The Lockheed company was the first in the USA to start work on a jet powered aircraft, the L-133 design started in 1939 as a number of "Paper Project" by engineers Clarence R "Kelly" Johnson and Hall J Hibbard. By 1940 preliminary work on a company financed jet fighter had been started, which progressed to several different versions on the drawing board. In the mean time Lockheed were working on a axial-flow turbojet of there own design L-1000, which was intended to power the culmination of the fighter project the Model L-133-02-01, this was a single seat, cannard design powered by two L-1000 engines.
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The design was noticed by the USAAF, but at the time they showed no great interested in the idea of a jet powered fighter and missed the opportunity of giving the USA a lead in this new technology. With out the support (and money) of the USAAF work on the L-133 fighter and it's engine the L-1000 came to a halt. How ever when the USAAF suddenly began to show interest in the idea of a jet powered combat aircraft in 1942, spurred on by intelligence reports of the advances in jet propulsion by the Germans and British, the USAAF would turn the Lockheed for it's fist jet powered fighter the Lockheed P-80 "Shooting Star" |
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A 3 view plane of the Lockheed L-133-02-01
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