After the XP-58 Chain Lightning was turned down by the USAF, Lockheed took the half-assembled second prototype and reworked all the elements to turn it into a single fuselage design for a fast piston interceptor, the Model 39 Swordstar (a mix of Swordfish, as in the XP-38E test-bed and the usual star suffix used by Lockheed). Though unsollicited, the proposal was judged interesting enough for the USAAF to borrow the aircraft from Lockheed and give it the XP-73 designation (serial 43-45315). However, the Swordstar was sadly lost after only three hours of test flying in mid-air collision with a Culver PQ-8 Dart target drone gone wild, killing test pilot Shane Bolt. The embarrassment was such that the Air Force agreed on a refund of the prototype and all of Lockheeds expenses on condition that the XP-73 be erased from the records, which was done on both sides. It would have remained a lost chapter of aviation history were it not for a set of documents hidden away by one of the projects engineers that resurfaced recently after his passing. Only this one very rare photograph of it has survived to this day.
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 05:11:35 +0000
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