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Westinghouse Electric began to assemble large gas turbines at its plant in Pensacola. company to produce a practical afterburner. The afterburner was developed by Solar Aircraft, the first U.S. ĭeveloped during the transition from piston-engined aircraft to jets, the J34 was sometimes fitted to aircraft as a supplement to other powerplants, as with the Lockheed P-2 Neptune and Douglas Skyrocket (fitted with radial piston engines and a rocket engine, respectively). However, equipped with the J34 instead of its intended engines, it was seriously underpowered and could not exceed Mach 1 in level flight. The Stiletto was developed to investigate the design of an aircraft at sustained supersonic speeds. For instance, the Douglas X-3 "Stiletto" was equipped with two J34 engines when the intended Westinghouse J46 engine proved to be unsuitable. Two 3,600 lb.Built in an era of rapidly advancing gas turbine engine technology, the J34 was largely obsolete before it saw service, and often served as an interim engine.
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Stricken from the active naval aircraft inventory in May 1962, it was assigned to the Naval Air Technical Training Center at Jacksonville, Florida, and transferred to the Museum in 1970. Advanced versions of the F2H continued to serve as the fleet's primary all-weather carrier fighter until 1959.Īccepted by the Navy on 24 July 1953, the Museum's F2H-4 (Bureau Number 126419) served in many Marine and Navy fighter and all-weather fighter squadrons and made a deployment in the carrier Coral Sea (CVA-43). That same performance also served well in the skies over Korea, where Banshees were the aircraft of choice for top cover escort of Air Force B-29 raids into North Korea. When the controversy over the Air Force's B-36 bomber erupted during the late-1940s, the high-altitude capability of the F2H was a key point in the Navy's argument against the claimed invincibility of the strategic bomber. It was the ability to operate at high-altitudes that proved to be the F2H's most valued trait. Once a pilot dumped excess fuel to achieve maximum permissible weight, he was limited in passes at the deck, not a pleasant situation under adverse weather conditions. They had two adverse traits, however, in that the tail section was particularly vulnerable to any stress loads beyond the manufacturer's g-load limits, and the landing gear was very fragile, precluding carrier arrested landings above recommended landing weights. Banshees were capable of cruising on one engine at altitude and were very stable in operations aboard ship. Bearing a resemblance to its forbearer, the F2H outpaced it in performance, bettering its maximum speed by more than 50 mph and nearly doubling the range.Īcquisition of the F2H began in August 1948, and the aircraft began entering squadron service the following year. series, which were powered by Westinghouse J34 engines. The F2H Banshee was McDonnell Aircraft Corporation's successor to the FH-1 Phantom, the Navy's first pure jet. bearings to support the centrifugal compressor and turbine stage.98 Nor was the use of babbitt. The airplane's official nickname derived from the fact that its engines "screamed like a banshee." To its pilots, however, it was affectionately called the "Banjo." The successor to McDonnell's FH-1 Phantom, the F2H Banshee proved to be a fast and capable high-altitude fighter, making it the aircraft of choice to escort B-29 bombers over Korea.