RE: F-94 Tribute
Arthur, here are those pictures. The aircraft is F-94C #
51-13560. It is on display at the Minnesota Air National
Guard Museum. Apparently it was refurbished by the ANG at
Duluth before being put on display.
Thanks for putting it up. The fuel tanks seem to be genuine, but i doubt those tanks were used operationally because of drag. The other surviving C´s i´ve seen pics of (there are more: Pima, New England AM, Calspan and a few other places also house C models).
As far as the F-94’s performance is concerned, I think the C model was a fairly impressive aircraft. It had much better
performance than the A or B models.
Sure, but by the time the C model entered service the performance of the A and B models was below standards of the time.
It was immensely powerful, more powerful than the F-86D/L in fact.
But also draggier, slower, less responsive, and with an even less reliable radar.
climbed much faster than the A/B models, could climb to much higher altitudes, had much longer range, was much faster,
Again: compared to the by-then outdated F-94A and B models. Even the indeed vastly improved C could not offer the patrol endurance of the F-89, nor the responsiveness of the F-86. And while the other two interceptors still had quite a few options to be improved, the F-94C was already stretching the P-80 design far further than it was ever intended to be.
…and was very popular with both flight and ground crews alike once all the initial problems were ironed out.
Some problems never were ironed out: the radar never got to function reliably, and the ´shotgun´ firing of Mighty Mouse rockets from the nose launch-pack was so much of an area weapon that it could be said that a conventional cannon would be more accurate. Even worse, the nose-mounted rockets left a dense smokescreen around the cockpit blinding the crew for seconds after launch. I have little doubt it was a nice aircraft to fly and maintain airframe-wise (it sure wasn´t as much of an ergonomic nightmare as the F-89).
The A/B models were fairly popular as well from what I’ve read and heard. I don’t know that the F-94 was as bad as you’re making it out
to be. I’m just going from what I’ve heard though.
I don´t think it was a bad aircraft when seen from an airframe-and-equipment view for that time, but i can´t see it as more than an interim-AW-interceptor until the true useful types came around: the F-86D/K/L point-defence fighters, and the F-89 long-range patrol bird. It´s use in Korea was because it was the only operational aircraft in the neighbourhood at the time, and not because it was that good of a nocturnal escort fighter for B-29s as for which it was used. Only when the B-29s were started to get their escorts from F3D Skyknights the losses dropped dramatically, even though the F-94s of course did score a handful of kills. By then the F-94s were given nocturnal defensive sweep missions to counter Bedcheck Charlies in which it had a few successes too, but less than the F-82s which had a better speed for such missions.
Perhaps that is the problem of the F-94: it was simply less useful than the other US night-fighters of the pre-supersonic era. It was a fine aircraft, but it´s jack-of-all trades mission made it the master of none. It is no wonder that the F-94 left service almost ten years before the AW Sabres, Scorpions or even Skynights (although the latter flew it´s final decade as an ECM bird).
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