Between North American Aviations famous P-51 Mustang and their famous F-86 Sabrejet was their less well known FJ-1 Fury.
The FJ-1 took to the air in 1946 as a rather tubby, barrel-shaped jet plane with straight wings. But it began its life in October 1944 as a concept, illustrated below via painting and model photo, as a somewhat sleeker jet plane… one clearly derived from the P-51. The cockpit canopy, wings and tail surfaces all seem to be minimally modified from the P-51, with a fuselage that still shows hints of P-51-ness.
Images courtesy Mark Nankivil, from the SDAM.
UPDATE: Author Tommy Thomason sends alon g this illustration comparing the FJ-1 to the P-51D. While nothing on the FJ-1 appears to be stock P-51D, it’s obviously composed of parts derived from the P-51D. The October 1944 FJ-1 woudl seem to be even closer to the P-51.
4 Responses to “The jet-powered Mustang”
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It looks like a very workable concept that could have given the P-80 a run for its money.
Better looking than the early Fury, that’s for sure. The wing-mounted extensible spoilers are a interesting touch.
From the title, I was expecting this was going to be about the urban legend concerning the moron who attached a surplus jet engine to his muscle car and qualified for a Darwin award.
The artist’s concept shows the parallelogram speed brakes that were on the prototype. There was an incident in flight test with one side not extending or not retracting so they were deleted from production in favor of conventional speed brakes on the aft fuselage. However, all the McDonnell F2Hs used a similar speed brake arrangement with no problems.
I was trying to figure out what the overall look reminded me of, and it’s the Douglas Skyknight:
http://www.aviastar.org/air/usa/douglas_skyknight.php