Military jet identification help

a reply to: Bigburgh

Hmmmm... I’m going to call the museum tomorrow and see if they might know.

I just went through the plane inventory pics at the museum and didn’t see it either. I did notice they had many planes made from other countries but yes, most of them were N. American.

If you're on Facebook there are some great groups specific to rare and X planes that you can ask

Wikipedia has a list of swiss military aircraft. Maybe you might find it in the retired area.

en.wikipedia.org...

Okay...thx all.

originally posted by: NightFlight
Was it a Cessna T-37 ? Tandem seats, trainer, or, A-37 Dragonfly light attack aircraft.

Sorry, I can't post a picture...

But, here's a wiki: Cessna T-37

No, neither of those.

originally posted by: NightFlight
Was it a Cessna T-37 ? Tandem seats, trainer, or, A-37 Dragonfly light attack aircraft.

Sorry, I can't post a picture...

But, here's a wiki: Cessna T-37

No, neither of those.

F3D Skynight?

I put in a call to Pima Air Museum, left message, hopefully they get back to me. Was glad to hear in their recording that the restoration programs were still going on.👍

The more I’ve thought about this the less sure I’ve become about the country of origin. Fairly certain it wasn’t American though.

In reading about downward ejection, it seems to be a fallacy in design. The F-104 Starfighter had downward ejection that killed a lot of pilots because at low altitude your screwed. My thoughts are that this was may have been a variant of sorts which saw very low production numbers due to the inherent problems associated with downward ejection. Although, the plane we did was not a propelled ejection system. The pilots would have had to of unbuckled from seat and slid out the middle tunnel chute wearing parachute. The craft design may have been done around “somethings better than nothing” as far as emergency exits go. IDK.

I remember being intrigued by the design and what a rush it must have been to go out the bottom of the plane like that. Had to be a “Oh #” moment for the pilots, if they were lucky enough to get out.

originally posted by: hawkguy
F3D Skynight?

No hawk, I think your in the right era though.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
There aren't many tandem seat aircraft.

I thought maybe a T-37, but the ejection system he described wouldn't work.

Maybe your memory is mistaken? There are not a lot of side by side jet powered trainers let alone fighters especially with an ejection system that requires egress through a single opening out the bottom, I’ve never seen or read about one of those.

The only thing I can think of is the Cessna tweet, or that canada air jet trainer. maybe that hole you saw was the nose gear well removed leaving a hole? And some “know it all” kid saying that’s how the pilots eject, leaving you a false impression forever burned in your mind?

originally posted by: 38181
Maybe your memory is mistaken? There are not a lot of side by side jet powered trainers let alone fighters especially with an ejection system that requires egress through a single opening out the bottom, I’ve never seen or read about one of those.

The only thing I can think of is the Cessna tweet, or that canada air jet trainer. maybe that hole you saw was the nose gear well removed leaving a hole? And some “know it all” kid saying that’s how the pilots eject, leaving you a false impression forever burned in your mind?

The exit tunnel is about the only thing I’m sure of, LOL. The guy I helped had knowledge of the plane, so, he wouldn’t have misinformed me, as I said earlier, I was the one that cleaned out the tunnel. It was basically a square aluminum lined chute from the cockpit angled 45ish degrees to the bottom of the fuselage.

I’d never seen anything like it before or since. Maybe a prototype?