 design according to Jay Miller, David Donald, Bill Gunston and especially, Steve Pace, in his X-Fighters: USAF Experimental and Prototype Fighters, XP-59 to YF-23. St. Paul, Minnesota: Motorbooks International, 1991. ISBN 0-87938-540-5, p. 82, describing the design of the XF-90 in detail. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 22:29, 1 August 2011 (UTC).

References

  1. ^ vectorsite F-104
  2. ^ Aviastar F-90

Use during WW2

According to the TV documentary 'Aircraft that never flew' (episode about the L-133), (X?)P80s were sent to Italy (and used) in the dying days of WW2 in an attempt to shoot down Luftwaffe Arado Ar-234s used in their recon role. I'm not going to add that to the article without further confirmation, as it's the 1st time I've heard of it (and it might just be typical TV hype). Anyone else know anything about this?1812ahill (talk) 11:15, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Two Shooting Star "development" types arrived in Italy just before V-E Day but they did not fly any combat missions, according to Chris Bishop in The encyclopedia of weapons of World War II, page 328. However, according to Bill Gunston (who I have found is less likely to have thoroughly researched his material) the two jets got to Italy in January 1945 and "served under combat conditions", The encyclopedia of the world's combat aircraft, page 131. Roger E. Bilstein writes in Flight in America: from the Wrights to the astronauts that "Lockheed delivered over 100 of these fighters before the end of the war, and some were flying with air force squadrons in England and Italy for familiarization purposes." Bill Yenne writes in his book Lockheed, "In early 1945 two Shooting Stars were sent to England and another pair to Italy. They actually went on patrol searching for Me-262 and Heinkel He- 162 jet fighters, but there was to be no air-to-air combat between jets during World War II." His "on patrol" could be an inflation of Bilstein's familiarization flights. So there is nothing about Arado Ar 234s being hunted, and only throwaway text about combat missions. Binksternet (talk) 14:40, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
That's about the extent of their service, which could still be mentioned, as operational in Italy in January 1945. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 15:48, 27 February 2012 (UTC).
Very interesting, perhaps a case for a DYK!1812ahill (talk) 16:18, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
The following is an edit I made years ago to the 1st Fighter Group article: "There the 1st Fighter Group received two YP-80A jet fighters (serials 44-83028 and 44-83029) sent to the theater for operational testing ("Project Extraversion"). Although the jets were marked for combat operations with easily identifiable tail stripes and the letters 'A' and 'B' on their noses, and flown on two operational sorties by the 94th FS, neither saw combat before the end of the war." I will see what I can do about digging up the original source and posting it both here and at 1st FG.--Reedmalloy (talk) 10:21, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
Splitting hairs here - operational sorties in a warzone are by definition combat flights, regardless of whether they made an interception or fired at another aircraft or not, and even if it was done with prototypes. Encyclopedias of any kind are terrible sources, and most are full of errors - at least use a book that is primarily about the P/F-80 as a reference.NiD.29 (talk) 05:58, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Operation Downfall

Is there any chance this aircraft would've been used in the planned invasion of Japan in November, 1945 and March, 1946? 71.94.221.133 (talk) 02:57, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes. The US government deployed 4 P-80s to Saipan just 1 month before the war ended. Jak474 (talk) 14:50, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Count to 262

I recognize it's generally accepted the P-80 was a response, but the 262 hadn't been encountered yet AFAIK. Can we source it was a direct response? I don't demand it be sourced, just asking, can it be? If so, I'll shut up. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 07:31, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I believe I may have several possible sources, one on the P-80, another on Arnold. My understanding to your question is "yes" it was a direct response to intel on the Me 262, and yes that has been published previously. I'll check and report back.--Reedmalloy (talk) 10:23, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
Here are some relevant sources:
The first intelligence about a German jet fighter was received by the Allies around early 1941. The British Gloster Meteor jet program was already underway at that time as was the Bell P-59A jet fighter program in the USA. One can say that the P-80 was a response to the growing threat of the Me 262 but it was also a response to the failure of the Bell P-59A, according to Gordon Greer. We can certainly say that the existence of the Me 262 was the impetus for putting together a very much speeded-up P-80 development program, and perhaps with additional context we can say that the Me 262 was the catalyst for the program. Binksternet (talk) 16:30, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
Somehow I knew I could count on you, Binkster!--Reedmalloy (talk) 04:59, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
That's way more than I needed to be satisfied. 8o If you'd said, "Yes, the sources are there", that would've been plenty for me. Thx a bunch for looking it up, tho. :D TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 02:36, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

I can easily believe that the P-80 was in part driven by the ME-262. What I have trouble understanding is how Kelly Johnson could or would have fielded a straight-winged P-80 fighter after he had had a good look at the 262. And we can safely assume he got more than a good look at the 262 during the war, well prior to 1943. This is Kelly Johnson we're talking about. He lived and breathed on the bleeding edge of aerospace. Why in the world would he have settled for a straight wing? I mean, the whole thing took 163 days from design to delivery. At that compressed rate, it seems like he would have taken a few more days or weeks to add the swept wings. I will never understand this, and I've been following the Skunk Works pretty much forever. It's hard to imagine that the man who built the SR-71 would have fielded a fighter that was, by almost all accounts, obsolete upon delivery. That's the confusing part of this plane's story for me. I can't prove he had seen the 262, but if he didn't by 1943, he was one of the few connected people who didn't. Cheers. 73.6.96.168 (talk) 20:00, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

"...it seems like he would have taken a few more days or weeks to add the swept wings. I will never understand this ..." - the reason everyone on the Allied side was using straight wings was because at the time no-one outside Germany had access to a supersonic wind tunnel and it was only after the war's end in 1945 that the victorious powers came across German aeronautical research at Göttingen into high speed flight that showed the advantages of swept wings at high subsonic Mach numbers. IIRC, the only German designs actually built to make use of this research was a flying test bed in the shape of the Ju 287 which was built specifically to investigate the low speed handling characteristics of swept wings, - note: the wings on the Ju 287 were swept forward because the wind tunnel tests showed this gave the best result. It was subsequently found difficult to design and build a swept-forward wing stiff enough not to suffer from flutter and so all later designs used swept back wings - and the Me P1101 and the Ta 183.
The P-80 was hardly 'obsolete', it was comparable to the Me 262, He 162, Vampire, and Meteor, and would have performed well if the war had gone on into 1946.
In 1943 the only people on the Allied side who had seen the Me 262 (and Me 163) were the photo-interpreters at RAF Medmenham. Other than sketchy information received in intelligence reports, the first concrete information received by the Allies on the Me 262 was when the first examples were captured on their airfields in 1945. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.144.50.163 (talk) 19:53, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

"Planes that never flew" documentary

Something I ran across on YouTube, a TV documentary about the Lockheed L-133 that gives a bit more background and alleges that the P-80 was partially based on that never-built design (also by Kelly). Not sure if this is worth including in the article as part of the history. 150.148.0.65 (talk) 00:27, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Favonian (talk) 12:08, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star → Lockheed F-80 Shooting Star – WP:COMMONNAME. The Shooting Star was known as "P-80" from 1945 through 1948, then "F-80" from June 11, 1948 through the end of its service - a much longer period, including its defining service in Korea. The F-82, F-84 and F-86 all started their service with "P-for Pursuit" designations that were changed in 1948 to "F-for-Fighter", but have their pages here at the F designations for the same reasons stated above; there's no reason for the Shooting Star to be otherwise. The Bushranger One ping only 23:35, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

P-59 Airacomet

First, it seems as though there ought to be some mention of the US P-59 Airacomet program, as background at least. This article seems to infer that the P-80 was the first US-designed jet fighter, while at best it was the first SUCCESSFUL US jet fighter. Second, it claims that the P-80 was the first fighter to incorporate its engine inside the fuselage...the P-59 had fuselage mounted engine. I know it says "the first operational" jet fighter to use fuselage-mounted engines, but I disagree...the P-59 was an operational fighter, just not combat rated. Even if one chooses to interpret "operational", it still ought to mention the P-59, at very least. I know that the introduction to the P-59 article clearly states that it was the first jet fighter to have engines buried in the fuselage, which comes across as contradictory unless one happens to take note of the single word "operational". The way the article is written, a reader will interpret it that the P-80 was the first jet fighter designed by the US, and the first to have engines in the fuselage. Most people won't notice the significance of "first operational" fighter, unless they are given some context. As it is, unless one happens to read the whole article and then decide to click on the link to "P-59 Airacomet" in the "see also" section, they will be utterly unaware of the P-59, which taught the US important lessons, if nothing else. .45Colt 08:24, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

The Gloster E.28/39 design also included the provision to carry four wing-mounted .303 machine guns so if one were to include the P-59 as a 'fighter' that would seem to qualify the E.28/39 similarly. The latter had a fuselage-mounted engine and thus precedes the P-80 by several years.
The E.28/39 never had the guns installed, but it was designed for potential use as a fighter, and it would have been usable as one with the final engine fits, achieving ~466mph, albeit with very limited endurance. John Grierson stated that it was the first aeroplane he had flown where he had been able to watch the needle of the fuel gauge slowly moving round from 'Full' to 'Empty' while he was flying it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.55.6 (talk) 10:35, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
Highest speed obtained with the Gloster E.28/39 was 505 mph at 30,000 feet with a W.2/700 engine,[1] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.100.255 (talk) 10:10, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "English electric | avro canada | armstrong whitworth | 1951 | 0884 | Flight Archive".

The XP-59B connection

I have added in a section on the XP-59B in the main article, however I will note here there are some uncertainly in the sources about the exact relationship between the XP-59B and the XP-80. All the sources agree that in late 1942 - early 1943, preliminary production drawings of the XP-59B were transferred from Bell to Lockheed, and elements of the XP-59B's design ended up in the XP-80. Sources seem to conflict as to the exact reasoning behind this action, with some stating Lockheed was awarded a contract to design the XP-59B and others implying this was just a transfer of documents not associated with any design contract. There is also some uncertainly as to exactly how direct the relationships between the XP-59B and the XP-80 is, with some sources stating or at least implying the XP-80 was a direct continuation of the XP-59B's design (technically making the P-80 a variant of the P-59), and other stating Bell design was just extremely influential. I have done the best I can to present the most reasonable narrative I could identify, but more/better sources would be needed for something more definitive. Voteins (talk) 08:00, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Don't put your trust in Joe Baugher who has screwed up royally with his facts more than once. Authoritative sources tell us that the P-80 was designed by Kelly Johnson without any boost whatsoever from Bell. Wooldridge's The P-80 Shooting Star: Evolution of a Jet Fighter (1979) is a good book, Anderson's The Grand Designers: The Evolution of the Airplane in the 20th Century is too, and of course Kelly's memoir, Kelly: More Than My Share of it All. These books say that Johnson and his Lockheed team designed everything on the P-80 except the Goblin jet engine from England. The laminar flow wing is especially linked to Johnson. Robert F. Dorr writes in Fighting Hitler's Jets that Lockheed had received the XP-59 data but Lockheed designed the P-80 themselves. Johnson had heard that the Bell jet was a dud in the air, so there's no way he would use its design elements. Steve Pace says in The Projects of Skunk Works that the only thing Johnson used from the pile of papers he got from Bell was the British blueprint for the Goblin, drawn up by Halford at de Havilland. Binksternet (talk) 09:12, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
If you check the article I relied on more sources than just Baugher. In addition to those sources, the transfer of documents is also mentioned by William Norton in U.S. Experimental & Prototype Aircraft Projects: Fighters 1939-1945 and René J. Francillon in Lockheed Aircraft Since 1913 as part of the P-80's design process. Don Berliner goes as far as to explicitly say the P-80 began as the XP-59B in Surviving Fighter Aircraft of World War Two. With the online sources The Aviation History Online Museum, John Weeks, and Pilotfriend all state the XP-59B influenced the XP-80. Given this abundance of sources claiming the XP-59B influenced the XP-80's design, one would need to see "more definitive" sources making explicit denials of the Bell design's influence before discounting the idea entirely.
Pace says Lockheed used the goblin specs from Bell, but he doesn't say they didn't use anything else. I haven't had a chance to review those other sources, but I would likewise check them to make sure they explicitly say "the XP-59B had absolutely no influence at all on Johnson and Lockheed" rather than just not mentioning it. Every work is a compilation of sources available to the author, even the most definitive seeming works can miss things. And Johnson himself may have had personal reasons for failing to mention the influence a rival aircraft company's design had on his own.
I personally agree with you that the idea of the P-80 starting off as a variant of the P-59 seems far fetched, but there are enough design elements in common between the XP-59B and the XP-80 to make the the idea of Lockheed taking some cues from Bell fairly compelling, particularly the low mounted wing with air inlets, and the single fuselage mounted engine with an exhaust vent under a conventional tailplane. Both of those are radical departures from the L-133, which had been Lockheed's primary attempt at a jet just a few months before. Even if Johnson felt the P-59 was an inferior design and started with a clean sheet, it's not unreasonable in the least to think of him gaining some influence from an alternate design, especially when that alternate design is for a goblin powered fighter aircraft and he's trying to rush forward with an identical project.Voteins (talk) 16:56, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
The unbuilt XP-59B's low wing was nothing new to Lockheed. They didn't need it from Bell. They had a ton of airflow data on the low-mounted Electra Model 10 wing, for instance.
The websites you list all feed off each other. See circular reporting or XKCD's citogenesis. In a situation like this where there is no new information to provide a foundation for revisionist argument, the best sources are books published before the internet made copying so easy.
If you look at Johnson's autobiography, you will learn that he refused to build on someone else's design. He would adapt ideas, of course, but re-engineer them himself. The Bell wing was too big, and "scarcely laminar". (Jacob Neufeld, George M. Watson, Jr., and David Chenoweth wrote about this in "Technology and the Air Force – A Retrospective Assessment", published by the Air Force History and Museums Program in 1997.) Bell was struggling with aerodynamic problems the whole time. Lockheed started fresh to design their own true laminar flow wing. And of course both Bell and Lockheed had been making thousands of tricycle fighters for a few years by this time: the P-38 and the P-39. Lockheed would never have used Bell's tricycle design when their own was perfectly good.
Regarding the air inlets, Bell was having serious trouble with theirs, and they were working with two engines each using its own separate flow of air. Lockheed was combining two inlets to feed one engine, which was a different engineering job. And they had already done the work on two jets with two airflows when they designed the L-133. They had even designed their own engine proposal, which Bell never did. When I look at the 1930s–1940s records of Bell and Lockheed, comparing the two companies in aeronautical engineering, I think of Bell as competent and Lockheed as genius.
Don Berliner's 2011 book Surviving Fighter Aircraft of World War Two suffers from poor research in various places. Maybe it suffers from circular reporting problems. In any case, he is contradicted by Robert F. Dorr in Fighting Hitler's Jets (2013) which says that Johnson was "departing from proven airfoil designs"[2] in designing the P-80 wing, which was a huge "gamble" according to Kelly Johnson. That makes it 100% Lockheed. Binksternet (talk) 20:18, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
I don't see the contradiction in the sources you provide and what I wrote. In the article I essentially said Johnson adapted Bell's ideas from the XP-59B, and then applied them to the XP-80, which is exactly what you describe him as sometimes doing. There are some sources that claim the XP-80 is a direct descendant of the XP-59B, but I do rate their credibility as a bit iffy. In the end we end up arguing over the Ship of Theseus, if Lockheed took the P-59 and changed the wings, fuselage, engine and tail does that even count as the same aircraft anymore? If so the F-100 Super Sabre is a variant of the P-51 Mustang as there is a clear design lineage through the FJ-1 and F-86, which is of course a rather ridiculous claim on the face of it.
But that doesn't mean the XP-59B didn't influence the XP-80. Two inlets with one engine was precisely what Bell was working on with the XP-59B, and after Lockheed got ahold of their designs they ended up with a suspiciously similar solution, two inlets in the wing roots leading up into an engine mounted near the center of the fuselage, a thin, low mounted wing, and exhaust vented underneath the tail. I've even seen some claim online in later revisions the XP-59B's exhaust vent extended all the way underneath the tailplane, something I can't find a good source for but would provide even more convincing proof. If you ask me dead on what I think happened, I believe Lockheed got Bell's plans and said "I can do this better". They started from a clean sheet and constructed an aircraft with the same basic layout of the XP-59B, but also incorporating changes like Johnson's laminar wings. I haven't found a source that explicitly states this though, and it may not exist.
As to the claim that Lockheed had superior engineering skill to Bell, it's an argument I tend to agree with, but we should note when it came time to design the USAAF's first jet fighter they chose Bell over Lockheed. And this is despite Lockheed having spent years trying to promote itself for that position, to the point of spending untold thousands of dollars designing the L-133 and its engines. In 1942 Bell's engineers were the most successful American jet aircraft designers, in that they were the only Americans to have successfully designed and flown a jet aircraft. Said aircraft may of not been up to the standards of WW2 combat, but that certainly could (and apparently did) point them in the direction of a successful jet. Lockheed very well have been geniuses, but they would've been fools to not at least pay attention to their only rival with real experience in this area.
But in the end we're back where we started. There are a variety of sources claiming the XP-59B influenced Johnson and Lockheed in their design of the XP-80, and some others that fail to mention it. But even in those sources that don't mention the XP-59B, I've yet to see one that contradicts the idea. I haven't seen any evidence Lockheed experimented with different locations for air inlets and finally settled on locating them in the wing roots, which was a significant reversal from the L-133. I haven't seen evidence there was debate over the low wing, a design common in many fighters but not Lockheed's previous L-133 or P-38. The design appears whole cloth, and any changes along the P-80's rapid development consist of comparatively minor changes to things like inlet sizes and wing airfoils (exactly the sort of details Bell continually struggled with and Lockheed excelled). It's very possible Johnson and Lockheed didn't consider what they were doing "copying", or that Bell needed mention in the histories when they were revising almost everything they did with the XP-59B. But in my opinion it deserves a place in the story of the P-80's rapid development, much like the P-40 deserves a place in the P-51's.Voteins (talk) 22:49, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
You started out struggling with your thesis, saying you found "some uncertainly in the sources", but now you are entrenching your position. And you attributed to me a stance I don't hold. I think it's time you put together a WP:Request for comment to see what the community thinks. Suggest a specific change in text. Binksternet (talk) 17:37, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
Just a guess. As the XP-59B was intended to be a H-1/Goblin-powered version of the XP-59 I suspect that the Bell drawings supplied to Lockheed may well have had more updated engine installation details than the original ones supplied much earlier by de Havilland. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.144.50.163 (talk) 20:03, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
Guess? The engine hardpoints and dimensions were of critical interest to Lockheed. That's where the Lockheed metal meets the de Havilland metal. The only update Lockheed would care about would be from a revised or new engine with different dimensions. Nothing from Bell would be needed. Binksternet (talk) 22:37, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 24 August 2020

Tony Levier can be wiki-linked Scoop100 (talk) 11:44, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. Tony LeVier should be linked. Binksternet (talk) 16:12, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
 Done Salvio 16:22, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
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