Douglas D852

[Orionblamblam]

Rather nice and terribly expensive wind tunnel model set...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Douglas-Aircraft-Co-D852-Model-Assembly-Jet-Airplane-No-5818084-US-Military-/292256244471


Any guesses?

 

[hesham]

Great find my dear Scott,

and maybe it was alternative to Type-851 for early VAX competition ?.

 

[Mark Nankivil]

I hope it ended up with circle-5!

Looks like a single seat Tornado...

Thanks! Mark

 

[Grey Havoc]

Looks like a single seat Tornado...

I had a similar thought.

 

[circle-5]

I hope it ended up with circle-5!

Sadly, no – I forgot to win the lottery that week. But I know who purchased it. It's in good hands.

 

[Foo Fighter]

I hope it ended up with circle-5!

Sadly, no – I forgot to win the lottery that week. But I know who purchased it. It's in good hands.

You know, I had just such a memory failing. 2 of how many, darnit?

 

[Sundog]

Does anyone know what the specifications for this design are, or this design studies mission?

 

[TomS]

On the assumption that the ticket in the box is contemporaneous to the model, does anyone know the Dick Ferris whose retirement is mentioned in the ticket inside the box? I doubt it was the Richard Ferris who ran United Airlines, since he came from the hospitality side of the business, not aviation.

"Thursday, June 24th" makes the party in 1965, 1971, 1976, or 1982 (much earlier or later than that seems unlikely).

 

[LowObservable]

It was a retirement party, so that may not help too much. But we do know that D-855 was their COIN contender in the LARA competition in 1964, so it really can't predate that by more than a year. TFX was long gone and Douglas hadn't competed - otherwise, you could think of -852 as being a post-F6D-cancellation study.

I wonder if it was a generic study of swing wings. But I second one observation above - the wing pivot and H-tail locations are very Tornado-like.

 

[duker]

TFX would seem like the most likely project. McNamara had made this a dual USAF and US Navy project so the contenders were expected to team with a contractor who could build a navy version or were able to do so themselves.
Lockheed , Boeing and North American were single bids, Republic teamed with Chance Vought, General Dynamics joined with Grumman while McDonnell teamed with Douglas on the TFX, even though McAir were well experienced in building for both services. Thus the model is most likely the Douglas version of TFX for the navy.

The later navy TFX replacement, the VFX had a bid by the now merged McDonnell-Douglas, in which their swing wing model 225 had twin tails

 

[hesham]

Welcome aboard Duker,

and maybe that's right.

 

[Skybolt]

My humble opinion. Could be a Douglas contender for the WS-324A competition (pre-McNamara TFX), where Douglas did bid singlely (as everybody else), but I'd propend for a VAX related project. It would be 1962.

 

[hesham]

Great find my dear Scott,

and maybe it was alternative to Type-851 for early VAX competition ?.

As I expected.