Its dilemma, the idea of developing an escort fighter that couldД«e carried by a bomber was proposed. Situation which led to the consideration of other, more radical,ДЄs early as the summer of 1944, when the USAAF was pondering Of escort fighters capable of matching the longer range, a problematic

Range was three to five times greater than that of the bombers To develop bombers such as the Boeing B-50 and Convair B-36, whose The wartime problem was solved by the development of long rangeД®scort fighters, but as the war was ending, the USAAF was beginning Of long-range fighters to escort the bombers had become one of War 11, the US Army Air Forces had faced serious and deadly oppositionДЇrom Luftwaffe interceptors.

On JanuRB-36F-1,Д¤9-2707, was assigned for modification as the GRB-36F prototypeДЄnd was able to make its first contact flight on January 9, 1952.Дuring the strategic air offensive against Germany during World Prototype FICON system to carry and retrieve a Republic F-84E In spite of that failure, Convair received a contract for a Were built and flight tested from a B-29B in August 1948, the XF-85, ordered October 9, 1945, a midget fighter designed to beД¬arried within the B-36 bomb bay. The first such project involved the McDonnell Provide the B-36 with its own fighter type aircraft to be carried In late 1949 when mid-air refueling of fighter aircraft for rangeДЇICON (Fighter-Conveyor) was a project intended to Recovered in flight or flown from a B-36. Although the XF-85 was successfully launched and flownДЇrom an EB-29B on several test flights, it was never successfully Hook onto the trapeze, fold its wings, and be lifted back into theД«omb bay. Had been driven away, the parasite fighter would return to the bomber, On a trapeze and release it to combat the attackers. If attacked by enemy aircraft, the bomber would lower the Goblin In theory, a B-36 penetratingД®nemy territory would carry its protecting fighter in the bomb bay, ready to fly in front. The XF-85 was developed to protect B-36 bombers flying beyond the The F-85 (XF-85) McDonnell 'Goblin' Parasite Jet Fighter. To sticking drop tanks on escorting fighters. Sense eventually prevailed and the Boys in Blue opted to go back Over controlled the li' l beast trying to hook the trapeze for recovery-afterДЄ couple of midair's (with the Goblin coming off second-best), common

(see right) BrettДЄnother reason for the USAF dropping it was that, in addition toД«eing unstable as all get-out (which is normally a good thing inДЄ fighter), the control surfaces were so dinky that pilots invariably In the museum, the Goblin is right next the the B-36F. I've attached a couple of pictures of the real one as well. Here is the link to the museums website for the I knew this for sometime now but it didn't really hit me Your model with tail # S/N 46-524 is the plane that is here. That the local museum I work at has one of the originals. I was looking at the XF-85 today and remembered And for a change, I was able toДЇit the wing through the fuse without any unsightly gaps! I hate to say such an unmanly thing,Д«ut the damn thing is cute. The Goblin this weekend between my chores and trying to fix There's another in the folder that is about 1:60 Shown is the larger size of this mini monster- 6'5' wing span. Its performance and armament would have been inadequate to deal with the MiG fighters it would have encountered Was a desperate idea born of desperate times.

ДЄnother idea was that the B-36 could be used to carry an RF-84F reconnaissance fighter the latter would be launched at some point outside hostile territory, up to 2800 miles from the B-36's base, at an altitude of 25,000 ft and would then make a dash over the targetДЄt high speed, after which it would be retrieved by the parent aircraft. Experiments were abandoned, but later on modified F-84s were flown under B-36s. On another flight the hook broke the canopy and knocked off the pilot's helmet. In its test programme, using a B-29, turbulence under the bomber made this very difficult and it was only achieved three times. After fighting off the enemy (with its four machine guns) the XF-85 Goblin was to return to the bomber and hook on to its trapeze. The XF-85 itself was designed entirely around the constraints of the bomb bay of the B-36 and thus lacked the performance of a conventional fighter. The XF-85 Goblin was intended to let heavy bombers bring along their own fighter escort along the lines of various 'parasite fighter' experiments, conducted with US airships and Soviet bombers in the 1930s.

Xf-85