One of the hottest looking fighters ever to be built, but not go into production was the Lockheed XF-90. It was the first U.S. built, swept-wing jet to be equipped with afterburners and wingtip fuel tanks as standard equipment and have fully adjustable vertical and horizontal stabilizers. Fowler flaps and leading-edge slats improved airflow over the wings, making the F-90 one of the pioneers in 35-degree swept-wing technology. In tests, the XF-90 exceeded Mach 1 fifteen times.

    After World War II, the USAAF needed a “penetration fighter,” capable of escorting bombers to and from their targets. In 1945, the AAF issued a request for a fighter with a combat radius of about 900 miles. Competitors for the contract included McDonnell’s XP-88A, North American’s XP-86C, and Lockheed XP-90. (In 1948, the P designation for “pursuit,” was changed to F, for “fighter.”) Lockheed received a contract for two prototype XP-90s on June 20, 1946.¹

    The XF-90 was a precursor to the "missile with a man in it," the F-104 Starfighter. It caught the nation's attention with its sleek looking design and made for splashy advertising for Westinghouse engines and was featured on the 1953 September cover of the comic book Blackhawk. Thereafter, the young baby boomer generation would be mesmerized with the coming of the jet age and each new adventure of the pilot Blackhawk and his buddy Chuck. This was the atomic age, where children lived in fear of nuclear attack and were taught to hide under their desk in schools during air raid rehearsals. With his squadron of six sleek F-90Bs, Blackhawk and his fighters would keep the threat of the Red aggressors at bay.

    Although Chuck Yeager had broken the sound barrier on October 14, 1947, it was too late to be of any help with the design of the XP-90. The ultimate winner of the competition was the McDonnell XF-88A Voodoo, and the XP-90 prototypes were left to an ignominious end. The first prototype was tested to destruction at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics Laboratory in Cleveland and became scrap. The second prototype was sent to the Nevada Proving Ground for use in a nuclear weapons test and was subjected to three nuclear blasts. The explosions severed the tail and blew the landing gear from the wing; the main wing structure was buckled and scorched.²

    In the late 1980s, the second prototype was recovered and decontaminated for preservation. It will be housed in the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, near Dayton, Ohio. It is recognized for its importance played in the beginning of the cold war as an experiment in early atmospheric testing of atomic bombs. Its participation in three atmospheric atomic bomb tests helped in waging the cold war. The aircraft will be exhibited exactly as it sat, out in the desert for half a century.