| XF10F Jaguar | |
|---|---|
 | |
| General information | |
| Type | Prototype swing-wing fighter aircraft |
| Manufacturer | Grumman |
| Status | Canceled in April 1953 |
| Number built | 1 |
| History | |
| First flight | 19 May 1952 |
The Grumman XF10F Jaguar was a prototype swing-wing fighter aircraft offered to the United States Navy in the early 1950s. Although it never entered service, its research paved the way toward the later General Dynamics F-111 and Grumman's own F-14 Tomcat.
The Navy's interest in the variable-geometry wing was based on concerns that the ever-increasing weight of its jet fighters was making aircraft carrier operations troublesome. Many of its existing aircraft already had marginal carrier performance, and the trend in weight growth was obviously upward. At the same time, the demands for high-speed performance demanded swept wing layouts that did not lend themselves to good takeoff characteristics. The prospect of combining the two in a single aircraft was enticing.
Originally conceived as a swept-wing version of the earlier F9F Panther, in February–March 1948, the design was reconfigured with a T-tail and ultimately a variable-geometry wing. [1] It featured a T-tail, with the horizontal stabilator, a small pivoting center body with a delta servo control at the nose and a larger rear delta main wing, mounted atop the vertical fin. The single turbojet engine was fed by cheek intakes. The high, shoulder-mounted wing could be moved to two positions: a 13.5° sweep for takeoff and landing and a 42.5° sweep for high-speed flight.
The unique horizontal stabilizer design was free-floating; the attached small foreplane was directly controlled by the pilot and pulled the stabilizer up or down; so, it was aerodynamically, not mechanically controlled, and this resulted in sluggish pitch control, increasingly so at low speeds where airflow over the small foreplane was lessened, and if the project had developed further, it probably would have been replaced by a conventional all-flying tailplane. The unpredictable behavior of the design often caused pilot-induced oscillations, with the sudden and erratic deployment of leading edge slats causing the aircraft to be nearly uncontrollable much of the time. [2]
The XF10F-1 was not armed, but production aircraft would likely have had four 20 mm (.79 in) cannon and pylons for bombs and rockets, like other contemporary Navy fighters.
The Jaguar's configuration presented many of the same handling problems as the earlier Bell X-5 experimental aircraft, with some vicious spin characteristics.
The Jaguar's development was hampered by its use of the chronically unreliable Westinghouse J40 turbojet, which, as on other aircraft of this period, made the Jaguar dangerously underpowered and prone to various engine-related problems. The J40 developed only 6,800 lbf (30.2 kN) thrust rather than the anticipated 11,000 lbf (49 kN), and its troubles ultimately proved to be insurmountable. [3]
Test pilot Corwin "Corky" Meyer, the only pilot to fly the Jaguar, [4] described it as entertaining to fly "because there was so much wrong with it." [5] Examples of the "wrongness" encountered by Meyer during the test flight program included:
He found the translating wing-sweep mechanism, similar to the Bell X-5's, (which was much more complicated than the one later adopted by the F-111, F-14 and Panavia Tornado et al.), to be the only feature that worked flawlessly. The Navy was not encouraged by the results, and the development of larger carriers with angled flight decks and steam-driven catapults made the swing-wing configuration unnecessary. [1]
The prototype XF10F-1 first flew on 19 May 1952. It was used for some 32 test flights throughout the year, [1] but in April 1953, the Navy canceled the program, and with it, the 112 production aircraft that had been ordered. The sole flying aircraft and the uncompleted second prototype were shipped to Naval Air Material Center in Philadelphia for barricade testing, and the static test aircraft was later used as a gunnery target. [1]
General characteristics
Performance
Related development
Aircraft of comparable role, configuration, and era
Related lists
The McDonnell FH Phantom is a twinjet, straight-wing, carrier-based fighter aircraft designed and first flown during late World War II for the United States Navy. As a first-generation jet fighter, the Phantom was the first purely jet-powered aircraft to land on an American aircraft carrier and the first jet deployed by the United States Marine Corps. Although only 62 FH-1s were built it helped prove the viability of carrier-based jet fighters. As McDonnell's first successful fighter, it led to the development of the follow-on F2H Banshee, which was one of the two most important naval jet fighters of the Korean War; combined, the two established McDonnell as an important supplier of navy aircraft.
The McDonnell XF-88 Voodoo was a long-range, twinjet fighter aircraft with swept wings designed for the United States Air Force. Although it never entered production, its design was adapted for the subsequent supersonic F-101 Voodoo.
The McDonnell F2H Banshee is a single-seat carrier-based jet fighter aircraft designed and produced by the American aircraft manufacturer McDonnell Aircraft. It was an early jet fighter operated by United States Navy and United States Marine Corps, as well as being the only jet-powered fighter to ever be deployed by the Royal Canadian Navy. The aircraft's name is derived from the banshee of Irish mythology.
The McDonnell F3H Demon is a subsonic swept-wing carrier-based jet fighter aircraft designed and produced by the American manufacturer McDonnell Aircraft Corporation. It was the first swept wing jet fighter and the only single-engined carrier-based fighter the company produced.
The Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket is a rocket and jet-powered research supersonic aircraft built by the Douglas Aircraft Company for the United States Navy. On 20 November 1953, shortly before the 50th anniversary of powered flight, Scott Crossfield piloted the Skyrocket to Mach 2, or more than 1,290 mph (2076 km/h), the first time an aircraft had exceeded twice the speed of sound.
The North American FJ-2 and FJ-3 Fury are a series of swept-wing and carrier-capable fighters for the United States Navy and Marine Corps. The FJ-2 resulted from an effort to navalize the North American F-86 Sabre operated by the United States Air Force. These aircraft feature folding wings, and a longer nose landing strut designed to increase angle of attack upon launch and to accommodate a longer oleo to absorb the shock of hard landings on an aircraft carrier deck.
The Douglas F3D Skyknight is an American twin-engined, mid-wing jet fighter aircraft designed and manufactured by the Douglas Aircraft Company.
The Douglas F4D Skyray is an American carrier-based supersonic fighter/interceptor designed and produced by the Douglas Aircraft Company. It was the first naval fighter to exceed the speed of sound in level flight and the last fighter produced by the Douglas Aircraft Company prior to its merger with McDonnell Aircraft to become McDonnell Douglas.
The Grumman F9F Panther is an early carrier-based jet fighter designed and produced by the American aircraft manufacturer Grumman. It was the first jet-powered fighter aircraft to see air-to-air combat with the United States Navy as well as being Grumman’s first jet fighter.
The Grumman F9F/F-9 Cougar is a carrier-based jet-powered fighter aircraft designed and produced by the American aircraft manufacturer Grumman.
The Bell X-5 was the first aircraft capable of changing the sweep of its wings in flight. It was inspired by the untested wartime P.1101 design of the German Messerschmitt company. In a further development of the German design, which could only have its wing sweepback angle adjusted on the ground, the Bell engineers devised a system of electric motors to adjust the sweep in flight.
The Vought F7U Cutlass is a United States Navy carrier-based jet fighter and fighter-bomber designed and produced by the aircraft manufacturer Chance Vought. It was the first tailless production fighter in the United States as well as the Navy's first jet equipped with swept wings and the first to be designed with afterburners.
The Lockheed XF-90 was built in response to a United States Air Force requirement for a long-range penetration fighter and bomber escort. The same requirement produced the McDonnell XF-88 Voodoo. Lockheed received a contract for two prototype XP-90s. The design was developed by Willis Hawkins and the Skunk Works team under Kelly Johnson. Two prototypes were built. Developmental and political difficulties delayed the first flight until 3 June 1949, with Chief Test Pilot Tony LeVier at the controls. Embodying the experience gained in developing the P-80 Shooting Star, the XF-90 shared some design traits with the older Lockheed fighter, albeit with swept-wings; however, this latter design choice could not sufficiently make up for the project’s underpowered engines, and the XF-90 never entered production.
The Vought F6U Pirate was the Vought company's first jet fighter, designed for the United States Navy during the mid-1940s. Although pioneering the use of turbojet power as the first naval fighter with an afterburner and composite material construction, the aircraft proved to be underpowered and was judged unsuitable for combat. None were ever issued to operational squadrons and they were relegated to development, training, and test roles before they were withdrawn from service in 1950.
The Messerschmitt P.1101 was a single-seat, single-jet fighter project of World War II, developed as part of the 15 July 1944 Emergency Fighter Program which sought a second generation of jet fighters for the Third Reich. A prominent feature of the P.1101 prototype was that the sweep angle of the wings could be changed before flight, a feature further developed in later variable-sweep aircraft such as the Bell X-5 and Grumman XF10F Jaguar.
The Westinghouse J40 was an early high-performance afterburning turbojet engine designed by Westinghouse Aviation Gas Turbine Division starting in 1946 to a US Navy Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer) request. BuAer intended to use the design in several fighter aircraft and a bomber. However, while an early low-power design was successful, attempts to scale it up to its full design power failed, and the design was finally abandoned, deemed a "fiasco" and a "flop".
The Yakovlev Yak-30 was an experimental Soviet interceptor from the late 1940s. Derived from the Yak-25, from which it differed primarily in having wings sweptback 35° at quarter chord, the Yak-30 retained the fuselage, tail surfaces and undercarriage of the earlier fighter.
The Vought XF8U-3 Crusader III was an aircraft developed by Chance Vought as a successor to the successful Vought F-8 Crusader program and as a competitor to the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II. Though based in spirit on the F8U-1 and F8U-2, and sharing the older aircraft's designation in the old Navy system, the two aircraft shared few parts.
The North American FJ-1 Fury is an early turbojet-powered carrier-capable fighter aircraft used by the United States Navy (USN). Developed by North American Aviation (NAA) starting in 1945, it became the first jet aircraft in USN service to serve at sea under operational conditions. This first version of the FJ was a straight-winged jet, briefly operational during the transition to more successful designs. An evolution of the FJ-1 would become the land-based XP-86 prototype of the United States Air Force's enormously influential F-86 Sabre, which in turn formed the basis for the Navy's carrier-based, swept-winged North American FJ-2/-3 Fury.
The Westinghouse J46 is an afterburning turbojet engine developed by the Westinghouse Aviation Gas Turbine Division for the United States Navy in the 1950s. It was primarily employed in powering the Convair F2Y Sea Dart and Vought F7U Cutlass. The engine also powered the land speed-record car known as the Wingfoot Express, designed by Walt Arfons and Tom Green It was intended to power the F3D-3, an improved, swept-wing variant of the Douglas F3D Skyknight, although this airframe was never built.
Media related to Grumman XF10F Jaguar at Wikimedia Commons