F-89 scorpions ..how come none fly? as warbirds?

sabredriver · **Posted:** Sat Aug 11, 2007 6:14 am

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... :IT&ih=012

JBoyle · **Posted:** Sat Aug 11, 2007 2:10 pm

Easy.. 3 reasons:
Most survivors are in museums. Any that escaped to civilian ownership probably have spent the last 40+ years outdoors.

Parts.

Why? There are cheaper, easier and safer ways to fly a jet warbird. And it's not t he sexiest thing in the sky. Last ones were retired about 40 years ago, long before there was a jet warbird movement that would have provided owners to care for them.

krlang · **Posted:** Sat Aug 11, 2007 5:53 pm

Who's going to make more of the big silly skinny main tires?

Joe Scheil · **Posted:** Sun Aug 12, 2007 12:30 am

Because airliners are probably a lot more sporty to fly...

Remember, when it costs money to restore something, it has to be at least fun for someone.

Kyleb · **Posted:** Sun Aug 12, 2007 8:48 am

krlang wrote:

Who's going to make more of the big silly skinny main tires?

Which brings up a question: Why did the Scorpion use such freakish tires/wheels anyway? The diameter on those things is HUGE. None of the F-89's contemporaries have anything approaching its wheels/tires.

Beyond the huge diameter, there had to be a huge weight penalty...

Jerry O'Neill · **Posted:** Sun Aug 12, 2007 9:28 am

Kyleb wrote:

krlang wrote:

Who's going to make more of the big silly skinny main tires?

Which brings up a question: Why did the Scorpion use such freakish tires/wheels anyway? The diameter on those things is HUGE. None of the F-89's contemporaries have anything approaching its wheels/tires.

Beyond the huge diameter, there had to be a huge weight penalty...

My thinking has always been that since the F-89 carried the Genie Nuclear Missile, having a taller wheel might mean that if a tire blew, it would still give safe clearance for the missile so it wouldn't get damaged. Also, with the low slung fuselage, it might keep the bottom from scrapping in for the same reason.

It's just a guess, so don't jump on me,
but it might make some sense out of those stupid looking, "Model T" wheels! :lol:

Jerry

mustangdriver · **Posted:** Sun Aug 12, 2007 9:33 am

Well, it had to be big enough to keep it's belly off of the ground, but thin enough to fit into the wing. The F-89 Wing is pretty thing for an aircraft of that size.

DryMartini · **Posted:** Sun Aug 12, 2007 9:36 am

I believe it was because the main gear had to retract into the
wing, because the lower fuselage had the jets. The wing was
rather thin in cross section, hence the skinny tires.

In one of the books I have, they discuss the main gear design.

b29flteng · **Posted:** Sun Aug 12, 2007 10:33 am

The wheels and tires were made by the Baldwin Locomotive works, thats why. :lol:

Jerry O'Neill · **Posted:** Sun Aug 12, 2007 11:15 am

The skinny wing thing is much better than my guess and sounds more plausible to me.

I'm sure someone out here knows for sure!
Jerry

Old SAR pilot · **Posted:** Mon Aug 20, 2007 6:20 pm

This, from the GlobalSecurity web site:

Quote:

Supporting all of this was an immense slab-like straight wing with a remarkably thin (9 percent) airfoil. Shoulder-mounted, its spars could not pass through the rear cockpit, so the wing roots were butted directly onto a torsion box built into the fuselage. The thin airfoil yielded good high-altitude performance, but left very little room for the main landing gear. Northrop engineers designed a large-diameter wheel with a very thin, high-pressure tire that solved that problem, but that reduced space for wing fuel tanks. This in turn required a large fuselage fuel tank in the only available space: just above the hot section of the thirsty J35s.

RickH · **Posted:** Mon Aug 20, 2007 8:19 pm

So why didn't they call it the F-89 Conundrum ?

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F-89 scorpions ..how come none fly? as warbirds?

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