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Lockheed P-80 “Shooting Star”.
USA weren’t that much into jet propulsion before Great Britain gave them the license on a successful H. 1B “Goblin” turbojet engine. In June 1943, “Lockheed” received an assignment to design a jet fighter using this engine in the shortest time possible.
The design team led by the famous Clarence Johnson worked day and night, and already on November 14, 1943 the work was over. The problems, as always, arose from the engine, which could not be tweaked to meet the required conditions. The aircraft had to be redesigned with another engine in mind – Allison J-33. With this power plant, the aircraft had successfully passed the tests. 4 aircraft were transported to Europe (UK and Northern Italy) for combat testing, but they never met their “siblings” there.
The aircraft possessed a good set of characteristics for that time period, which, combined with sufficient reliability, allowed him to surpass any piston-powered aircraft of that era. But any innovation costs lives of the test pilots. On August 6, 1945 the famous American pilot Richard Bong died piloting the production sample. During the war he had shot down 40 Japanese aircraft while piloting another Lockheed product – P-38 “Lightning”.
Lockheed P-80 in the "Pacific Storm"
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