1950s American Jets History

The early jets were made in the 1940s, and the Century Series jets were their replacements during the 1950s. Each of these airplanes arrived at Edwards AFB for testing with high expectations. Each fell short of its promises and expectations. It took each four years to overcome its shortcomings. The term “Century fighters” includes successful models between the F-100 and F-106 that went into production. This is the famed Century Series: the F-100, F-101, F-102, F-104, F-105, and F-106. In the process, it defined the basic speed and altitude envelopes for fighter aircraft that still prevail to this day. Each of these arrived at Edwards AFB with serious deficiencies. The first two production aircraft in the Century Series—the F-100 Super Sabre

Two years later, the Comet’s career ended abruptly following two back-to-back accidents in which the fuselage burst apart during flight—the result of metal fatigue. I recall the movie No Highway in the Sky, made in the early 1950s that starred James Stewart. He was an aeronautical engineer, and he predicted that a new model of plane would fail catastrophically, and after a specific number of flying hours, he believed this one airplane was in danger of having an accident due to metal fatigue. Of course everyone thought he was crazy, and in real life, the first commercial jet had failures due to metal fatigue. There were several deaths involved before they grounded the Comet. After a lot of changes were made, it did fly

It was almost 100 mph slower than the swept-back YB-47. The cockpit was very small for its crew. It could not carry an atomic bomb. It was discovered that it had some stealth capabilities because of the aircraft’s design with no tail; it was not a good target for radar. At this point in history, stealth technology was not a priority. Years later, Northrop Grumman came up with the B-2, which was also tailless and designed like a flying wing. However, they started from scratch on paper with its design, and it included stealth