Subject: North American F-1 Fury (2 of 4)

From: [email-masked] (joseph.f.baugher)
Date: 29 Mar 94 17:01:53 GMT

Navy officials were initially slow in adopting swept-wing designs for 
carrier-based fighter aircraft, since carrier operations required 
lower stalling speeds and better low speed handling characteristics 
than did land-based operations.  For these reasons, the Navy remained 
with straight-winged fighter aircraft designs long after the USAF had 
opted for swept-wing designs for their front-line fighter aircraft.  

However, the straight winged Grumman F9F Panther and McDonnell F2H 
Banshee were seventy mph slower than the swept-wing MiG-15, and it 
soon became apparent that the Navy was going to have to bite the 
bullet and go with a swept-wing carrier-based fighter if it hoped to 
be competitive against land-based fighters.  

On January 30, 1951, North American initiated the NA-181 project.  
This called for a navalized version of the swept-wing F-86 Sabre.  The 
Navy showed immediate interest, and NAA issued a formal production 
proposal on February 6.  On February 10, the Navy issued a letter 
contract for 300 production NA-181 aircraft, with the order being 
later reduced to 200.  The BuAer numbers were 131927/132126.  They 
were to be built in North American's newly-opened Columbus factory, 
which had also been scheduled to build F-86 Sabres for the Air Force.  

The NA-181 was basically a navalized F-86E Sabre and bore very little 
relation to the earlier straight-winged FJ-1 Fury.  One might then 
have expected the Navy to have designated the new swept-wing aircraft 
F2J-1, and perhaps even to have given it the name *Sea Sabre*, 
following the British tradition.  However, the Navy decided instead to 
assign the designation FJ-2 to the new fighter and to name it *Fury*, 
implying that it followed logically from the earlier FJ-1.  The 
reasons may have been more political than technical, the Navy hoping 
that the Congress would look more kindly to an aircraft which was a 
"logical extension" of an existing type than to one which was 
completely new and probably much more likely to cost the taxpayer a 
ton of money.  

Commander Pete Aurand (who was the commanding officer of VF-51, the 
only squadron to operate the straight-winged FJ-1 Fury) was appointed 
as the Navy's project director for the FJ-2.  He had long been an 
advocate of the Navy acquiring swept-wing fighters.  

On March 8, the Navy ordered three XFJ-2 prototypes.  These were all 
to be built in NAA's Los Angeles factory, since the Columbus plant was 
not quite yet ready for operations.  These were built under the 
company designation of NA-179, and their Navy BuAer serials were 
133754/133756.  This was an example of yet another anomalous case in 
which prototypes were preceded by production aircraft in the numbering 
sequence.  

The first two prototype XFJ-2s (133754 and 133755) were designated as 
NA-179 by the company.  They were basically navalized F-86E-10 
aircraft, equipped with such features as a V-frame arrester hook, 
catapult points, and a lengthened nosewheel to raise the angle of 
attack during takeoff and landing.  However, they did not have folding 
wings and they were both unarmed.  

The third prototype (133756) was armed with four Colt Mk 12 20-mm 
cannon with 150 RPG.  Unlike the USAF, which preferred machine gun 
armament for its fighters, the Navy had always favored cannon armament 
for its aircraft.  The third XFJ-2 had the usual F-86E nosewheel, and 
did not have any naval equipment that would enable it to land aboard a 
carrier.  This machine was known as NA-181 on company rolls and as 
XFJ-2B by the Navy (the B standing for "special armament").  

The powerplant for all three prototypes was the J47-GE-13 turbojet, 
and they all featured the "all-flying tail" of the F-86E-10-NA.  All 
three of them were painted Navy blue, the standard naval paint scheme 
of the day.  

Despite its later serial number, the XFJ-2B (133756) was actually the 
first of the three prototypes to fly, taking off on its maiden flight 
on December 27, 1951 with test pilot Robert Hoover at the controls.  
It went out to Inyokern, California for armament tests.  The first 
XFJ-2 followed on February 14, 1952, again flown by Bob Hoover.  

The three prototypes were accepted by the Navy in June, July, and 
December of 1952, and in December both XFJ-2s were subjected to 
carrier qualification tests aboard the USS *Coral Sea*.  The carrier 
qualification tests did not go very well.  The new landing gear and 
arresting hook bumper were found to be too weak for carrier landings 
under realistic conditions, and the aircraft handled poorly during 
carrier approaches and landings.  

Although disappointed with the XFJ-2's carrier qualification tests, 
the Navy was in a hurry to get a swept-winged fighter in service, and 
decided to begin production of the FJ-2 even before all the bugs were 
ironed out.  The production FJ-2 Fury was to be powered by the General 
Electric J47-GE-2 engine rated at 6000 lb.s.t..  Since this engine was 
the Navy version of the J47-GE-27, this brought the FJ-2 up to F-86F 
standards.  The slatted wing of the early F-86F Sabre was used, the 
"6-3" wing of the later F-86F being deemed to have too great a 
low-speed handling penalty for safe carrier-based operations.  Full 
naval equipment, including catapult attachment points and arrester 
gear, was fitted.  Wheel track was increased eight inches over the 
USAF Sabre, and the landing gear was beefed up and made more robust.  
The FJ-2 had folding wings and was armed with 4 20-mm cannon with 600 
rounds.  The dihedral of the horizontal tail of the first three 
prototypes was replaced by a flat horizontal tail.  A modified cockpit 
canopy was introduced.  The gunsight was the Mark 16 Model 2, and the 
AN/APG-30 ranging radar was fitted.  

Because of North American's commitments to the F-86F program, 
production of the FJ-2 got under way rather slowly at Columbus.  The 
first FJ-2 (BuNo 131927) was delivered in November of 1952.  By the 
time of the end of the Korean War, only seven FJ-2 aircraft had been 
delivered.  In addition, the end of the Korean War had resulted in the 
original contract for 300 FJ-2s being cut back to 200.  The last of 
the 200 FJ-2s on the contract was accepted in September 1954.  

Initial stability and control tests were carried out with FJ-2 BuNo 
131932, which was fitted with a nose boom containing pressure spires 
and a yaw vane to measure the sideslip angle.  This aircraft was 
redesignated YFJ-2.  The YFJ-2 was frequently grounded with various 
problems during its 1953-54 trials.  During these trials, the YFJ-2 
was found to be a stable and efficient gun platform, but only in the 
hands of an experienced pilot.  Ground handling and takeoff 
characteristics were judged as being satisfactory, but several aspects 
of longitudinal stability and flight handling were deemed to be 
problematic.  In addition, there was a rather annoying rudder "buzz" 
during transonic flight.  

To compound the problem, a serious competitor to the FJ-2 had appeared 
in the form of the Grumman F9F-6 Cougar, which had flown for the first 
time on September 10, 1951.  Although slower in level flight than the 
FJ-2 Fury, the Cougar was considered much better suited for operations 
from carrier flight decks.  Consequently, most of the 200 FJ-2s built 
went to land-based Marine Corps units, with the F9F-6s going to 
carrier-based units.  Very few FJ-2s ever went to sea.  

Marine Corps squadron VMF-122 based at Cherry Point, North Carolina 
received their first FJ-2s in January 1954.  They spent most of their 
time in land-based operations, but they did go to sea aboard the 
*Coral Sea* in 1955.  Although most carrier-based naval aircraft at 
that time were painted blue, these USMC Furies were natural metal.  On 
the Pacific Coast, VMF-235 was the first to receive FJ-2s, which 
replaced that unit's aging F4U-4 Corsairs.  VMF-235 used their Furies 
in steam catapult tests aboard the USS *Hancock*, with some 254 
launchings of various types of aircraft being made with the ship's new 
C-11 steam catapults.  VMF-235 also flew four FJ-2s retrofitted with 
stronger tail hook bumpers and modified nose gear struts in an 
unsuccessful attempt to solve the FJ-2's carrier problems.  

FJ-2s served with the VMF-122, -232, and 312 of the Atlantic Fleet 
Marines, and with VMF-235, -224, and -451.  of the Pacific Fleet 
Marines.  

An attempt was made to incorporate the extended "6-3" wing leading 
edge without slats of the late F-86F on the FJ-2 Fury.  The improved 
high-speed maneuverability that this "6-3" wing offered was an 
attractive feature, but the increased landing speed and poorer 
low-speed handing characteristics offered by this wing were definite 
problems for a carrier-based aircraft.  In an attempt to incorporate 
the "6-3" wing without detracting too much from the low-speed 
characteristics, the third FJ-2 (BuNo 131929) was modified in August 
of 1953 with a slatless "6-3" wing having a full-chord wing fence at 
each butt plane 100.  Extended wingtips were also fitted.  However, 
this adaptation caused the aircraft to exhibit an abrupt roll-and-yaw 
prior to a sudden stall without any warning, which was a most 
undesireable feature for a carrier-based fighter.  In an attempt to 
correct this defect, in 1954 a thick cambered fence was used with 
conjunction with yet another fence mounted near the wingtip.  This 
cured the stall warning problem during the power approach, but stall 
warning was still considered unsatisfactory during the final landing 
approach and a severe yaw occurred during the glide.  In October 1954, 
131929 was fitted with wing fences covering the leading edge only, at 
butt planes 100 and 176.  This arrangement was more successful, and 
resulted in adequate stall warnings in most configurations.  However, 
this adaptation was too late to be fitted to production FJ-2s, but was 
used in the next production version, the FJ-3.  

Sources: 

  F-86 Sabre in Action, Larry Davis, Squadron/Signal Publications, 1992.  

  The North American Sabre, Ray Wagner, MacDonald, 1963.  

  The American Fighter, Enzo Angelucci and Peter Bowers, Orion, 1987.  

  The World Guide to Combat Planes, William Green, MacDonald, 1966.  

  The World's Fighting Planes, William Green, Doubleday, 1964.  

  Flash of the Sabre, Jack Dean, Wings Vol 22, No 5, 1992.  

  F-86 Sabre--History of the Sabre and FJ Fury, Robert F. Dorr, 
  Motorbooks International, 1993.  

  Fury-The Navy's Sabre, Robert F. Dorr, Air International vol 44 No. 1  

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