NOT FAST. QUITE FURIOUS: The Sabre’s Ugly Cousin Was A Pretty Dreadful Fighter

by late 1942 it was clear that North American Aviation was on to a winner with the P-51 Mustang it was also clear that any doubts about the advantages of jet engines were rapidly dissipating in November 1944 North Americans typically aggressive management decided to fund the design study into a single-engined straight winged jet fighter to succeed the Mustang this proved to be fortunate timing the U.S Navy Was preparing itself for an invasion of Japan in May 1946. it wanted to clear the way for that assault with a new generation of carrier-borne jet fighters seeing promise in North Americans proposed design in January 1945 they elected to commission three prototypes designated xfj1 J is the manufacturer code for North American Aviation in case you're wondering although that North American study na135 would also lead to the Air Force's sweat winged f-86 saber the Navy continued with the rather more conventional xfj1 at this point it was still unproven whether the new Jets could offer the low speed handling and acceleration that was needed for Carrier operations at sea the xfj1 therefore had straight Wings in May 1945 before the first prototype was anywhere close to Flying the Navy ordered a hundred units this contract was scaled back to 30 as the war ended and budget cuts became the order of the day eager to get on with it North American had the Prototype ready in January 1946 it would not fly until the summer of that year because of the kind of delays with supplies of the Allison j35 engine that would be a consistent theme in early post-war American jet production the aircraft performed reasonably well in land-based testing it was stable and easy to handle offering the kind of high-speed acceleration that no piston engine fighter could match further prototypes were delivered in October 1946 and January 1947. production examples of what would become known as the fj1 fury began to trickle out into the Navy test center at Pakistan river between October 1947 and April 1948. the last deliveries were a matter of weeks before the first f-86a Sabers were delivered to Air Force squadrons production models carried the same six M3 brownings in the nose as the saber with 250 rounds per gun the installation is however very different from the saber as you can see in this Navy diagram the ammunition cans are above the guns rather than at the sides links are ejected from the plane on firing the saber retained them to keep the aircraft in trim ammunition is therefore loaded through a curved panel just in front of the windshield worthy of note is that the fury was the last production Navy fighter to be delivered with machine gun Armament an inauspicious end to an Era for aiming the fury used The Proven Mark 23 deflector gun sight this site was also used in some later models of the Corsair and used a gyroscope to calculate lead the fury doesn't have the characteristic top lip that the saber has and consequently there is no gunsight radar the fury has a fuselage two steps before the f-86 in evolutionary terms the saber maintainer enjoyed a neat break at around halfway point of the fuselage that enabled him to easily gain access to the engine and accessories the same maintainer on the fj1 would have to access the engine through a large removable panel on the upper fuselage much less convenient North American also had to strengthen the fuselage to cope with carrier operations this gives the fury a dumpier look than the saber the picture isn't flattering but gives you a sense of its ungainly proportions greater structural strength inevitably resulted in greater weight all the fuel was contained in the fuselage the wings were dry which it turned out was a good thing as they had a propensity to fall off on Landing one advantage of the Fury's dumpy body was a spacious well laid out cockpit the bubble canopy gave good all-round visibility but rather heavy Framing and an inner bulletproof layer detracted from the forward visibility because the fury has straight Wings it also has a straight tail rather than the 35 degree angled ones on the saber the saber's Leading Edge flaps were not required on these conventional Wings which were closely related to the very successful laminar Flow Design of the P-51 Mustang although straight they're excellent basic design does give the fury a relatively high top speed and long cruising range despite its poor thrust to weight ratio the wings did not however fold the carrier operation this limited their span to a size that would fit on a carrier's aircraft elevators as you can see in this photo in order to reduce the area needed for storage North American designed a dual position front landing gear for normal use it extends fully as you can see here storage it rotates back so the aircraft rests on a small Caster on the opposite side of the leg then the nose of one Fury can be pushed under the tail of another to pack more planes into a small space this slightly odd but kind of smart Arrangement was requested by the Navy it didn't make it into mainstream use in the fleet though anyhow the well-designed wing meant the combat radius was up to 700 miles if tip tanks were fitted Optimum cruising speed was 432 miles an hour at 9000 feet the issue was that with those tanks the fury simply couldn't get off a carrier deck safely carrying an additional 340 gallons of fuel raised the takeoff weight of 15 115 pounds a weight that the j35's four thousand pounds of thrust couldn't accelerate very fast this problem was evident from the moment Commander Evan orod brought a fury in on approach to the S6 class carrier boxer on March the 16th 1948. he landed well enough it was taking off that was the trick even with the j35 to the stops the fury lumbered across the deck dipping terrifyingly as it came off the bay before gradually clawing its way into the air it reminds me of that video from the Doolittle Raid as the B-25 struggle Airborne now it shouldn't be how a jet fighter performs and it wasn't safe operationally catapult takeoffs were made mandatory Landings didn't prove much easier in practice the undercarriage just wasn't strong enough to take a Carrier Landing vf-51 the only operational Fury Squadron was ordered to fly aboard the USS Princeton on August 1948. one of the fjs the last built by North American incidentally landed quite hard so hard that the entire left wing sheared off and the fuselage on the right wing of the fury went over the side and into the sea luckily the pilot was able to pop the canopy and Escape although there were no more major incidents near misses and barrier Landings accumulated to such an extent that all eight aircraft in the Detachment received significant damage two days after they arrived the Princeton's Captain ordered vf-51 off his ship the Squadron attempted one further Cruise back aboard the boxer in February 1949 by all accounts this went a little bit better but it was evident that the fury was basically useless as a carrier fighter it was replaced with F9 F3 Panthers the fury went to the naval Reserve to help with jet conversion finally retiring in February 1953 as a land-based trainer it was actually not too bad with a nice long Runway and comfortable flying characteristics it was probably easy to forget about its design purpose and enjoy the experience it's hard to get away from the fact that the fury was a pretty terrible aircraft it's remarkable how North Americans basic concept could result in the saber easily the best fighter of its generation and the fury which is one of the worst if you look at the raw statistics you would think that the fj1 was superior to the fh1 Phantom the statistics aren't the full picture although the Phantom's usefulness was crippled by lack of ultimate speed and poor range it was a robust aircraft that could take the stresses and strains of carrier operation it was the first in a line of McDonald products that form the backbone of the Navy in the Cold War it was also one of the first production aircraft with an axial flow jet engine my feeling is that North American Aviation regarded the fury as a hedge against failure of the sweatwing experiment on the xp-86 it could be uncharitable and suggest that their A-Team was assigned to that project and the fury team was left to do their best the theory is just so conventional a piston-engined World War II fighter that happens to be powered by a jet engine North American's subsequent fj2 3 and 4 were navalized versions of the saber brought in desperation by a Navy that saw the Air Force sprinting away from them they weren't continuations of the original Fury at all the name was kept to save everyone's face so to conclude I'm rarely at a loss to find a valuable contribution that an aircraft made to the evolution of that country's technology or tactics but in the case of the fury the best I can say is that it didn't actually kill any of its Pilots it was a rare example of a dead end

Channel: Not A Pound For Air To Ground

Views: 81,662

Keywords: F-86 Sabre, fj-1 fury, us navy, uss boxer, uss princeton, fighter, aviation, aircraft

Id: 8sywr3xuBgE

Length: 10min 41sec (641 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 21 2023