Design and Development
The F3D was not intended to be a typical sleek and nimble dogfighter, but it was a night fighter packing a powerful radar system and second crew member. It originated in 1945 with a U.S. Navy requirement for a jet-powered radar-equipped carrier-based night fighter. The Douglas team led by Ed Heinemann designed around the bulky air intercept radar systems of the time, with side-by-side seating for the pilot and radar operator. The result was an airplane with a wide, deep, and roomy fuselage. Instead of ejection seats, an escape tunnel was used, similar to the A-3 Skywarrior.
Power was provided by two Westinghouse J34 turbojets mounted in the roots of then-standard straight wings of the early jet era. As a night fighter that was not expected to be as agile as smaller daylight fighters; the expectation was to be a stable platform for its radar system and the four 20 mm cannon mounted in the lower fuselage. The U.S. Navy awarded Douglas a contract for three XF3D-1 prototype aircraft on 3 April 1946. (The losing design from Grumman evolved into the F9F Panther.)
The radar system in the F3D-1 was the Westinghouse AN/APQ-35. The AN/APQ-35 was a combination of three different radars, each performing separate functions: an AN/APS-21 search radar, an AN/APG-26 fire control radar, both located in the nose, and an AN/APS-28 tail warning radar. The complexity of this radar system, which was produced before the advent of semi-conductor electronics, required intensive maintenance to keep it operating fully.
First flight of the XF3D-1 occurred on 23 March 1948. A production contract for 28 F3D-1 production aircraft soon followed in June 1948. The F3D-1 was followed by the F3D-2, which was first ordered in August 1949. The F3D-2 was intended to have Westinghouse J46 engines in enlarged nacelles to replace the J34—WE-32 engines of the F3D-1. Development problems with the J46 lead to F3D-2 aircraft being fitted with J34-WE-36 engines instead. The F3D-2 also incorporated an improved Westinghouse AN/APQ-36 radar system. A total of 237 F3D-2s were built before production ended on 23 March 1952. A higher performance F3D-3 version with swept wings and J46 engines was planned, but was cancelled when the trouble-plagued J46 engine program was terminated.
Read more about this topic: Douglas F3D Skyknight
Famous quotes containing the words design and/or development:
“Humility is often only the putting on of a submissiveness by which men hope to bring other people to submit to them; it is a more calculated sort of pride, which debases itself with a design of being exalted; and though this vice transform itself into a thousand several shapes, yet the disguise is never more effectual nor more capable of deceiving the world than when concealed under a form of humility.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“The American has dwindled into an Odd Fellow—one who may be known by the development of his organ of gregariousness.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)