Mach 1 and the North American XP-86

     It was the last half of 1944 and WW II was still in full swing. Europe was in turmoil with increasing action on the ground and in the air. Germany initiated their indefensible V2 supersonic ballistic rocket attacks against Britain and the V1 flying bomb attacks were neutralized later that year. Britain’s first turbojet fighter, the Gloster
Meteor, became operational, and airmen over Europe were still astounded by the speed and firepower of the Luftwaffe’s Messerschmitt Me 262
jet fighter.
     Conditionally released for fighter operations in September 1944, the Luftwaffe’s heavily armed twin turbojet-powered Me 262 A-1a
Schwalbe had a maximum operational airspeed of 540 mph, at Mach 0.76, or almost exactly 100 mph faster that the USA’s P-51D
Mustang. When fully functional, the Me 262 outclassed all other fighters, but the 10- to 20-hour engine life tended to reduce its effectiveness. (A given Mach number at a particular speed is dependent on altitude, consequently the reader may notice some apparent inconsistencies in the following
sections.)
     To counter the dire threat of the German Me 262, the United States Army Air Force (USAAF),1 at 1:30 p.m. eastern time June 8, 1943, ordered Lockheed Aircraft Corporation to develop a single-engine turbojet fighter around a 3,000 pound thrust de Havilland Halford
Goblin H-1 single-sided centrifugal flow compressor engine. Lockheed responded with their model 180 or XP-80 (s/n 44-83020) in an astounding 143 days. The XP-80 flew for the first time on January 8, 1944. This effort gave birth to Kelly Johnson’s famous "Skunk Works" as well as the XP-80. Maximum airspeed of the XP-80 was about 
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