P-80 Shooting Star
In the spring of 1943 Allied intelligence became aware of the ME262 jet fighter, little was known about it but under the direction of Henry H. Arnold, the Commanding General of the U.S. Army Air Forces the decision was taken to bring the USA into the jet age. The development of the earlier XP59 Airacomet had not inspired confidence in the turbojet jet but with the reliability and power of the British developed engines increasing by the day the americans decided that they could not afford to be left behind.
Arnold went to Lockheed and convinced them to build an airframe around the de Havilland Halford H1 (Goblin) which was already produced almost 2,300 lbs of thrust of the drawing board with promise of a great deal more. A design was submitted by what would be known as the 'Skunk Works' team led by Kelly Johnson claiming that the airframe could be built and ready for testing in 180 days, in the end it took just 143 being delivered to Muroc field (now Edwards AFB) on the 16th November 1943.
The first flight was delayed by foreign object damage which destroyed the engine on the first run up. A new engine was shipped from Britain allowing the first prototype (44-83020) nicknamed Lulu-Bell to get airbourne on the 8th January 1944. It was flown by Lockheed test pilot Tony LeVier, another nickname was 'The Green Hornet' because of its colour scheme. The second prototype XP-80A was designed around the GE built I-40 based on the Rolls Royce Derwent and also built by Allison as the J33. Its first flight perfromance was not impresssive and even with the technical difficulties rectified it was still considered worse than the H1 powered XP-80.
XP-80A 44-83021 Gray Ghost in flight.
The XP-80A's were primarily testbeds for bigger engines and intake duct design, and consequently were larger and 25% heavier than the XP-80, a big factor in their poor performance. The P-80 testing program proved very dangerous. Burcham was killed on 20 October 1944 while flying the third YP-80A, 44-83025 while the "Gray Ghost" was lost on a test flight on 20 March 1945, although pilot Tony LeVier escaped being able to bail out when the engine failed due to a turbine blade failure.
more coming...