ARMY & NAVY: Ghostly Streak

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ARMY & NAVY

The U.S. Army Air Forces lifted the veil of security, just a trifle, on its fancy new jet fighter. General "Hap" Arnold announced that the new Lockheed P-80 was in production, said it had been named the Shooting Star. Presumably familiar with what the Germans have in the air over the western front, General Arnold called the P-80 the world's fastest fighter plane.

Two items in the Air Forces' announcement especially caught the eyes of airmen: 1) that the propellerless, kerosene-powered Shooting Star is in mass production (at four Lockheed plants and one operated by North American Aviation plants) and 2) that U.S. engineers have overcome the inordinate appetite of jet engines for eating up fuel. The P-80 has range enough to accompany bombers on all but the longest missions.

Within the limits of military security (the enemy has had no opportunity to capture a P-80), estimates have been made of some of the features of the performance of the newest U.S. craft in the air. So fast is the P-80 that nothing that flies (including the tailless Messerschmitt 163 rocket interceptor) "can match its speed of "considerably more than 600 m.p.h." Its ceiling is well above the 40,000 feet at which propeller-driven planes can operate with efficiency, and it has a pressurized cabin.

Faster than Sound? Part of the secret of the Shooting Star's hair-parting speed is an aerodynamically new knife-edged wing which helps "master the problems encountered when the speed of sound [about 750 m.p.h.] is approached or surpassed." The rest is in such things as the ship's light weight and her powerful jet engine (improved and built by General Electric from an original British design). One of the engine's best attributes: it can be replaced in 15 minutes—against an average of nine hours for the standard plane's reciprocating engine. This will please hard-worked ground crews.

Unquestionably a dazzler in its test period, P-80 has still to get its final trial—combat with the enemy. German jet planes have appeared in combat over the western front, but not in force and not very effectively, because of short range and other handicaps. For the most part they have been used only for reconnaissance missions and standard U.S. pursuit planes have been able to cope with them. But the Shooting Star will get its chance. Against the failing Luftwaffe, the Air Forces reasons, there is no point in rushing things.