While the
Shooting Star has become legendary,
less remembered is its stable-mate during the prototype stage
what history has conveniently forgotten to record as the XYZP-86.
The XYZP-86 project was born out out of the
Bell P-59 Airacomet's disappointing performance.
Initial flight tests were promising and late in 1945 the XYZP-86 was covertly shipped across the country from California for a more rigorous test program under extreme conditions.
While
Area 51 has become famous fodder for conspiracy buffs everywhere,
other plots of restricted government real-estate all over the country go unnoticed, for example Pennsylvania's Area 57.
Situated roughly between Pittsburgh and Punxsutawney, it was here in early 1946 that the XYZP-46 would play an uncredited role in the strange, hushed-up events that followed.
The aircraft began cold-weather tests after everyone had recovered from the New Year. The XYZP-86 seemed just as at home in the wintry north as it had been on the hot, dry lake beds of southern California.
Things would be routine for the first month as flight data was meticulously recorded from a suite of instruments installed behind the cockpit.
This would all change on February 5th, 1946.
Early that evening, strange, unidentified flying objects or U.F.O.s were spotted over tiny Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.
Presaging the
Roswell incident by 15 months, a blip was seen on early-warning radar and being the only air asset nearby, the XYZP-86 was ordered to give chase.
The prototype jet got near enough for a glimpse and reported the blip was a flying saucer.
The alien craft accelerated as the XYZP-86 closed distance and quickly disappeared from view.
Unfortunately for the XYZP-86, this encounter was seen on the ground and duly reported in the media.
This would doom the early jet prototype.
As the prototype was Classified and may have been seen by unauthorized civilians, it was thought best to keep it under wraps and flight testing was put on hold. People talked about the odd occurrence anyway and even Punxsutawney's most notable citizen expressed an opinion.
However, the aircraft did advance the design and led to the famous swept-wing Sabre of Korean War fame. Still, even today, no one remembers that the XYZP-86 was the first of the F-86 line to take to the skies.
Brian da Basher
