The Friday Flyby - Wings of Weirdness II

The Convair XFY Pogo in flight.

(Source)

And what she looked like on the ground...

Now that's a boarding ladder!

What's more. she could actually fly!

But ya know, every time I see one of these weird looking flying machines, my reaction is something like this -

~ SALTY LANGUAGE ALERT ~

Yeah Gunny, what is that?!?!

And yes, there is another aircraft at the tail end of that video of the Pogo in flight, it's a Ryan X-13 Vertijet... (Thought you were going to catch me ignoring an aircraft in a video again, dintcha?)

She's actually flying in this photo, about to land, er I mean, moor herself to the dual-role flatbed transport/launch trailer.

A weird looking bird to see in the air, though kinda cool at the same time.

I swear, watching the first few seconds of that video freaked me out. I mean, if I saw an aircraft doing that, I'd lose it. Well, truth be told, the first time I ever saw a V/STOL¹ aircraft in flight, it did freak me out!

Back in the day, shortly after the Pleistocene Epoch had ended, shortly after juvat and Old NFO had slain the last woolly mammoth (hey, their families were hungry!), I was a young airman stationed upon the island of Okinawa. (No, we hadn't just taken it from the Japanese, in fact it wasn't long after we'd given the island back to Japan. (1972 the island "reverted" back to Japanese control, no, the Okinawans were not real happy about that. I call that one, Nixon's Second Mistake. Nixon's First Mistake was visiting Communist China earlier in that same year, setting the stage for the Peanut Farmer to formally recognize the Commie bastards control of the mainland in 1979. Cue Red Foreman!)

Anyhoo, I was walking down to the MAC² Terminal where I had been told they served a very tasty burger.

Truth be told, I don't remember anything at all about that burger as, whilst on my kleine spaziergang down to said MAC Terminal (for to partake of said burger) I first heard an odd-sounding jet engine. It wasn't an F-4 Phantom, it wasn't a T-39 (an Air Force version of the North American Sabreliner, much preferred by general officers for winging from base to base), no, it wasn't anything like those at all. (Didn't even think for a second that it was a C-141 or an SR-71 either, when you know a jet engine, you know it.)

As I wondered what that noise could be, I saw ahead of me, some dozens of yards in the distance, an apparition rising from the trees near the MAC Terminal. For a moment I had the same reaction to this flying machine as Gunny Hartman had to the discovery of Pyle's jelly donut.

"WHAT THE FIRE TRUCK IS THAT?!?!?!"

Well, it was a Marine AV-8 Harrier, an aircraft capable of vertical take off and landing. It was the first one I had ever seen and it was both weird and marvelous at the same time. But yeah, initially I was freaked out. (Kinda like those terrorists in True Lies, said clip I would have included but it was just too long... Okay, I'll include it...)

Yeah, it was just like that, only without the terrorists, the tall building, and all the other unrealistic, though enjoyable, stuff in that clip.

Anyhoo, I digress. We're here to talk about weird-looking aircraft, not movies. (Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm the one who included three movie clips in a Friday Flyby, only one of which was aircraft related. My bad.)

Another odd looking bird in the V/STOL category is the Lockheed XFV "Salmon" -

Vertical display of the XFV-1 Prototype at the Florida Air Museum
(Source)

The XFV-1 prototype at the Florida Air Museum.
(Source)

Note that the aircraft could also take-off and land normally, those landing gear in that second photo don't look like they'd last through a rough landing. Truth be told, those don't appear to be the original horizontal-landing gear, which you can see in this photo -

Still rather spindly-looking, aren't they?

All this V/STOL stuff is interesting and actually serves a real purpose. When you need an aircraft and don't have room to take-off and land, well, V/STOL solves the problem. Though of course, most aircraft which have this capability are real dog shite when matched up against a "real" fighter plane. The jury is still out on the F-35, though I have heard good reports about it. (None of which involved lowering the bloody price tag on the thing.) But hey, if you're on convoy duty and are worried about submarines, one of those V/STOL jobs might be just the ticket. Load a few V/STOL birds on a couple of freighters and bang, better than no aircraft at all. I mean aircraft carriers are awfully pricey, ain't they Precious?

Anyhoo...

Remember the Sparrowhawk from the other day? Well, that bird had a hook on the wing, for swinging from a dirigible's "trapeze" (seriously, that's what it was called) and a tail hook. This next bird has what I call a nose hook. It also has folding wings, just like a Navy jet, not so that it will fit onto a carrier, but so it will fit in the bomb bay of a B-36 bomber.

Say what?

That's right, fit into a bomber...

During World War II, American bombers such as the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, Consolidated B-24 Liberator, and Boeing B-29 Superfortress were protected by long-range escort fighters such as the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt and North American P-51 Mustang. These fighters could not match the range of the Northrop B-35 or Convair B-36, the next generation of bombers developed by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF). The development cost for longer-ranged fighters was high, while aerial refueling was still considered risky and technologically difficult. Pilot fatigue had also been a problem during long fighter escort missions in Europe and the Pacific, giving further impetus to innovative approaches. (Source) 

So they came up with this little beast, the McDonnell XF-85 Goblin. Aptly named if you ask me...

Weird looking, innit?

Here's a short film on the beast, no sound, doesn't really need it.

(Turn the sound off as a matter of fact, there's an awfully annoying buzz near the end of the clip.)

As technology improved and air-to-air refueling became routine, the need for a parasite fighter to protect bombers went away. Among the problems the Goblin had were a limited flight time, something like 30 minutes, imagine being dropped from your mother ship to fight incoming bandits knowing you only had 30 minutes to do so, then re-dock with the mother ship. Which wasn't very easy, the skill it took for a pilot to do that was rather taxing, imagine doing that while running low on fuel and your bomber is being attacked! No thank you.

This next aircraft is almost normal looking, it was the sound of the thing which was weird, one source said it could make ground crews physically ill!

The Republic XF-84H "Thunderscreech"
(Notice that it's RAT³ is extended.)

Looks rather normal doesn't it, other than that whole "cross between a jet and a propeller aircraft" thing.

Although the USAF Wright Air Development Center was the key sponsor of the Republic Project 3347 turboprop fighter, the initial inception came from a U.S. Navy requirement for a carrier fighter not requiring catapult assistance. Originally known as XF-106 (a designation later reused for the Convair F-106), the project and its resultant prototype aircraft were redesignated XF-84H, closely identifying the program as an F-84 variant, rather than an entirely new type. With a projected contract for three prototypes, when the US Navy cancelled its order, ultimately, the remaining XF-84H prototypes became pure research aircraft built for the Air Force's Propeller Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB to test supersonic propellers in exploring the combination of propeller responsiveness at jet speeds. (Source)

This clip talks a bit about the aircraft -

So what about the sound it made?

The write-up for that video on YouTube has this to say -

This is a recording of the Republic XF-84H "Thunderscreech, a turboprop plane with a supersonic propeller. This sound (when played at its original volume) caused people to faint, vomit, become slightly deaf , and reputedly soil themselves. Enjoy!!

Lovely, that would be perfect for air shows dontcha think?

Anyhoo, that's enough weirdness for one day. If I haven't shown your favorite yet, be patient (yes, Virgil, I remember your F-107, also the Stiletto will have it's day as well) I have enough Wings of Weirdness to cover a few Fridays. Gotta save something in the tank dontcha know?

P.S.

One last thing, notice the header change from the aircraft carrier to the F-102? Well, USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 17, Big Time's boat and the previous occupant of the header) put back to sea after being tied up at Guam for roughly 55 days due to the virus-thingee. She's doing some work-ups and a bit of a shakedown to make sure everything still works and the crew knows how to make them work, good idea after a long stay in port like that. I mentioned that I was keeping the TR up there until she was back where she belonged. At sea. She is, so the header changed. I figured Dave would like the new one, he used to fly those birds you know.




¹ V/STOL = Vertical/Short Take-off and Landing
² MAC = Military Airlift Command. Yes, it has a different name now. No, I don't care what it is, I will always call it MAC. Old school buddy, that's me. (There's an even older name for it, but only guys like Old NFO know what it is...)
³ RAT =Ram Air Turbine, in the event of a loss of electrical power this could be extended into the slipstream and generate enough power to maybe get you on the ground in one piece. The F-4 had one as well.