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Icons of Aviation History: The XF-85 Goblin [1]

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Date: 2022-12-20

The tiny little Goblin fighter was intended to be carried inside a bomb bay.

“Icons of Aviation History” is a diary series that explores significant and historic aircraft.

XF-85 Goblin “parasite fighter” on display at the SAC Aerospace Museum

In 1929, the Navy laid down plans for two massive dirigible airships, to be used for long-range sea reconnaissance. The first of these airships, named the Akron, was commissioned in 1931. Her sister ship, the Macon, followed in 1933. The Akron and the Macon were not merely dirigibles, however—they were flying aircraft carriers. Carried inside the cavernous interior of the dirigible's aluminum frame were several specially-designed Curtiss F9C-2 “Sparrowhawk” biplanes. Each plane had a reinforced hook attached to the upper wing. To launch the plane, the crew would attach this hook to a metal contraption called the “trapeze”, then lowered the Sparrowhawk through a hatch until it dangled below the airship, where the hook was disengaged and the plane dropped free to fly on its own. Upon its return, the pilot would carefully maneuver the Sparrowhawk into position underneath the dirigible and hook the plane back to the trapeze, which was then drawn inside. These experiments ended when both airships were destroyed in crashes.

During the Second World War, though, the concept of the “parasite fighter” still survived. The Soviet Union experimented with the concept by attaching small I-16 Polikarpov fighters to the wings of its Tupolev TB-3 heavy bombers, and in 1941, I-16's fitted with small bombs and carried by TB-3's were released to attack German targets in Romania, the only instance of parasite planes being used in combat. The Germans, conversely, experimented towards the end of the war with the idea of carrying small jet-powered Me-328 fighters under the wings of heavy bombers, but were unable to make much progress before the war ended.

The most ambitious work was then carried out in the US. In 1946, the successor to the B-29 bomber, the B-36 Peacemaker, began flight testing. As the primary delivery system for the nuclear bomb, the B-36 was expected to fly all the way from bases in the US to the Soviet Union, a distance that could not be covered by any escort fighters. As a result, it was planned that around one in every ten B-36s would be converted into flying aircraft carriers which could bring their own 3 or 4 escort fighters along with them. Thus was born the XF-85 Goblin.

The original design envisioned carrying the fighter so it was mounted only partway into the bomb bay, with the lower half projecting underneath the bomber’s belly. This would allow for a larger plane, but it would also increase drag, thereby reducing the bomber's speed and range. So that idea was rejected by the Air Force, and the Goblin was re-designed to fit entirely into the B-36's bomb bay.

Essentially just an engine with a cockpit on top, the little fighter measured only fifteen feet long and five feet wide (with wings folded), and weighed just 4500 pounds. It was fitted with a Westinghouse XJ-34 turbojet engine with 3000 pounds of thrust and carried enough fuel for about an hour and a half of flight. There were four .50-calibre machine guns in the nose. The wings were folded to fit into the bomb bay and popped open upon launch: they were swept back 37 degrees. The tail consisted of four nearly-vertical fins. The most noticeable feature was the large hook mounted to the nose, which was intended to connect the Goblin to the mothership B-36 so it could be cranked back inside. The hook could be retracted flat during flight.

The first test flights began in 1948, with a modified B-29 as the host bomber. They were an abject failure. While it was found that the little fighter could be safely dropped from the bomber and fly off on an intercept mission, the turbulent air underneath the bomber made it difficult and hazardous to re-connect the Goblin to the trapeze so it could be pulled back aboard. Attempts were made to combat this by adding various fins and stabilizers, but around half of all the test flights still resulted in a “failure to dock”, and the XF-85 was forced into making a ground landing. (The plane was designed without landing gear and the prototype version was only fitted with a metal skid for emergency landings during testing, and of course in an actual mission over enemy territory there wouldn't be anywhere to land anyway.) On one flight, the Goblin hit the bomber's trapeze so hard that the cockpit canopy was ripped away and the pilot's helmet knocked off, necessitating an emergency landing.

The test flights were ended in 1949, before any B-36 bombers had even become available for testing. By this time, the development of workable air-to-air refueling equipment gave jet fighters virtually unlimited range and endurance, and removed the need for bombers to carry their own parasite fighter escorts with them. The project was canceled.

Only two experimental Goblin prototypes were built. One of these was donated to the US Air Force Museum in Dayton in 1950, where it is on display. Originally, the Museum exhibited the Goblin next to the B-36 bomber that was intended to carry it, but in 2000 the XF-85 was moved to the Experimental Aircraft hangar.

The other Goblin prototype was damaged during a test and was then placed in storage for years before being sold to a private collector in California. It is now on exhibit in the Strategic Air Command Aerospace Museum at Offutt Air Force base in Nebraska.

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