Hosted on MSN

F-89 Scorpion: The Nuclear-Armed Jet Fighter That Fell Apart Mid-Air

Key Points - The Northrop F-89 Scorpion, the US Air Force's first jet-powered interceptor and the first combat aircraft armed with air-to-air nuclear weapons (the Genie rocket), had a troubled early ...
The Aviationist

With a Variety of Ways to Sting, the F-89 Scorpion Was the First Line of Defense

From cannons to rockets to nuclear-armed ordnance, the F-89 seemed a formidably armed interceptor, protecting North America in the early years of the Cold War from Soviet bomber fleets coming over the ...
Hosted on MSN

The F-89 Scorpion Was America’s First Interceptor Jet

The F-89’s horizontal stabilizer was positioned in a distinctive forward-leaning configuration—which gave the aircraft’s tail its peculiar resemblance to a scorpion’s stinger. The Northrop F-89 ...
The National Interest

The F-89 Scorpion Was America’s First Interceptor Jet

Northrop built what would come to be known as the F-89 Scorpion in response to a United States Army Air Force (USAAF) specification issued in August 1945, the very last month of World War II. The new ...