First Generation Jet Fighters

Heres a thread to the jets that started it all, Some even still fly today.

Gloster Meteor
www.hq.nasa.gov...

Messerschmidt 262
www.microsoft.com...

De Haviland Venom/Vampire
members.fortunecity.co.uk...

Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star, A pure 1950s classic
www.montaguemillennium.com...

The Vought F-7 Cutlass was a nice fighter design but crashed many times landing due to its very tall nose leg
www.military.cz...

The F-84 Thunderstreak is one of my favourite first jets, Superior to the
F-86 Sabre but never got the fame as it.

Look for the 'Thundermirages' on this site
www.ailes-militaires-belges.be...

Would the F-84 be a good ground attack plane for today?



[edit on 29-3-2006 by Browno]

you`ve missed possibly the greatest first generation jet of them all.


the MiG-15

www.aviation-central.com...

it took several upgrades to the sabre to match it

The first two jety fighters were pigs, the Me 262 had awful engines and the Meteor was a crappy design, you could have made a decent fighter if you'd combined the Messerschmitt airframe with Rolls Royce engines

The first jets fighters 'worth having' were the P-80 and Vampire, the fiorst ones with performance and reliability that were a genuine advance on the piston fighters of the era.

As for the Sabre, Harlequin, that is not really true. The F-80 and F-84 were thoroughly outclassed by the MiG 15 but the appearance of the F-86 in service redressed the balance in America's favour and the F-86 could match the MiG 15. The advantage was almost exclusively down to the superior wing design of the Sabre which has gone down in history as one of the most perfect fighter aircraft wings EVER designed, right up alongside the Spitfires wing. This wing was fitted from the start.

For example (from the Jet Revolution by Jerry Scutts (Putnam, 2000);

...The soundness of the F-86's design became apparent when the first USAF squadrons clashed with MiG 15's over Korea, as the Sabre was the only fighter able to take on the Koreans on equal terms...

[edit on 29-3-2006 by waynos]

From Russia with love...

Mig 9:


Yak 17/23:


La-15:


and from Sweden...
J-21:


J-29:

The MiG 9 shown in planemans post was another pig, a truly awful aeroplane.

Far superior was the Sukhoi Su 9 (see pic below). However Stalin felt it looked too much like the Me 262 and so the 'unique' MiG 9 was ordered into production instead.

The Su-9's resemblence to the Me 262 is extremely tenuous and is more to do with the engine nacelles than anything else but there ya go, its like people thinking the J-10 looks like the F-16.

When these planes were 'state-of-the-art' technology, I was about 10 years old and just loved the look of them. I still do today.
Back then, I would spend hours dreaming of flying them or drawing lots of pictures. (no doubt they are the reason I'm an artist today).

Great thread...I'm loving it.

nice pics, planeman...I like the J-29 best (for the design, mostly)



edit for idiocy



[edit on 29-3-2006 by masqua]

From Argentina, Pulqui I (another Pig as Waynos would say):

It’s funny Waynos but that F-86 wing was somewhat of a fortunate accident. The F-86 was not specifically designed for super maneuverability or “dog fighting”. However since it had so much wing it was a very maneuverable aircraft and it proved itself over Korea.

Yes thats true Westy, if you look at the original straight wing Sabre it has the same wingspan as the 'normal'version. This was because North American considered putting a swept wing on it as a risky venture and actually thought the span should be maintained as opposed to area being the same. This led to the F-86 being slightly 'overwinged' and was in fact miles better for it.

Here's another couple, this time lesser known British designs:

Supermarine "508" with V tail:


Supermarine Attacker, literally developed from the Spitfire (/Spitful):


Supermarine Swift, basically the Attacker (above) with swept wings:


Gloster Ace:

I love the look of the 508, this design was later refitted with swept wings and a Hunter style cruciform swept tail, as the 525, and in a more delveloped version it entered service as the Scimitar F.1 and was the first RN aircraft to carry an atomic bomb.

If I may be pedantic, that other picture is not a swift, it is a Supermarine 510, which was just an Attacker fitted with swept flying surfaces (as you describe it) experimentally. The Americans fitted the F-86 with swept wings and got a thoroughbred, when Supermarine did it they just got a swept wing pig

The first prototype of the Swift was the Supermarine 535 and the first in service version was the 541, both were considerably different to and bigger than the 510, which was related to the Swift in the same way that the EAP was related to the Typhoon.

Supermarine 510 - Swept wing Attacker


Supermarine 535


Supermarine 541 Swift F.1



[edit on 30-3-2006 by waynos]

Why lost this one?

Wasn't the real problem with the me 262 that it coukdn't fly so long until it needed refuelling... it could only stray in the air for 0.5 hours...

All early jets had that problem FIN, the trouble with the Me 262 was that Germany was forced to use unsuitable materials in the manufacture of the engines owing to their isolated position and inability to source the right metals, unlike Britain, this meant that the engines were worn out completely after about 10 hours and needed to be replaced, a nightmare when it was so difficult to produce them in the first place.

There was actually nothing much wrong with the design and technology of the engines and such as the Jumo 004 provided the basis of the Soviet engine industry during the 1950's.