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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