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Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Thunderstreak








Here are some images of Revell's 1/48 scale Republic F 84 Thunderstreak. From Wikipedia "

In 1949, Republic created a swept wing version of the F-84 hoping to bring performance to the F-86 level. The last production F-84E was fitted with a swept tail, a new wing with 38.5 degrees of leading edge sweep and 3.5 degrees of anhedral, and a J35-A-25 engine producing 5,300 pound-force (23.58 kN) of thrust. The aircraft was designated XF-96A. It flew on 3 June 1950 with Otto P. Haas at the controls. Although the airplane was capable of 602 knots (693 mph, 1,115 km/h), the performance gain over the F-84E was considered minor.Nonetheless, it was ordered into production in July 1950 as the F-84F Thunderstreak. The F-84 designation was retained because the fighter was expected to be a low-cost improvement of the straight-wing Thunderjet with over 55 percent commonality in tooling.

In the meantime, the USAF, hoping for improved high-altitude performance from a more powerful engine, arranged for the British Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire turbojet engine to be built in the United States as the Wright J65. To accommodate the larger engine, YF-84Fs with a British-built Sapphire as well as production F-84Fs with the J65 had a vertically stretched fuselage, with the air intake attaining an oval cross-section. Production delays with the F-84F forced USAF to order a number of straight-wing F-84Gs as an interim measure.

Production quickly ran into problems. Although tooling commonality with the Thunderjet was supposed to be 55 percent, in reality only 15 percent of tools could be reused.To make matters worse, the F-84F utilized press-forged wing spars and ribs. At the time, only three presses in the United States could manufacture these, and priority was given to the B-47 Stratojet bomber over the F-84.The YJ65-W-1 engine was considered obsolete and the improved J65-W-3 did not become available until 1954. When the first production F-84F finally flew on 22 November 1952, it differed from the service test aircraft. It had a different canopy which opened up and back instead of sliding to the rear, as well as airbrakes on the sides of the fuselage instead of the bottom of the aircraft.The aircraft was considered not ready for operational deployment due to control and stability problems. Since early aircraft suffered from accelerated stall pitch-up, F-84F-25-RE introduced an all-moving tailplane. A number of aircraft were also retrofitted with spoilers for improved high-speed control. As a result, the F-84F was not declared operational until 12 May 1954.

5 comments:

Pat Tillett said...

I noticed that there is German insignia on this plane. What's the story on that?

-Warren Zoell said...

American aircraft are often sold to and used by other countries. For example here in Canada we are currently flying McDonnell Douglas CF 18s and we are about switch to The Lockheed Martin F 35 Lightning II, both American aircraft. The US makes the best toys. The US has also purchased technology from other countries for example the manipulator arms on the Space Shuttle and the ISS were built by Canada. This Particular aircraft was flown by Jagdbomber-Geschwader JaboG 33, Buchel, Germany, 1962.

Pat Tillett said...

I realize that, but I thought this plane was a 1950ish model. I thought NATO didn't allow West Germany to have an Airforce until a 1953 or 54. I'm probably wrong...

-Warren Zoell said...

This aircraft served in 1962.

Pat Tillett said...

Like I said. "I'm probably wrong!"