Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star

The History of the Lockheed T-33 Meteor

During World War II, all major players continued to develop their jet programs to gain an edge in the ongoing effort. The most important work undoubtedly came from the Germans, who launched the famous Messerschmitt Me 262 fighter in April 1944, while the British added their Gloster Meteors in July 1944. With the arrival of Bell, the Americans eventually produced their first combat jet fighters, the P-59 Airacobra, which entered service with the U.S.

Army Air Force (USAAF), but the design was never a truly satisfying design Fighter - Eventually the USAF left it to reduce their original order to 66 aircraft.

Lockheed began work on its own straight-wing jet fighter, which flew for the first time on January 8, 1944. This became the P-80 Meteor, and was the first American fighter jet to achieve quantity at the squadron level, with approximately 1,700 eventually produced and exported to South America. Although the genre came too late to carry out combat missions in World War II, it was a successful attempt that led to significant progress in the Korean War - a war that marked the first fighter-jet showdown in history .

The use of the T-33 was not limited to U.S. involvement, as the aircraft quickly found a place in the inventories of many U.S. allies at the time, leaving a legacy as a true Cold War success story. Hundreds of weapons were produced by several foreign factions during the Cold War as part of the Military Assistance Program (MAP), designed to provide U.S. allies with modern weapons to counter or stop Soviet progress around the world.

Operators include Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Myanmar, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Japan, Libya and Mexico, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Uruguay, West Germany and Yugoslavia.

Please note that Canadaair in Canada produces the model Canadair CT-133 "Silver Star". This version is modeled on some 656 aircraft in service with the air forces of Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Canada, France, Greece, Portugal and Turkey, appearing in several production brands since the first Mk 1. The CT-133 was powered by a British Rolls-Royce Nene engine and did not enter service from Canada until 2005.

Japan also received a license to locally produce the T-33, of which 210 were built.

The U.S. Air Force remains the largest operator of the T-33, and as of this writing (2012), most of the aircraft in the family (globally) have been retired. A limited number of smaller Air Forces may still be in service, but the T-33 family in general has been overtaken by more technologically advanced types.

Despite this fact, the fact remains that the T-33 family, despite its WWII legacy, is still very useful as it enters the new millennium.

A total of 6,557 T-33 aircraft were produced. In the early 1980s, Skyfox Corporation began offering upgrade kits for a modernized version of the T-33, appropriately called "Skyfox".

These will be powered by a pair of Garrett TFE371-3A turbofan engines (installed in nacelles outside the fuselage) and will introduce a heavily revised airframe and upgrades to various internal systems. Boeing eventually bought Skyfox in 1986 and offered the program to parties around the world, but to no availthere seemed to be little market for the "new" plane, and only one prototype was completed.

The design program was officially discontinued in 1997.

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