On display at Florida Air Museum. This experimental VTOL aircraft was one of two prototypes built to a USN proposal to launch fighters from the afterdeck of ships. The XFV-1 was powered by a 5,850 hp Allison YT40-A-6 turboprop driving a pair of 16 ft. contra-rotating propellers. The design featured a cruciform tail with wheels mounted on struts. Called the Salmon after chief engineering test pilot Herman "Fish" Salmon, single flying prototype BuNo 138657 never achieved VTOL due to insufficient power. Fitted with a spindly fixed undercarriage, the XFV-1 was flown horizontally and held in hover.

Sea Dart on display at Florida Air Museum. Designed as a supersonic seaplane, XF2Y-1 prototype BuNo 137634 first flew on 14 Jan 1953. The XF2Y-1 had a watertight hull built on a centreline V-shaped keel and a 60 deg delta wing with the trailing edge touching the water. Underpowered by twin 15 kN J34-WE-32 turbojets, the XF2Y-1 was superseded by the YF2Y-1 with 27 kN J46-WE-12 afterburning engines. Two retractable hydroskis and a partly retractable single hydroski were tried, resulting in ski-pounding and porpoising respectively. YF2Y-1 BuNo 135762 exceeded Mach 1 in 1954 in a shallow dive.

The "Miss Piggy" nose artwork on N43RF

The mission tally on N43RF

Here at its home base, like sister-ship N42RF, this Orion is kept in immaculate condition, belying its almost 50 years of flying as a Hurricane Hunter.

Like sister-ship N43RF, delivered to the US Department of Commerce in 1976 and initially based at McDill AFB, FL, before the hurricane hunting operation was taken under NOAA control.

Taken on strength with the Czech AF in 1973, this MiG was gifted by the Slovak AF to the RAF Benevolent Fund at Fairford in 1994. Moved to Florida in 2005 and allocated N7708, it was donated to the Florida Air Museum by Draken International in 2019

The PiperJet was first flown in 2008 and was intended as a competitor to the twin-engined Eclipse 500 and Cessna Citation Mustang VLJs. But is it any wonder it was not a success and only this prototype was built?

This is actually an ex-Lee County Mosquito Control District sprayer Dak, N839M, first delivered to the USAAF as 43-15700. At one stage before civilisation it flew with the US Army Parachute Team.

The XFV-1 was in competition with the equally precarious Convair XFY-1 Pogo (my photo #21684) in 1954 for a high performance fighter that could be vertically launched from small platforms on ships. The sheer difficulty in flying these bizarre designs together with the rapid advance of conventional jets led to these projects being quickly abandoned. This was the second of two XFV-1s built and was not completed. Some sources say this survivor is actually the first (BuNo 138657), others that it was completed for display using parts from the first.

The mission tally on N42RF

Back in the early 1980s, this Twin Otter was familiar on the UK scene as G-BIMW of Aurigny

The "Kermit" artwork on the nose of N42RF