Subject: Republic RF84F Thunderflash and F84F Thunderstreak
Location: Flugausstellung L.+P. Junior, Germany, 2012;Musée d'lair et de l'espace, Le Bourget, Paris 2015
Comments:The Republic
F-84 Thunderjet was an
American turbojet fighter-bomber aircraft. Originating
as a 1944 United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) proposal
for a "day fighter", the F-84 flew in 1946. Although it
entered service in 1947, the Thunderjet was plagued by many
structural and engine problems that a 1948 U.S. Air Force review
declared it unable to execute any aspect of its intended mission and
considered canceling the program. The aircraft was not considered
fully operational until the 1949 F-84D model and the design matured
only with the definitive F-84G introduced in 1951. In 1954, the
straight-wing Thunderjet was joined by the swept-wing F-84F
Thunderstreak fighter and RF-84F Thunderflash photo
reconnaissance aircraft. In
1949, Republic created a swept wing version of the F-84
hoping to bring performance to the F-86 level. The last
production F-84E was fitted with a swept tail, a new wing with
38.5 degrees of leading edge sweep and 3.5 degrees
of anhedral, and a J35-A-25 engine producing
5,300 pound-force (23.58 kN) of thrust. The
aircraft was designated XF-96A. It flew on 3 June 1950 with Otto
P. Haas at the controls. Although the airplane was capable of
602 knots (693 mph, 1,115 km/h), the performance gain
over the F-84E was considered minor. Nonetheless, it was ordered
into production in July 1950 as the F-84F Thunderstreak. The
F-84 designation was retained because the fighter was expected to be
a low-cost improvement of the straight-wing Thunderjet with over
55 percent commonality in tooling. In
the meantime, the USAF, hoping for improved high-altitude performance
from a more powerful engine, arranged for the British Armstrong
Siddeley Sapphire turbojet engine to be built in the United
States as the Wright J65. To accommodate the larger
engine, YF-84Fs with a British-built Sapphire as well as
production F-84Fs with the J65 had a vertically stretched fuselage,
with the air intake attaining an oval cross-section. Production
delays with the F-84F forced USAF to order a number of straight-wing
F-84Gs as an interim measure.
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