While the U.S. Air Force was proud of its Shooting Star jet fighter, it sought the improved performance of swept wing technology. Lockheed was commissioned to perform design studies which soon became a prototype.
That prototype exceeded all expectations in flight tests and was quickly ordered into production.
Originally conceived as an upgraded F-80, the prototype was called the F-80SW due to its swept flying surfaces. Since the new aircraft only had 20% parts commonality with the Shooting Star, it was eventually given its own unique designation. Thus the F-98 Super Star was born.
Seen as the ultimate progression of a design that had its roots in W.W. II, the Super Star entered service too late to see action over Korea.
The aircraft was deployed anywhere the U.S. Air Force felt the need for a robust air defense. By 1956 five squadrons of Super Stars were based in West Germany.
That year would be pivotal indeed, not only for the Super Star but for the fate of the world.
While 1983's
Able Archer has become legendary, less known is the drill that set the standard 27 years earlier.
N.A.T.O. forces were drilled so often that these things had become almost routine. 1956's Bravo Bowler alert exercise seemed more prosaic than most as it only involved testing command & control communications under simulated war conditions. No one at N.A.T.O. from the Secretary General to the janitor saw any cause for concern.
The flurry of radio traffic between various N.A.T.O. commands did not go unnoticed by the Soviets and they nudged their forces closer to war in response as they had no way of knowing this was merely an exercise.
Just before sundown on February 19th, the N.A.T.O. BLEW NET or Brussels Local Early Warning network picked up what appeared to be an enormous aerial armada. F-98 Super Stars from the 247th fighter squadron were scrambled to intercept the bogeys.
As word of the scrambled fighters made its way to various N.A.T.O. units, what had started as a mere communications exercise suddenly became very real.
It seemed an eternity until the intruders were identified. Finally, a flight of Super Stars led by Major "Red" Butcher made contact with the unidentified invaders.
A collective sigh of relief was breathed all up and down the N.A.T.O. chain of command as the bogeys turned out to be only migrating cormorants. "Red" Butcher and his flight returned home to base.
Unfortunately, the scrambled Super Stars caused Communist forces to up their alert level yet again which in turn caused an increase in alertness in the west.
Things eventually reached DefConned 1.67 before cooler heads prevailed and tensions decreased to their usual hair-trigger state.
The only tangible result of this mini-crisis was when the Super Stars jettisoned their drop-tanks to pursue the bogeys.
Those tanks, dropped from 35,000 feet, fell to earth just over the Iron Curtain and wrecked the Red Army Bowl-O-Drome in Ost Bumfeld.
The F-98 Super Star would eventually be replaced by more modern types as the 1960's dawned and eventually faded from memory.
No Super Stars survive today and the powers that be were successful in erasing everything from the record except for one small artifact discovered after the 247th disbanded.
To this day, enthusiasts often mis-identify the few grainy photos of Super Stars publicly available as Saab Lansens and only one kit of the F-98 was ever made, a rather crude offering by the Heckno company. Still, for one brief moment, the F-98 defended the West against Commie aggression.
Brian da Basher
