Ryan FR-1 Fireball by Czech Model
1/48 scale
Kit No. 4815
Price: $30.00
Decals: Two versions – both U.S. Navy
Comments: Engraved panel lines; vacuform canopy; highly detailed cockpit featuring resin pilot’s seat and side wall instrumentation; additional resin parts provide wheels, wheel well inserts, a complete radial engine and jet intake inserts for the leading edges of the wings
History
The Ryan FR-1 Fireball was a unique, hybrid fighter that incorporated both jet and piston engine propulsion into its design. It reflected proactive planning by the U.S. Navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics, which as far back as 1942 issued a specification for a new fighter indicating its anticipation of an eventual transition to jet aircraft. The Ryan FR Fireball was conceived in 1943 under the direction of Admiral John S. McCain, Sr., father of the Vietnam-era naval aviator and later U.S. Senator from Arizona. His proposal called for a “composite” powered fighter requiring both a piston engine and a turbojet. World War II had entered its fourth year and the turbojet was a new technology being developed with urgency by the combatants. The idea behind the composite concept was to rely on a tried and proven radial piston engine while incorporating the untapped power and benefits of the turbojet.
Early turbojet aircraft – America’s P-59 Airacomet, Britain’s Gloster Pioneer, and Nazi Germany’s Heinkel He 178 – all suffered from poor reliability, endurance and power. Their powerplants were thought to be inadequate as primary propulsion methods for any combat aircraft, particularly during the pivotal take-off and landing phases. The U.S. Navy’s belief at that time was that a composite fighter would alleviate the dangers of an all-jet aircraft , using turbojet propulsion only as a backup to the piston engine. The result would net a fighter design that, potentially, could outpace all other piston-powered fighters of the time.
Ryan Aeronautical was tapped to develop the new fighter to fit the Navy’s unique requirements. While Ryan had never built a fighter, their reputation as the builder of the famed Spirit of St. Louis — combined with the fact that they had production capacity to spare, unlike many other aircraft manufacturers who were already at capacity with war production — gave the Navy the confidence to award them the contract.
Ryan’s design produced the hybrid Fireball, the first Navy fighter to fly with jet power, and the first carrier-based fighter to incorporate tricycle landing gear into its design. After a full three years of intense development, overcoming never-before-encountered engineering challenges, the Fireball entered service with the Navy in March 1945. The first squadron to fly the type, VF-66, were hand-picked men led by Lt. John Gray, a veteran ace with 24 enemy aircraft to his credit. VF-66, not surprisingly calling themselves the Firebirds, began training on the new fighter in San Diego in the Spring of 1945. The Navy planned to get VF-66 into action in the Pacific as soon as possible to counter the Kamikaze threat, which mounted in fury and intensity as the the U.S. closed the ring on Japan in the Western Pacific.
VF-66 went to sea with the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Ranger in May 1945 for three days of carrier qualification trials. The FR-1 not only passed the trials, but its outstanding performance generated enthusiasm among the pilots — its speed of 426 mph was impressive, but its rate of climb, service ceiling of 41,000 feet, and maneuverability were better than any other fighter in fleet service at the time. Flight testing continued at an accelerated rate through June and July, for the Navy was eager to get the Fireball into the fight in the Pacific. Specifically, some believed that only the FR-1 had the speed to cope with the Ohka, Japan’s new rocket-powered Kamikaze weapon. In a final shake-down cruise during the Summer of 1945, VF-66 made 74 catapult-assisted take-offs and 407 landings without serious accidents. Shortly after the Ranger returned from this cruise, the war came to an end with the dropping of the atomic bombs and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria.
Thereafter, the Navy continued flight testing at a more leisurely pace, and the FR-1 would not sail in an operational squadron until November 5, 1945 when the U.S.S. Wake Island took a new squadron, VF-41, to sea. VF-66 had been decommissioned on October 18th, with its personnel, equipment and aircraft transferred to VF-41 to preserve continuity.
While the FR-1 was indeed a hot new fighter, continued carrier operations began to point up its deficiencies. During carrier landings, if its tailwheel caught a wire before its main wheels were down, it would slam the FR-1 onto the deck nose first, damaging the nose gear, the propeller and depending on the severity of the impact, the forward piston engine. Hard landings of this type always threatened such damage. In addition, once it landed and ran to the limit of the length allowed by the wire, the Fireball had a tendency to tip back on its tail, damaging the fuselage skin around the jet exhaust.
Typically take-offs were made with the piston engine, but at times it had a tendency to inexplicably fail just moments after lifting off. One pilot, Ensign Jake West, made history unintentionally when this happened on November 6, 1945 — but he was able to start the jet engine and immediately made the first jet-powered landing aboard an aircraft carrier. But since the FR-1 was not a pure jet aircraft, that honor formally went to a British Vampire jet of the Fleet Air Arm when it landed aboard HMS Ocean on December 3, 1945. Ensign West was skilled but also lucky — for some FR-1 pilots, engine failure was fatal.
Continuing advances in jet technology, including more powerful and reliable jet engines, rendered the FR-1 Fireball obsolete within a very short time. Although the quirks of its sometimes tricky handling during take-offs and landings were cured by February 1947, the Navy had withdrawn it from service by August of that year — the same month that the all-jet powered McDonnell FH-1 Phantom entered fleet service. Although the Phantom made history as the U.S. Navy’s first true jet fighter, within three more years it too would be phased out in favor of the more powerful McDonnell Banshee and Grumman Panther fighters.
Despite its unique place in the annals of naval aviation, the FR-1 Fireball fell prey to wartime secrecy and rapid post-war advances in jet propulsion. Like the FH-1 Phantom that replaced it, it has been denied its rightful place in history and is today often overlooked in favor of the more famous aircraft that preceded and followed it. Sadly, such is often the fate of innovative if transitional aircraft that appear on the cusp of new technologies.
The Kit
Czech Model’s Ryan Fireball is injection molded in grey plastic and consists of 54 plastic parts and a further 50 detail parts in light tan resin. The resin detail parts include wheels (which will require a bit of sanding), wheel wll inserts, a pilot’s seat with molded on seat straps, cockpit sidewall instrumentation, a 9-cylinder radial engine and airscrew, jet intake inserts for the leading edges of the wings, and a series of smaller details including brackets for the two wingroot-mounted drop tanks. Two vacuform canopies are also included.
The kit features engraved panel lines, a one-piece cowling (saving modeler’s a bit of seam-hiding work) and individually mounted plastic propeller blades for the resin airscrew. In the cockpit, the main instrument panel features raised detail (there is no instrument panel decal) and the interiors of the wheel well doors are remarkably detailed. The landing gear include tires with diamond tread, so modelers will have a choice of whether to use these or the resin examples provided. The vacuform canopies also bear clearly delineated framing, which will help make painting them a lot easier. Also included in the kit is a rare bonus, a Mini In Action book from Squadron Signal Publications.
Markings
The decals are by Czech Model and appear to be of high quality with a satin sheen and no color bleed on the national insignia in particular. Decals are provided for both a WWII-era and a post-war Fireball, with the later bearing the red stripe within the stars and bars national insignia that was employed after about 1947. There is a small amount of stencil detail provided as well.
Conclusion
This is a well-detailed kit of an experimental aircraft that reflected the Navy’s design concepts during the brief but critical period that it contemplated a world transitioning to jet fighters. Highly recommended.
References
- FR-1 Fireball Mini in Action by Ernest McDowell; Copyright 1995 by Squadron/Signal Publications; Carrollton, Texas.
- www.militaryfactory.com
