Word: thunderjets
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Republic made other news last week. It delivered to the Air Force its first production model of the F-84F Thunderstreak, a swept-wing version of the F-84 Thunderjet, the top fighter-bomber in Korea and a mainstay of the NATO air force. Capable of 700 m.p.h., the new Thunderstreak is powered by Britain's Sapphire engine, made in the U.S. by Curtiss-Wright (TIME, Oct. 16, 1950). It can carry a small atom bomb, has a range of more than 2,000 miles (considerably more than the current Thunder jet), and can be refueled in flight...
...from carriers, including Britain's Ocean. They dropped 700 tons of bombs, thousands of gallons of napalm, left their targets blasted and burning. More than 100 U.S. Sabre and Australian Meteor jets flew top cover, drove off the few MIGs that tried to interfere. Only one plane-a Thunderjet-was lost to Pyongyang's formidable flak...
Under Charlie Wilson's prodding, contracts were now rolling out faster from the Pentagon: G.M. got the job of building Republic's Thunderjet fighter planes; tank orders went out to Chrysler, G.M. and American Locomotive; Kaiser-Frazer got the job of making Fairchild's Cng troop-carrier planes at Willow Run. But it would be months before the companies got into actual production. And the great majority of businessmen who had no war orders and didn't know how long they would be able to make civilian goods could only plan their 1951 production and sales...