McDonnell XF-85 Goblin was an American prototype fighter aircraft conceived during World War II. It was intended to deploy from the bomb bay of the giant Convair B-36 bomber as a parasite fighter. McDonnell built two prototypes before the Air Force terminated the program. The aircraft’s performance was inferior to the jet fighters it would have faced in combat.
About McDonnell XF-85 Goblin in brief
McDonnell XF-85 Goblin was an American prototype fighter aircraft conceived during World War II. It was intended to deploy from the bomb bay of the giant Convair B-36 bomber as a parasite fighter. McDonnell built two prototypes before the Air Force terminated the program. The smaller aircraft had an egg-shaped fuselage, three fork-shaped vertical stabilizers, horizontal stabilizers with significant dihedral, and 37° swept wings to allow it to fit in a bomb bay. The concept of a parasite fighters had its origins in 1918, when the Royal Air Force examined the viability of Sopwith Camel parasite fighters operating from their 23 class airships. In the 1930s, the U.S. Navy had a short-lived operational parasite fighter, the Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawk, aboard the airships Akron and Macon. In August 1941, TB-3s carrying Polikarpov I-16SPB dive bombers attacked the Cernavodă bridge and Constantsa docks, in Romania. After that attack, the squadron, based in the Crimea, carried out a tactical attack on a bridge over the river Dnieper at Zaporozhye, which had been captured by advancing German troops. Later in WWII, the Luftwaffe experimented with the Messerschmitt Me 328 as a parasites, but problems with its pulsejet engines could not be overcome. Other late-war rocket-powered parasite fighter projects such as the Arado E 381 and Sombold So 344 were unrealized “paper projects”.
The aircraft’s performance was inferior to the jet fighters it would have faced in combat, and there were difficulties in docking. The Xf-85 was swiftly canceled, and the prototypes were thereafter relegated to museum exhibits. The USAAF considered a number of different options including the use of remotely piloted vehicles before choosing parasite fighters as the most viable B- 36 defense. These fighters could not match the range of the next generation of bombers developed by the United States Army Air Forces. The development cost for longer-ranged fighters was high, while aerial refueling was still considered risky and technologically difficult. On 3 December 1942, the USAAF sent out a Request for Proposals for a diminutive piston-engined fighter. By January 1944, the Air Technical Service Command refined the RfP and, in January 1945, the specifications were further revised in MX-472 to specify a jet-powered aircraft. The initial concept for the Model 27 was completely reworked to meet the revised requirements for the B-29, B-35, or B-38 bomber. On 19 March 1945, McDonnell’s design team led by Herman Barkey, Herman Dkey, submitted an extensively redesigned Model 27D, the revised proposal for a revised Model 27, and was accepted.
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