McDonnell F3H-2 Demon
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The McDonnell F3H Demon is a subsonic swept-wing
United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
carrier-based Carrier-based aircraft, sometimes known as carrier-capable aircraft or carrier-borne aircraft, are naval aircraft designed for operations from aircraft carriers. They must be able to launch in a short distance and be sturdy enough to withstand ...
jet
fighter aircraft Fighter aircraft are fixed-wing military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air superiority of the battlespace. Domination of the airspace above a battlefield ...
. The successor to the
F2H Banshee The McDonnell F2H Banshee (company designation McDonnell Model 24) is an American single-seat carrier-based jet fighter aircraft deployed by the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps from 1948 to 1961. A development of the FH Phant ...
, the Demon was originally designed to use the
Westinghouse J40 The Westinghouse J40 was an early high-performance afterburning turbojet engine designed by Westinghouse Aviation Gas Turbine Division starting in 1946 to a US Navy Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer) request. BuAer intended to use the design in severa ...
engine, but had to be redesigned to accept the
Allison J71 The Allison J71 was a single spool turbojet engine, designed and built in the United States. It began development in 1948 as a much modified J35, originally designated J35-A-23. Operational history The Allison J71 turbojet powered the Douglas B ...
after the J40 suffered severe problems and was ultimately abandoned.Angelucci and Bowers 1987, p. 304. Though it lacked sufficient power for supersonic performance, it complemented day fighters such as the
Vought F8U Crusader The Vought F-8 Crusader (originally F8U) is a single-engine, supersonic, carrier-based air superiority jet aircraft built by Vought for the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps (replacing the Vought F7U Cutlass), and for the French ...
and
Grumman F11F Tiger The Grumman F11F/F-11 Tiger is a supersonic, single-seat carrier-based United States Navy fighter aircraft in operation during the 1950s and 1960s. Originally designated the F11F Tiger in April 1955 under the pre-1962 Navy designation system, i ...
as an all-weather, missile-armed
interceptor Interceptor may refer to: Vehicles * Interceptor aircraft (or simply "interceptor"), a type of point defense fighter aircraft designed specifically to intercept and destroy enemy aircraft * Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor, a police car * ...
until 1964. It was withdrawn before it could serve in Vietnam when both it and the Crusader were replaced on ''Forrestal''-class and similar supercarriers by the
McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II is an American tandem two-seat, twin-engine, all-weather, long-range supersonic jet interceptor and fighter-bomber originally developed by McDonnell Aircraft for the United States Navy.Swanborough and Bow ...
. McDonnell's Phantom, which was equally capable against ground, fighter, and bomber targets, bears a strong family resemblance, as it was conceived as an advanced development of the Demon. The supersonic United States Air Force
F-101 Voodoo The McDonnell F-101 Voodoo is a supersonic jet fighter which served the United States Air Force (USAF) and the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF). Initially designed by McDonnell Aircraft Corporation as a long-range bomber escort (known as a ''p ...
was similar in layout, but was derived from the earlier
XF-88 Voodoo The McDonnell XF-88 Voodoo was a long-range, twinjet fighter aircraft with swept wings designed for the United States Air Force. Although it never entered production, its design was adapted for the subsequent supersonic F-101 Voodoo. Design and ...
, which also influenced the Demon's layout.


Development

Development work began in 1949, using a swept wing from the start rather than adapting a straight-winged design as was done with the
Grumman F9F Panther The Grumman F9F Panther is one of the United States Navy's first successful carrier-based jet fighters, as well as Grumman’s first jet fighter. A single-engined, straight-winged day fighter, it was armed with four cannons and could carry a w ...
. A competing contract was also awarded for the
delta wing A delta wing is a wing shaped in the form of a triangle. It is named for its similarity in shape to the Greek uppercase letter delta (Δ). Although long studied, it did not find significant applications until the Jet Age, when it proved suitabl ...
Douglas F4D Skyray The Douglas F4D Skyray (later redesignated F-6 Skyray) is an American carrier-based fighter/interceptor built by the Douglas Aircraft Company. Although it was in service for a relatively short time (1956–1964) and never entered combat, it w ...
. The Skyray, with a top speed of , would become the Navy's first fighter to fly supersonic in level flight, while the Demon would never reach that level of performance. The original design work was based at its predecessor, the
F2H Banshee The McDonnell F2H Banshee (company designation McDonnell Model 24) is an American single-seat carrier-based jet fighter aircraft deployed by the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps from 1948 to 1961. A development of the FH Phant ...
. However, departing from its tradition of using two engines, the Demon would result in McDonnell's only single-engined carrier-based fighter, adopting under some Navy pressure, the
Westinghouse J40 The Westinghouse J40 was an early high-performance afterburning turbojet engine designed by Westinghouse Aviation Gas Turbine Division starting in 1946 to a US Navy Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer) request. BuAer intended to use the design in severa ...
engine. That engine was being promoted by the Navy for its next generation of aircraft, and was to have thrust of over 11,000 lbf (49 kN)—three times that of the engines in the F2H Banshee. It was the first
swept-wing A swept wing is a wing that angles either backward or occasionally forward from its root rather than in a straight sideways direction. Swept wings have been flown since the pioneer days of aviation. Wing sweep at high speeds was first investigat ...
design produced by McDonnell and among the first U.S. aircraft to have missile armament. The Navy desperately needed a high performance fighter to meet the challenge of the swept-wing
MiG-15 The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 (russian: Микоя́н и Гуре́вич МиГ-15; USAF/DoD designation: Type 14; NATO reporting name: Fagot) is a jet fighter aircraft developed by Mikoyan-Gurevich for the Soviet Union. The MiG-15 was one of ...
encountered over Korea. Production of the F3H-1N was hastily ordered even before the first flight of the XF3H-1 prototype on 7 August 1951 by test pilot Robert Edholm. The first test flights of the operational design did not occur until January 1953, by which time the
Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...
was winding down. The F3H Demon was originally designed around Navy's ambitious new
Westinghouse J40 The Westinghouse J40 was an early high-performance afterburning turbojet engine designed by Westinghouse Aviation Gas Turbine Division starting in 1946 to a US Navy Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer) request. BuAer intended to use the design in severa ...
which was to offer enough power to use just one engine in a number of new aircraft designs. But the engine would ultimately fail to produce the promised thrust or run reliably. The engine was a major disappointment, producing only half of the expected power. Worse, it was temperamental and unreliable. Of 35 F3H-1N aircraft flown with the J40 engine, eight were involved in major accidents. The first production Demons were grounded after the loss of six aircraft and four pilots.Boeing.com: F3H/F-3 Demon Fighter
''Time'' magazine called the Navy's grounding of all Westinghouse-powered F3H-1 Demons a "fiasco", with 21 unflyable planes that could be used only for Navy ground training at a loss of $200 million. One high point of the J40 was the 1955 setting of an unofficial time-to-climb record, in a Demon, of in 71 seconds. The proposed F3H-1P reconnaissance version was never built. The J40 program was terminated sometime in 1955. All the aircraft it was to power were either canceled or redesigned to use other engines, notably the J57 and the J71. The F4D Skyray had been designed to accept larger engines in case the J40 did not work out, and was eventually powered by the
Pratt & Whitney J57 The Pratt & Whitney J57 (company designation: JT3C) is an axial-flow turbojet engine developed by Pratt & Whitney in the early 1950s. The J57 (first run January 1950) was the first 10,000 lbf (45 kN) thrust class engine in the United States ...
. But no other engine could simply be fitted into the old Demons, as both the wings and fuselage would have to be redesigned and enlarged. The best alternative turned out to be the
Allison J71 The Allison J71 was a single spool turbojet engine, designed and built in the United States. It began development in 1948 as a much modified J35, originally designated J35-A-23. Operational history The Allison J71 turbojet powered the Douglas B ...
engine which was also used in the
Douglas B-66 Destroyer The Douglas B-66 Destroyer is a light bomber that was designed and produced by the American aviation manufacturer Douglas Aircraft Company. The B-66 was developed for the United States Air Force (USAF) and is heavily based upon the United St ...
. Subsequent F3Hs with this powerplant were designated the F3H-2N. In service, the J71 proved problematic, providing insufficient power for an aircraft of the Demon's size. The engine also suffered from frequent
flameout In aviation, a flameout (or flame-out) is the run-down of a jet engine or other turbine engine due to the extinction of the flame in its combustor. The loss of flame can have a variety of causes, such as fuel starvation, excessive altitude, comp ...
s and
compressor stall A compressor stall is a local disruption of the airflow in the compressor of a gas turbine or turbocharger. A stall that results in the complete disruption of the airflow through the compressor is referred to as a compressor surge. The severity of t ...
s. The first J71-powered Demon flew in October 1954. Another significant problem was the reliability of the
ejection seat In aircraft, an ejection seat or ejector seat is a system designed to rescue the aircraft pilot, pilot or other aircrew, crew of an aircraft (usually military) in an emergency. In most designs, the seat is propelled out of the aircraft by an ex ...
s: initial versions were found to be unreliable and were eventually replaced with
Martin-Baker Martin-Baker Aircraft Company Limited is a British manufacturer of ejection seats and safety-related equipment for aviation. The company's origins were originally as an aircraft manufacturer before becoming a pioneer in the field of ejection s ...
ejection seats that were becoming the standard Navy seat of choice due to their higher performance at low altitude and better reliability. Despite the problems, the Navy ordered 239 F3H-2s, and the first were deployed in March 1956. 519 Demons were built up to the end of production in November 1959. It was not the Navy's first all-weather
interceptor Interceptor may refer to: Vehicles * Interceptor aircraft (or simply "interceptor"), a type of point defense fighter aircraft designed specifically to intercept and destroy enemy aircraft * Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor, a police car * ...
with radar (the AN/APG-51 air interception set was used first on the F2H-4 Banshee). The F3H-2 Demon had the AN/APG-51A, later upgraded to the 51-B version with a tunable magnetron then on to 51-C with better counter-measures in the receiver. The F3H-2N's standard armament was four 20 mm (.79 in)
Colt Mk 12 cannon {{Infobox weapon , name= Colt Mk 12 , image= 20 mm Mk 12 cannon of RNZAF A-4K Skyhawk 1984.jpg , image_size = , caption= Mk 12 cannon of a RNZAF Douglas A-4K Skyhawk. , origin= United States , type= Autocannon , is_ranged= yes , service= 1950 ...
s. In later years, the upper two cannons were often omitted to save weight. Later models, redesignated F3H-2M, were equipped to fire the Raytheon AAM-N-2 Sparrow and later the Sidewinder
air-to-air missile The newest and the oldest member of Rafael's Python family of AAM for comparisons, Python-5 (displayed lower-front) and Shafrir-1 (upper-back) An air-to-air missile (AAM) is a missile fired from an aircraft for the purpose of destroying a ...
s. Deployed aircraft carried both types of missiles, the Sparrow on the inboard rails and the Sidewinder outboard. Cannons were not used in carrier air defense applications, but they were installed and armed when situations (such as the
Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (of 1962) ( es, Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, the Caribbean Crisis () in Russia, or the Missile Scare, was a 35-day (16 October – 20 November 1962) confrontation between the United S ...
) dictated, and where the aircraft might be deployed against surface targets. A
reconnaissance In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities. Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops (skirmisher ...
version, the F3H-2P, was proposed, but never built. It remained the Navy's front-line fighter until 1962, when it was succeeded by the
F-4 Phantom II The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II is an American tandem two-seat, twin-engine, all-weather, long-range supersonic jet interceptor and fighter-bomber originally developed by McDonnell Aircraft for the United States Navy.Swanborough and Bow ...
(which was a development of a proposed "Super Demon", a larger and much heavier version of the F3H). Developed during the Korean War to counter the MiG-15, it did not claim any aerial victories with missiles or dogfights, although it flew over
Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...
and
Quemoy Kinmen, alternatively known as Quemoy, is a group of islands governed as a county by the Republic of China (Taiwan), off the southeastern coast of mainland China. It lies roughly east of the city of Xiamen in Fujian, from which it is separate ...
in 1958. In 1962, the F3H was redesignated F-3. The F3H-2N became the F-3C, the F3H-2M became MF-3B, and the F3H-2 changed to F-3B. The last Demon-equipped squadron, VF-161 'Chargers', traded their F-3s for F-4 Phantom IIs in September 1964. Due to excellent visibility from the cockpit, the Demon earned the nickname "The Chair". Demon pilots were known colloquially as "Demon Drivers" and those who worked on the aircraft were known as "Demon Doctors". The unfavorable power-to-weight ratio gave rise to the less flattering nickname "lead sled", sometimes shortened to "sled".


Variants

;XF3H-1 : Prototype single-seat clear-weather interceptor fighter. Powered by ( with afterburner) Westinghouse XJ40-WE-6 engine. Two built.Angelucci and Bowers 1987, p. 305. ;F3H-1N : Initial production version. Single-seat all-weather fighter version, powered by ( with afterburner) J40-WE-22 engine. 58 built. ;F3H-1P : Proposed reconnaissance version of F3H-1. Never built. ;F3H-2N : All-weather fighter powered by (
Allison J71 The Allison J71 was a single spool turbojet engine, designed and built in the United States. It began development in 1948 as a much modified J35, originally designated J35-A-23. Operational history The Allison J71 turbojet powered the Douglas B ...
-A-2 engine and equipped to carry
AIM-9 Sidewinder The AIM-9 Sidewinder (where "AIM" stands for "Air Intercept Missile") is a short-range air-to-air missile which entered service with the US Navy in 1956 and subsequently was adopted by the US Air Force in 1964. Since then the Sidewinder has prov ...
air-to-air missiles. 239 built. Redesignated F-3C in 1962.Angelucci and Bowers 1957, pp. 304–306. ;F3H-2M : Derivative of F3H-2N armed with four AIM-7 Sparrow air-to-air missiles. 80 built. Redesignated ''MF-3B'' in 1962. ;F3H-2 : Single-seat strike fighter version, retaining Sidewinder and Sparrow capability of the −2M/N and adding payload of 6,000 lb (2,730 kg) bombs or rockets. 239 built. Redesignated ''F-3B'' in 1962. ;F3H-2P : Proposed photo-reconnaissance version of −2. Unbuilt. ;F3H-3 : Proposed version with the
General Electric J73 The General Electric J73 turbojet was developed by General Electric from the earlier J47 engine. Its original USAF designation was J47-21, but with innovative features including variable inlet guide vanes, double-shell (inner and outer) combusto ...
engine. Unbuilt.


Operators

; *
United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...


Aircraft on display

;F3H-2M *BuNo 137078 - National Museum Naval Aviation at
Naval Air Station Pensacola Naval Air Station Pensacola or NAS Pensacola (formerly NAS/KNAS until changed circa 1970 to allow Nassau International Airport, now Lynden Pindling International Airport, to have IATA code NAS), "The Cradle of Naval Aviation", is a United State ...
,
Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...
. ;F3H-2N *BuNo 133566 - USS Intrepid Museum in
New York City, New York New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. *BuNo 145221 -
Pima Air & Space Museum The Pima Air & Space Museum, located in Tucson, Arizona, is one of the world's largest non-government funded aerospace museums. The museum features a display of nearly 300 aircraft spread out over 80 acres (320,000 m²) on a campus occ ...
, adjacent to Davis-Monthan AFB in
Tucson, Arizona , "(at the) base of the black ill , nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town" , image_map = , mapsize = 260px , map_caption = Interactive map ...
."F3H Demon/145221."
''Pima Air & Space Museum.'' Retrieved: 15 January 2015.


Specifications (F3H-2)


See also


References


Notes


Bibliography

*Angelucci, Enzo and
Peter M. Bowers Peter M. Bowers (May 15, 1918 – April 27, 2003) was an aeronautical engineer, airplane designer, and a journalist and historian specializing in the field of aviation.
. ''The American Fighter''. Sparkford, Somerset, UK: Haynes Publishing Group, 1987. . *Dorr, Robert F. "McDonnell F3H Demon". ''
Aeroplane An airplane or aeroplane (informally plane) is a fixed-wing aircraft that is propelled forward by thrust from a jet engine, propeller, or rocket engine. Airplanes come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and wing configurations. The broad spectr ...
'', Volume 36, No. 3, March 2008, pp. 58–73. London: IBC. *Elward, Brad A. and Peter Davies
''US Navy F-4 Phantom II MiG Killers 1965–70, Part 1'' (Osprey Combat Aircraft).
London: Osprey Publishing, 2001. . *Gunston, Bill. ''Fighters of the Fifties''. Cambridge, UK: Patrick Stephens Limited, 1981. .
"Naval Aircraft: Demon".
''Naval Aviation News'', March 1974, pp. 22–23. *Spick, Mike. "A Demon Possessed". ''
Air Enthusiast ''Air Enthusiast'' was a British, bi-monthly, aviation magazine, published by the Key Publishing group. Initially begun in 1974 as ''Air Enthusiast Quarterly'', the magazine was conceived as a historical adjunct to '' Air International'' maga ...
'', Forty-three, 1991, pp. 40–49. Stamford, UK: Key Publishing. ISSN 0143-5450.


External links


''F3H Demon Index''Demon Drivers
* {{Authority control Carrier-based aircraft
F3H Demon The McDonnell F3H Demon is a subsonic swept-wing United States Navy carrier-based jet fighter aircraft. The successor to the F2H Banshee, the Demon was originally designed to use the Westinghouse J40 engine, but had to be redesigned to accep ...
McDonnell F03H Demon Low-wing aircraft Single-engined jet aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1951 Second-generation jet fighters