{"id":18858157,"date":"2026-09-01T11:29:56","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T09:29:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/lockheed-xf-90-penetration-fighter-nuclear-tests\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T08:43:06","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T06:43:06","slug":"lockheed-xf-90-penetration-fighter-nuclear-tests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/lockheed-xf-90-penetration-fighter-nuclear-tests\/","title":{"rendered":"Lockheed XF-90: The Fighter Too Tough to Kill"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\n<!-- mfsh:top -->\n\n<style>\n.mfsh-trigger{display:inline-flex;align-items:center;gap:10px;height:44px;padding:0 18px;margin:0 0 26px;border:2px solid #0F1720;background:#fff;color:#0F1720;font-family:inherit;font-size:14px;font-weight:700;line-height:1;letter-spacing:0;text-transform:none;cursor:pointer;box-shadow:none;transition:background .15s,color 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Its wings are off. Its nose is crushed. The paint is scorched.<\/p><p>The Lockheed XF-90 lost its competition, never entered production, and was officially recorded as destroyed. It was then subjected to three atomic detonations at close range, left in the Nevada desert for half a century, and is still here.<\/p><p>It is the only surviving example of the second design Kelly Johnson&rsquo;s Skunk Works ever produced, and it survived because it was built far too heavily to be any good.<\/p>\r\n<div style=\"background:#f5f5f5;padding:20px 22px;margin:26px 0;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 10px;font-weight:700;font-size:17px;color:#222\">Quick Facts<\/p><table style=\"width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;font-size:15px;line-height:1.6\"><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;color:#555;white-space:normal;vertical-align:top;min-width:130px\"><strong>Type<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;white-space:normal\">Lockheed XF-90, long-range penetration fighter and bomber escort prototype<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;color:#555;white-space:normal;vertical-align:top;min-width:130px\"><strong>Design team<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;white-space:normal\">Skunk Works, Willis Hawkins under Clarence Kelly Johnson; 65 configurations studied<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;color:#555;white-space:normal;vertical-align:top;min-width:130px\"><strong>Built<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;white-space:normal\">Two airframes, 46-687 and 46-688, the latter completed as the XF-90A<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;color:#555;white-space:normal;vertical-align:top;min-width:130px\"><strong>First flight<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;white-space:normal\">3 June 1949 at Muroc, flown by Lockheed chief test pilot Tony LeVier<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;color:#555;white-space:normal;vertical-align:top;min-width:130px\"><strong>Powerplant<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;white-space:normal\">Two Westinghouse J34 turbojets; 46-688 carried the first afterburners on a USAF fighter<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;color:#555;white-space:normal;vertical-align:top;min-width:130px\"><strong>Structure<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;white-space:normal\">75ST aluminium, heavy forgings and half-inch rivets, stressed for 12 g<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;color:#555;white-space:normal;vertical-align:top;min-width:130px\"><strong>The problem<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;white-space:normal\">Empty weight of 18,050 lb, more than half again heavier than its competitors<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;color:#555;white-space:normal;vertical-align:top;min-width:130px\"><strong>Outcome<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;white-space:normal\">Lost the fly-off to the McDonnell XF-88; the requirement was then cancelled entirely<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;color:#555;white-space:normal;vertical-align:top;min-width:130px\"><strong>Survivor<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;white-space:normal\">46-688, exposed to three atomic shots in 1952, recovered and airlifted out in 2003<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/div>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">An escort fighter for the atomic age<\/h2><p>In autumn 1945 the USAAF asked for something difficult: a jet penetration fighter to do the job the P-51 had done over Germany. It was to be supersonic, carry no fewer than six 20 mm cannon, and have a combat radius of around 900 miles.<\/p><p>Lockheed studied 65 configurations before settling on a swept-wing design with side intakes and a long, pointed nose. It was, by common consent, one of the best-looking aircraft of its generation.<\/p>\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/lockheed-xf-90-46-687-in-flight.jpg\" alt=\"Lockheed XF-90 46-687 in flight with wingtip tanks\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">The first XF-90, 46-687, in flight with the wingtip tanks that were themselves a USAF first. The aircraft looked like the future and flew like something rather heavier. Photo: US Air Force<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n<p>Then Lockheed built it like a bridge.<\/p><h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Overbuilt on purpose<\/h2><p>The XF-90 used 75ST aluminium rather than the standard 24ST of the era, along with heavy forgings, machined components and half-inch rivets. The result was an airframe cleared for 12 g.<\/p><p>A Lockheed flight-test engineer described the main I-beam as resembling a bridge girder, which was accurate and not entirely a compliment. Empty weight came out at 18,050 pounds, more than fifty per cent above its competitors and, by one comparison, some seventy per cent heavier than an F-86.<\/p><p>None of which would have mattered with enough thrust. There was not enough thrust.<\/p><p>The first aircraft flew on two non-afterburning Westinghouse J34s and frequently needed rocket-assisted take-off bottles to get airborne at all unless it was flown nearly empty. The second was fitted with afterburning J34s, the first afterburner installation on a USAF fighter, and was better without ever becoming good. The museum&rsquo;s own summary is that these engines proved inadequate, and that the second aircraft had better but not great performance.<\/p><p>Published thrust figures for the type genuinely conflict, and no authoritative dry-and-wet pair for the XF-90A could be established. The qualitative verdict is not in doubt.<\/p><h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Mach 1.12, and a noise nobody recognised<\/h2><p>It did go supersonic, in a dive, about fifteen times. The best recorded figure was Mach 1.12 on 17 May 1950, and the moment is preserved in the memory of a Lockheed flight test engineer who was standing next to Kelly Johnson at the time.<\/p>\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #1565c0;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;We could see the airplane on the other side of the dry lakebed. It disappeared in the haze. At that moment we heard a tremendous explosion. There is no doubt that both Kelly and I thought that the airplane had augured in. I was afraid that Kelly was going to have a heart attack. Within a very short time Tony called in on the radio. Talk about relief! He had dived the airplane to Mach 1.12 and everything was fine. You have to realize that we hadn&rsquo;t heard a sonic boom before.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Ernest Joiner<\/strong> &mdash; Lockheed flight test engineer on the XF-90 programme, interviewed in Air &amp; Space, July 2008<\/div><\/div><\/div>\r\n<p>The crew on the ground had assumed the aircraft had hit the desert, because in 1950 almost nobody had heard a sonic boom and had no reason to associate the sound with anything but a crash.<\/p><h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Losing<\/h2><p>The fly-off went to the McDonnell XF-88, with the North American YF-93 also competing. The arithmetic was brutal and simple: the XF-88 used the same two J34 engines and weighed about six tons, against the XF-90&rsquo;s nine. Identical thrust, half again the weight.<\/p><p>Sources differ on whether the XF-90 placed second or third, and on whether the decision fell in August or September 1950. It hardly mattered. The Korean War redirected the USAF toward building more of what it already had, and the penetration fighter requirement was cancelled outright. Nobody won.<\/p><p>The XF-88 line was not entirely wasted; an enlarged derivative later became the F-101 Voodoo. The XF-90 got a different sort of afterlife.<\/p>\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rK5-Xydf7pY\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Three atomic bombs<\/h2><p>The first airframe went to the NACA laboratory in Cleveland and was tested to destruction, which is a reasonable end for an aircraft built to withstand 12 g.<\/p><p>The second was taken to Yucca Flat in Nevada and parked about half a mile from ground zero alongside a B-45, a B-29, some F-47s and B-17s, to find out what nuclear weapons do to parked aircraft.<\/p>\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/lockheed-xf-90-46-688-yucca-flat-nuclear-test.jpg\" alt=\"Lockheed XF-90 46-688 at Yucca Flat during nuclear effects testing\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">46-688 at Yucca Flat. Three shots in seventeen days during Operation Tumbler-Snapper, at a range of roughly half a mile. Photo: US Government<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n<p>On 15 April 1952 a one-kiloton device was dropped from a B-50 with the aircraft facing nose-in. Its wings were undamaged. It picked up dents, cracks and a buckled fire door, and repairs were estimated at around 106 hours.<\/p><p>On 22 April, a 31-kiloton shot, again nose-in. The nose bent. Roughly two thousand military personnel and a crowd of journalists watched.<\/p><p>On 1 May, a 19-kiloton shot, this time with the aircraft turned side-on to the blast. That one finished it: the tail was severed, the landing gear was torn off the wing, and the main wing structure buckled and scorched.<\/p>\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/g0r_4v2hA5c\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n<p>Period footage of the Tumbler-Snapper series is above.<\/p><p>What it had done, though, was survive three atomic detonations well enough to be recognisable. A Department of Energy official wrote in 1990 that the data from those tests continued to be used in aircraft design and operational deployment.<\/p><h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Fifty years in the desert<\/h2><p>After a 5.3-kiloton underground blast in December 1963 the contaminated hulk was moved to Area 11 of the Nevada Test Site, where it was used for Broken Arrow exercises: training crews to recover a downed aircraft carrying a nuclear weapon.<\/p><p>Officially, it had been destroyed. On paper the XF-90 no longer existed.<\/p><p>A Lockheed engineer, Ernest Joiner, spotted what looked like an intact airframe from the air years after it had been written off. But the person who actually saved it was Robert Friedrichs, a physical scientist at the Nevada Site Office, who recognised what was sitting in the desert in the late 1980s and then spent thirteen years on historic assessment, museum negotiations, funding and contracting.<\/p>\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;There were some things about that airplane that I thought were phenomenal. The fact that the aircraft survived at all is a story that needed to be shared.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Robert E. Friedrichs<\/strong> &mdash; Physical scientist, NNSA Nevada Site Office, in Air &amp; Space, July 2008<\/div><\/div><\/div>\r\n<p>Decontamination ran from 2001 to 2002 and was not straightforward. Every rivet had to come out so that radioactive sand could be purged from the structure, plutonium residue had to be scoured off, and a colony of white-tailed antelope squirrels carrying hantavirus risk had to be dealt with. Summer work was done at night.<\/p>\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/lockheed-xf-90-blast-damaged-nose-restoration-hangar.jpg\" alt=\"Blast-damaged nose of the Lockheed XF-90 in the restoration hangar\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">The nose after recovery, in the museum&rsquo;s restoration hangar. The decision was taken to display the aircraft exactly as the desert left it. Photo: Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n<p>The engines produced the detail that lands hardest.<\/p>\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #1565c0;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;We&rsquo;d never taken apart a jet engine before, but when we pulled them out, the turbines still turned. You could push a turbine fin and spin those engines real easy.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>James Seals<\/strong> &mdash; Radiation programs director, on dismantling the aircraft, Air &amp; Space, July 2008<\/div><\/div><\/div>\r\n<p>Fifty years after three atomic detonations, the Westinghouse J34s still spun freely by hand.<\/p><p>A C-5 flew the pieces to Wright-Patterson in 2003.<\/p><h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Why it is displayed broken<\/h2><p>The museum chose not to restore it, and that was the right call. A polished XF-90 would be a handsome footnote about a fighter that lost a competition in 1950. The wreck is a much better object.<\/p>\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KN1dQr4NFBU\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n<p>It sits in the Nuclear Deterrence section of the Cold War Gallery, in a diorama representing the Nevada Test Site, with its nose crushed and its wings removed.<\/p><p>There is a neat irony in it. The XF-90 lost because it was built far more strongly than a fighter needed to be, and every pound of that structure was a pound of performance it could not afford. That same overbuilding is the only reason there is anything left to look at.<\/p><p>Its rival won the contract and the lineage. Not one XF-88 survives.<\/p><p><em>Sources: Jorge and Karen Escalona, Nukes vs. Airplanes, Air &amp; Space (Smithsonian), July 2008; National Museum of the US Air Force fact sheets; Robert Gutmann, Aviation History, March 2018; Operation Tumbler-Snapper records; Sebastien Roblin, 19FortyFive, 2021.<\/em><\/p>\n<!-- mfsh:bottom -->\n\n<button type=\"button\" class=\"mfsh-trigger mfsh-bottom\" data-mfsh-placement=\"bottom\" aria-haspopup=\"dialog\"><svg><use href=\"#mfsh-i-share\"\/><\/svg>Share this story<\/button>\n\n<!-- \/mfsh:bottom -->\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f0f4ff;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:32px 0 8px\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:600;color:#333\">Related Posts<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/north-american-yf-93-penetration-fighter\/\">North American YF-93: The Sabre&rsquo;s Forgotten Long-Range Cousin<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/hanna-reitsch-luftwaffe-test-pilot-explained\/\">Hanna Reitsch: The Test Pilot Who Flew Everything the Reich Built<\/a><\/p><\/div>\r\n\n\n<style>.mfq{margin:34px 0 8px}.mfq h2{font:26px\/1.3 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117;padding-top:22px;margin:0 0 6px}.mfq .qa details{border-top:1px solid #5C91FF;margin:0;padding:0}.mfq .qa details:last-of-type{border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee}.mfq .qa summary{cursor:pointer;list-style:none;display:flex;justify-content:space-between;align-items:center;gap:16px;padding:22px 26px;font:18px\/1.7 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117}.mfq .qa summary::-webkit-details-marker{display:none}.mfq .qa summary::after{content:\"+\";font:24px Helvetica,sans-serif;color:#3568e0;flex:0 0 auto}.mfq .qa details[open] summary::after{content:\"\\2013\"}.mfq .qa details:hover summary{color:#3568e0}.mfq .qa .a{font:16px\/1.7 \"Gilroy regular\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#454e5e;padding:0 26px 24px}.mfq .qa .a a{color:#3568e0}@media(max-width:680px){.mfq .qa summary{padding:18px 14px;font-size:17px}.mfq .qa .a{padding:0 14px 20px}}<\/style>\n\n\n<section class=\"mfq\"><h2>Frequently Asked Questions<\/h2><div class=\"qa\"><details open><summary>What was the Lockheed XF-90?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">The Lockheed XF-90 was a long-range penetration fighter and bomber-escort prototype, the second design ever produced by Kelly Johnson\u2019s Skunk Works. It lost its competition, never entered production, and only two airframes were built: 46-687 and 46-688.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Why is the surviving XF-90 not restored?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">The aircraft in the Cold War Gallery at Dayton is displayed deliberately unrestored. Its wings are off, its nose is crushed and its paint is scorched, because it was subjected to three atomic detonations at close range during nuclear testing in Nevada.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>How did an XF-90 end up in nuclear tests?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">After the type was officially recorded as destroyed, one airframe was used as a test subject at the Nevada Proving Grounds. It was exposed to three atomic detonations at close range and then left in the desert for around half a century.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Who designed the XF-90?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">It came from Lockheed\u2019s Skunk Works, with Willis Hawkins working under Clarence \"Kelly\" Johnson. The team studied 65 separate configurations before settling on the final design, making it an unusually thorough piece of early jet-age engineering.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Why did the XF-90 fail?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">It was built extremely heavily, which made it structurally immensely strong but badly underpowered and uncompetitive as a fighter. The very over-engineering that lost it the competition is also the reason an example survived atomic testing.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Where can you see an XF-90 today?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">The surviving XF-90 is displayed in the Cold War Gallery of the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, still bearing the damage from the nuclear tests.<\/div><\/details><\/div><\/section>\n\n\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What was the Lockheed XF-90?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The Lockheed XF-90 was a long-range penetration fighter and bomber-escort prototype, the second design ever produced by Kelly Johnson\u2019s Skunk Works. 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Three atomic detonations, fifty years in the desert, and a recovery that took thirteen years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":18857552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[666,664],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18858157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-and-legends","category-military-aviation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Lockheed XF-90: The Fighter Too Tough to Kill | MiGFlug<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Skunk Works built the XF-90 like a bridge. 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