Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star

The Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star was an early American jet fighter, and the first jet aircraft used operationally by the United States Army Air Forces, flying missions in the last months of the Second World War. A team of 128 engineers led by Clarence L. Kelly Johnson, in what became known as the Skunk Works, designed it around a British Halford Goblin turbojet. Design work began on 26 June 1943, the first aircraft reached Muroc Army Airfield only 143 days later, and the first prototype flew on 8 January 1944. After the war the US Navy and the new US Air Force adopted it, the Air Force calling it the F-80, and it saw extensive combat in Korea as a fighter and a photoreconnaissance aircraft. Its straight wings left it outclassed by swept-wing types such as the MiG-15, and the North American F-86 Sabre replaced it. Derivatives include the F-94 Starfire and the T-33 trainer. The last American F-80s were withdrawn in 1959 and Chile retired the last in 1974.