Skyfox T-33 Conversion

[Larry Kraus]

In case anyone cares,the twin engine upgraded T-33 from the 80's still exists,more or less,at Medford,Or. At the moment,it lacks engines and their cowlings.However,other than a low nose tire,it appears to otherwise be intact.

It has been at MFR for a number of years and is now parked in a general aviation parking area near Medford Air and across the ramp from the tanker base.

It is painted in a flat green overall scheme and has the faded registration number N221SF and "Skyfox" is painted on the vertical stabilized,also badly faded.It also has a modified datablock under the left side canopy with T-33A serial no.160.

If anyone is interested,I'll try to find out more details.The following link is to an information page that I found on Google:

http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pettypi/elevon/b ... kyfox.html

[Fouga23]

Was just thinking about this one. Would make an awesome warbird And better performance/lower operating cost then a T-33!

[bdk]

I thought it was a great idea! Too bad it didn't sell.

[JohnB]

It guest starred in an episode of Airwolf. At least it has lasted longer than the helicopter "star".
Boeing at one time had marrketing rights. I don't know what its engines (731s, IIRC) sold for back then, but I'm sure it wasn't cheap...even if you don't consider the cost of the airframe mods.

Last edited by JohnB on Tue Dec 25, 2012 11:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

[PropsRule]

If it had a pair of 731s, I wonder how its performance was compared to the countless similarly powered business jets that were around at the time (or even today). It would still stand out on the ramp parked amongst a bunch of Lears and Falcons.

I hate to say it but with the "Skyfox" conversion, they took a great looking jet (original T-33) and came up with an ugly airplane. IMHO, it would have been a waste of good air frames.

[JohnB]

IMHO, it would have been a waste of good air frames.

If it had been a success there would be many more flying than there are now.
What would you rather have...a flying airframe or a stock T-33 taken to the scrapper or target range?
Hardly the "waste of a good airframe".

[The Inspector]

IMHO, it would have been a waste of good air frames.

If it had been a success there would be many more flying than there are now.
What would you rather have...a flying airframe or a stock T-33 taken to the scrapper or target range?
Hardly the "waste of a good airframe".

The original intent was to market a conversion kit for smaller nations, a large number of whom were operating T Birds into a bargain basement 'A-10' ground attack airframe with double modern engine redundancy. There were, at the time a bunch of T-33's either flying in smaller air forces around the world or recently parked that would have kept SKYFOX busy for some time, they got into a financial corner and Boeing bought them out at the start of their 'buy the competitors' campaign, discovered the market had dried up and parked the airplane. If the cards had turned over differently, who knows?

IMHO, it would have been a waste of good air frames.

If it had been a success there would be many more flying than there are now.
What would you rather have...a flying airframe or a stock T-33 taken to the scrapper or target range?
Hardly the "waste of a good airframe".

There would be many more "Skyfoxes" flying maybe but not T-33's. I would rather have a flying airframe if it's an aircraft that I like. There are a fair number of flying T-33's in the vintage warbird community, and I'll take 10 of those over 500 Skyfox conversions any day.

To each his own, just my opinion.

[Thomas_Mac]

The Bacon Super Six thread reminded me to post this. The Skyfox has been acquired by the Palm Springs Air Museum.

[quemerford]

Great news! Thanks for posting. And unlike some, I always liked the look of the Skyfox.

[Larry Kraus]

Here are some pictures from July 2009 in Medford.

7BCEBA65-21B3-4E83-AB7C-6DD640A1C08E by tanker622001, on Flickr

F4466951-F880-4CE5-8B6C-05F0ED60C4E5 by tanker622001, on Flickr

0D021E2E-DDF3-4310-A5AE-88617842F94A by tanker622001, on Flickr

DDE46225-29D8-4CAF-BDFA-1225428232E7 by tanker622001, on Flickr

843129DF-7E2D-49A7-98CB-89A8340FCC14 by tanker622001, on Flickr

4C1BD83A-AC70-48BB-98C3-7FEF419D372F by tanker622001, on Flickr

B1E18CFC-A56D-454D-8EEA-2101F5196510 by tanker622001, on Flickr

B5C8A0C3-BBF3-4098-9B7F-FC9E0671F408 by tanker622001, on Flickr

CE142ACE-4D73-4EB7-A5BF-7105BC30984E by tanker622001, on Flickr

211C9B84-7E80-4B46-8955-F11157ECB33F by tanker622001, on Flickr

Last edited by Larry Kraus on Tue Mar 09, 2021 5:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Waltz41]

Wow this is weird. So a buddy of mine texted a screen shot the other day of his flightradar on the phone and had N221SF flying from Lewisburg, WV, North over our area. Was at 15,000 but he said forw whatever reason he decided to look it up and was shocked when he saw what it was. I had never heard or seen it before, now it's popped on up here!!

[p51]

B5C8A0C3-BBF3-4098-9B7F-FC9E0671F408 by tanker622001, on Flickr

CE142ACE-4D73-4EB7-A5BF-7105BC30984E by tanker622001, on Flickr

What's the story on what appears to be a F-16 sitting over at the edge of the blacktop?

[bipe215]

Wow this is weird. So a buddy of mine texted a screen shot the other day of his flightradar on the phone and had N221SF flying from Lewisburg, WV, North over our area. Was at 15,000 but he said forw whatever reason he decided to look it up and was shocked when he saw what it was. I had never heard or seen it before, now it's popped on up here!!

N221SF is on a Cirrus now. The T-33 is deregistered