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- Lockheed XF-90 Penetration Fighter
Created by the famous Lockheed "Skunks Works" and highly publicized at the start of the 1950s, the futuristic XF-90 seemed to epitomize what a supersonic fighter ought to look like. It was one of the first Air Force jets to be equipped with afterburners and the first Lockheed aircraft to exceed the speed of sound. Its handsome good looks captured the public's imagination. Even the creators of the popular Blackhawk comic book series adopted the XF-90 as its hero's jet fighter of choice.
The text covers the design criteria of the 1945 penetration fighter request-for-proposal and the 8 companies that submitted proposals. Lockheed made over 60 design studies for the XF-90 which included delta wings, V-tails, forward swept wings, variable sweep wings, and Navy proposals, many of which are discussed in the book. The text goes on to describe its development and testing and flight testing at Muroc/Edwards AFB by Tony LeVeir, Lockeed's chief test pilot. Also included is an extensive history (14-pages) of the second XF-90's involvement in the nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site and its subsequent retrieval. Additionally, 2-pages are devoted to Blackhawks and 9-pages to XF-90 models.
Pages: 168
Size: 8.5 X 11 (inches)
Format: Paperback
Illustrations: 212 b/w & 68 color photos, 90 illustrations
Publisher: Steve Ginter
ISBN: 9780999388471
Product Code: GB847
William Simone
William J. Simone holds a B.S. Degree in Aerospace Engineering from Northrop Institute of Technology, and later attended classes at California Institute of Technology and Kansas University. Upon graduating from the University of Southern California AFROTC program, he was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the Air Force. He has logged approximately 1,000 hours in numerous aircraft and is a former F-86F owner. During his nearly 45 years in the aerospace industry, both as an engineer and flight tester, he worked on the B-1A, Space Shuttle, F-20A, RF5E, F-5E/F, TSSAM, T-6A/B Texan II, AT-6, JASSM, U-2S/ST, F-117A, X47B, B-2A, F-35A and a number of other programs. Over the years his work has been published in numerous magazines. He is the author of Air Force Legends 203 North American F-107A, his favorite aircraft. For several years he served on the Flight Test Historical Foundation Board of Directors and was Air Force Flight Test Museum Committee Chair for many of those years. He is now retired.