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Just a Nice Pic....

Identify the aircraft please View attachment 678308

I took pictures of it's sister, the mighty Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star back in 2018 during this demo. It was terrific watching this thing and its performance compared to the fighters of today. Still put on a great show.

While the FH-1 Phantom was the first jet fighter for the US Navy, The Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star was the first jet fighter used operationally by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) in 1946, right after WWII.

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I took pictures of it's sister, the mighty Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star back in 2018 during this demo. It was terrific watching this thing and its performance compared to the fighters of today. Still put on a great show.

While the FH-1 Phantom was the first jet fighter for the US Navy, The Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star was the first jet fighter used operationally by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) in 1946, right after WWII.

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What you have is T-33 (my dad trained on them)
P-80 is the single seat variant.

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What you have is T-33 (my dad trained on them)
P-80 is the single seat variant.

View attachment 678934

I believe they still called it the Shooting Star or the T-33 Shooting Star or T-Bird since they were basically the same fuselage and the only difference is the 2-seater and it being a trainer and also the way the wingtip tanks were mounted. They certainly kept calling it that at the air show every time it zipped by and it was also labelled that way in the brochure.
IAR 80.


IAR 80

It has a pretty interesting history being an indigenous Romanian fighter in WWII built off another Polish aircraft that Romania was license producing and it also remarkably resembled the Fockewulf 190, both of course fighting in WWII.
 
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I believe they still called it the Shooting Star or the T-33 Shooting Star or T-Bird since they were basically the same fuselage and the only difference is the 2-seater and it being a trainer and also the way the wingtip tanks were mounted. They certainly kept calling it that at the air show every time it zipped by and it was also labelled that way in the brochure.


It has a pretty interesting history being an indigenous Romanian fighter in WWII built off another Polish aircraft that Romania was license producing and it also remarkably resembled the Fockewulf 190, both of course fighting in WWII.
There are couple of marked differences other than 2 seat vs 1 seat. T-Bird (as it was called in PAF), has bigger fuel tanks on the axis of the wing tips whereas P-80 had smaller fuel tanks under the wing tips. It also had 2x 50 cal machine guns in the nose (chin) which were removed for T-33 (at least ones in PAF service). PAF also operated RT-33s which had the second seat removed and recon cameras installed. We used them a lot in both wars.
 
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There are couple of marked differences other than 2 seat vs 1 seat. T-Bird (as it was called in PAF), has bigger fuel tanks on the axis of the wing tips whereas P-80 had smaller fuel tanks under the wing tips. It also had 2x 50 cal machine guns in the nose (chin) which were removed for T-33 (at least ones in PAF service). PAF also operated RT-33s which had the second seat removed and recon cameras installed. We used them a lot in both wars.

Very cool. Your dad must have a lot of cool stories to share. Does he talk about them or he prefers not to?
Every once in a while at this particular show in RI, they bring out some cool rarities like that with its neat history and its great to watch it and see how it compares to todays fighters and also how much work they put into these aircraft in the restoration aspect as well. Very impressive that they make them flyable like that since many are easily restored just for static display. But the ones that are brought back to fly like this make for a very impressive show. And the money that is needed to do all that and keep they flying at all these shows is staggering and they depend strictly on private donations and funding through the private sector which in of itself is incredible.

Of course one of the most favorites for all is the P-51 Mustang. These classics are almost all of the time used in the Heritage flights.

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Later during the Heritage flight with an F-16 and an F-35.

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Here's a couple of beauties.

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They were still working on this F-4 Phantom.

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Always wondered what that Phillips head screw at the tip of the F/A-18 Hornet's radome was screwed into?! The F-15 also has one. Might be just to secure that metal cap at the point to the rest of the radome since it's made out of a composite material which is obvious to the feel of a little knocking. Yeah they let you knock on the jets a little lightly lol.

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