F-80's

I recently finished reading (and viewing I guess) the Osprey Frontline Color title called F-80 Shooting Star Units Over Korea.

A very good read, and of course the best part about the book is the incredible pictures! All of them are great quality, and there’s even some great shots of the ultra-rare RF-80 photo birds.

The F-80 has always been my favorite early jet fighter (I also like the F-94 and T-33 spin-offs), and I think it’s role in the Korean War is often overlooked by the exploits of the F-86 Sabre. A warplane in the truest sense of the word, the F-80 was incredibly rugged, being able to survive great amounts of battle damage. There are some really neat photos of Shooting Stars that made it back to base having sustained a ton of damage. There’s one photo of an F-80C that made it home after a MiG-15 put at least two 37-mm rounds through the center of the fuselage. There’s another photo of an F-80C that made it home after having the half the vertical tail sliced off by high-tension cables that the North Koreans had put up over a target.

The F-80 could also haul quite a large variety (and tonnage) of weapons, ranging from 5-inch rockets to bombs of 1,000 lbs. in size. There’s a neat photo of an F-80C with FOUR 1,000 lb. bombs taxiing to the runway.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who’s even remotely interested. It might give you a new respect for Lockheed’s Shooting Star as well as the men who flew and maintained her. (She even killed some MiG’s from time to time as well. 🙂 )