Lockheed XFV-1 by Valom
1/72 scale
Kit No. 72007
Retail: $28.00 (Out of Production)
Decals: One version – U.S. Navy (by Aviprint)
Comments: Engraved panel lines, vacuform canopies, photo-etch details
History
In the 1950s, the U.S. Navy – seeking to expand the role of, and to protect, its surface warships – independently took the initiative to develop a combat aircraft that would require neither a concrete runway nor a carrier deck. The British eventually succeeded in the late 1960’s with the Hawker-Siddeley Harrier, but before this aircraft arrived, firms around the United States experimented with various VTOL configurations. Wartime experiences had revealed how vulnerable fixed land bases could be to enemy assault from land or air. Aircraft carriers were also vulnerable as demonstrated by Allied experiences with the Japanese divebomber and kamikaze threats in the Pacific. The U. S. Navy depended on aircraft carriers for many things, including fleet defense, but to assign a carrier task force to protect every convoy or cover every naval operation was impossible. After the U. S. Army Air Forces and the Navy demonstrated practical helicopters during World War II, naval strategists began considering the feasibility of stationing VTOL interceptors aboard non-aircraft carrier surface vessels.
The Navy wanted a combat aircraft with full vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) capability, and its solution was unusual in the extreme. Rather than an aircraft like the Hawker Harrier, which remains horizontal in all modes of flight, the Navy wanted a “tail sitter” fighter able to take off from a platform on the afterdeck of a surface warfare vessel or an ordinary cargo ship. The tail sitter would be able to deploy aboard any vessel that could handle a helicopter, requiring a fraction of the deck space of conventional fighters that operate from aircraft carriers.
At the time, many in the Navy had fresh memories of the WWII battles between Allied surface ships and German U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic. The new fighter would be an ideal way to protect shipping convoys. The Navy also saw many other uses for an aircraft that could take off and land in a small space.
American industry came up with two planes for the job. Convair designed the XFY-1 “Pogo,” a tail sitter with stubby delta wings and fins above and below the fuselage. Lockheed developed the straight-wing, X-tailed XFV-1 (initially known as the XFO-1). Both planes reflected brilliance and initiative in an era of free spending on defense that encouraged experimentation. But in the end, neither caught on due in part to the operational difficulties they presented.
Chief Test Pilot ‘Fish’ Salmon managed to taxi the XFV-1 past the lift-off speed and achieve a brief hop on December 22, 1953 — despite the fact that the aft section of the large spinner had yet to be fitted to the aircraft. Less than a year later, the aircraft made its first official flight on June 16, 1954.
The XFV-1 rests on what was initially intended to be temporary, fixed landing gear. Note the open starboard wingtip pod. Both pods were to house weapons, either 20mm cannon or rockets.
The XFY-1 and XFV-1 both relied on huge turboprop engines in an era when the Navy was having enormous difficulty developing turbine engines. Both were tested with versions of the Allison XT40-A, which consisted of two coupled T38 engines together producing 6,500 estimated shaft horsepower and driving three-bladed, contra-rotating propellers, intended to work like helicopter rotors when the aircraft was in the vertical mode.
The Lockheed craft was the less successful of the two tail sitter designs. Lockheed test pilot Herman “Fish” Salmon piloted the other ship, the XFV-1. The XFV-1 made 32 flights, logging 23 hours, using the undercarriage. Although it demonstrated the ability to transition from vertical to horizontal mode at high altitude after takeoff, the XFV-1 never took off or landed vertically.
The aircraft was fitted with a temporary conventional attitude landing gear and made its first horizontal flight in March 1954. A total of 27 conventional flights were made, with the first full transitions made above 1,000 feet that fall. Control in hover was very weak, and the pilot had difficulty in determining sink, climb, and rotation from normal visual cues. No vertical take-offs or landings were ever attempted. As with the Convair XFY-1 Pogo, the engine and control systems were judged to be insufficient.
Despite making a total of 32 flights, briefly holding a hover at altitude, and managing a few transitions in-flight from the conventional to the vertical flight mode and back again, the project was doomed to be cancelled in June 1955, in part because a more powerful engine that had been planned to allow a true vertical liftoff failed to materialize.
The XFV-1 in conventional horizontal flight, accompanied by a T-33 chase plane. This was the only part of the planned flight envelope the XFV-1 was able to explore, as it never took off or landed vertically.
Had an operational version been built for fleet duty, the XFY-1 and XFV-1 would have been armed with four 20-mm cannon or 46 2.75-inch folding-fin aircraft rockets (FFAR). But, contrary to expectations, neither of the tail sitters was able to hover, helicopter-style, for more than a minute or two. A 7,500-horsepower Allison T54-A-3 engine would have powered proposed XFV-2 and FV-2 versions of the Lockheed aircraft. This “monster” engine was also proposed for other aircraft, including a Lockheed patrol bomber, but the engine was never completed or tested.
By the time both tail sitter fighters were being tested, the Navy had decided that there would be no advantage in attempting to overcome the powerplant deficiencies and other problems. Neither aircraft was capable of flying faster than 580 miles per hour, which was not enough speed to assure survival in any engagement against a jet-powered adversary. While the XFY-1 and XFV-1 made the cover of Collier’s magazine and were well known to every teenaged aviation buff in the 1950s, they were doomed by their complexity, handling problems, and relatively low speed, since both conventional American jets and Soviet MiGs of the period were considerably faster.
The Kit
Valom’s XFV-1 Salmon is injection molded in grey plastic and consists of 61 parts, presented on a single sprue in a resealable clear plastic bag. Two vacuform canopies are included, along with a decal sheet and a small fret of photo-etch parts providing seat straps, rudder pedals and a main instrument panel in the cockpit, augmented by a film insert.
The cockpit assembly may look a little intimidating, as the illustration is quite busy. In truth, it consists of only ten plastic parts (pilot’s seat, seat support, headrest, floor, sidewalls, rear bulkhead, control yoke, rear instrument deck, and instrument panel bulkhead), plus a handful of PE parts for the seat straps, rudder pedals and instrument panel. Fortunately a side view schematic is provided to confirm how all the parts should be situated once cemented into the fuselage.
The two contra-rotating propellers are another busy-looking assembly, since there are two airscrews and three individually mounted square-tipped propeller blades for each. There is a separate step provided simply to walk modelers through the three variants of undercarriage. Although it was conceived as a VTOL fighter, in practice the XFV-1 never took off vertically and was fitted with a rather large “V” undercarriage which allowed it to take off like a conventional aircraft. Appropriate parts are provided.
Having said that, modelers who depict the kit in flight can decide for themselves whether to display the kit as conceived, minus the clunky-looking V undercarriage, or as an historically accurate version reflecting the reality that the aircraft never had a sufficiently powerful engine that would have allowed test pilots to weigh the risk of an attempted vertical takeoff (and landing).
Markings
The kit decals are by Aviprint and are of very high quality, sharply in register and in realistic color. They provide for a single U.S. Navy test aircraft in an overall natural metal paint scheme with red on the tip of the spinner and on the wingtip weapons pods.
Conclusion
This is a fascinating kit that represents one of the great “what ifs” of the Cold War, a concept fighter that was a bit ahead of the technology of the time, but ironically not worth pursuing due to rapid advances in jet propulsion at the time. Highly recommended.
References
- https://www.defensemedianetwork.com
- https://vertipedia.vtol.org
- The National Air and Space Museum – https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/convair-xfy-1-pogo/nasm_A19730274000
- www.military-history.org