F-80 Shooting Star Specs

The F-80 Shooting Star has a lot of firsts going for it. It was the first operational fighter in the Army Air Corp, the first American jet to reach greater than 500 mph, it even won the first all jet fighter air battle. The F-80 was designed by Lockheed during WWII and its design team even included the famed Kelly Johnson of Skunk Works fame.

The Shooting Star was a highly reliable and for the time fast fighter. It was finished during the end of the WWII and first saw action in the Korean War. Then on Nov. 8, 1950 it won the first all jet air to air combat against a MIG 15. The F-80 was such a reliable design that the long time jet trainer or the USAF, the T-33, is derived from the Shooting star. In total more than 1700 F-80s and almost 7000 T-33s were built. The F-80 has had a great impact on how the military worked with jet aircraft and how to use them in combat. Generations of fighter pilots have learned how to do their job in the trainer version of this aircrat.