Republic-Ford JB-2

Republic-Ford JB-2
Photo of the Republic/Ford JB-2 at the National Museum of the United States Air Force.
Role	Pilotless flying bomb
National origin	United States
Manufacturer	Republic Aircraft Willys-Overland Ford Motor Company
First flight	October 1944
Introduction	1945
Retired	1950
Primary users	United States Army Air Forces United States Air Force
Number built	1,385
Developed from	German V-1 flying bomb
Variants	MGM-1 Matador

JB-2 Loon being inspected by USAAF personnel at either Eglin or Wendover AAF, 1944.

JB-2 Loon being prepared for a test launch at Holloman AFB about 1948.

The Republic/Ford JB-2 "LOON" was a U.S.-made copy of the famous German V-1 flying bomb surface-to-surface, pilotless flying bomb first used against England in June 1944.

Wartime Development

In July 1944, three weeks after German V-1 "Buzz Bombs" first struck England on June 12th and 13th, American engineers at Wright Field, fired a working copy of the German Argus As 014 pulse-jet engine, "reverse-engineered" from crashed German V-1s that were flown back to the United States from England for analysis. The reverse engineering provided the design of America's first mass-produced guided missile, the JB-2. The Republic Aviation Corp. was to have built the airframe for the JB-2, but sub-contracted the airframe to Willys-Overland. Ford Motor Co built the engine, which was a copy of the V-1's 900-lb. thrust Argus-Schmidt pulse-jet.

This was the first unmanned guided missile in America's arsenal. The first launch of a JB-2 took place at Eglin Army Air Field in Florida in October 1944. In addition to the Eglin group, a detachment of the Special Weapons Branch, Wright Field, Ohio, arrived at Wendover Field in Utah in 1944 with the mission of evaluating captured & experimental rocket systems, including the JB-2. Testing was from a launch structure just south of Wendover's Technical Site. The launch area is visible on Google Earth. Parts of crashed V-1s and JB-2s are occasionally found by Wendover Airport personnel.

Contracts were let for production of 2,000 weapons, and Republic and Ford built 1,385 JB-2s for the Army and Navy. Production delivery began in January 1945, but the U.S. Army Air Forces canceled further production when World War II ended. Just before the end of the war, an aircraft carrier en route to the Pacific took on a load of JB-2s for possible use in the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands.

Postwar Testing

Although never used in combat, after World War II, the JB-2 played a significant role in the development of more advanced surface-to-surface missile systems.

The U.S. Army Air Force continued development of the JB-2 as Project MX-544, with two versions: one with preset internal guidance and another with radar control. Several launch platforms were developed, including permanent and portable ramps, and mobile launching from beneath the wings of Boeing B-17G or Boeing B-29 bombers. Testing continued from 1944 to 1947 at Eglin to improve launch and guidance.

The U.S. Navy developed a submarine-launched version, KUW-1 Loon, later called LTV-N-2, which were carried on the aft deck in watertight containers. The first submarine to employ them was the SS-348 Cusk which successfully launched its first Loon on February 12 1947, off Point Mugu, California.

After the United States Air Force became a fully independent arm of the National Military Establishment (later renamed to the Department of Defense) on September 18 1947, research continued with the development of unmanned aircraft and pilotless bombers, including the already available JB-2 and the sub-sonic, 500 mile range XSSM-A-1 which had been specified in December 1945. The contract for developing the XSSM-A-1 was awarded to the Glenn L. Martin Company of Baltimore, Maryland and was known as the MX-771 project. The XSSM-A-1 would become the MGM-1 Matador, the U.S. Air Force's first operational missile.

The USAF Air Materiel Command reactivated the JB-2 as Project EO-727-12 on 23 April 1948, at Holloman AFB, New Mexico, the former Alamogordo Army Air Field. The JB-2 was used for development of missile guidance control and seeker systems, testing of telemetering and optical tracking facilities, and as a target for new surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles (ironically fulfilling the former V1's codename Flakzielgerät - anti-aircraft targeting device). The JB-2 project used the North American Aviation NATIV (North American Test Instrument Vehicle) Blockhouse and two launch ramps at Holloman: a 400-ft, two-rail ramp on a 3 degree earth-filled slope, and a 40-ft trailer ramp.

The Air Proving Ground Command used JB-2s in a series of tests in the late 1940s and 1950s. In the spring of 1949, the 3200th Proof Test Group tested launching JB-2s from the wings of B-36 Bombers at Eglin AFB. About a year later, JB-2s were tested as aerial targets for experimental infrared gunsights.

JB-2 survivors

• National Museum of the United States Air Force, Dayton, Ohio
• U.S. Air Force Armament Museum, Eglin AFB, Florida
• Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum, McMinnville, Oregon
• (Engine only, operational) Planes of Fame air museum, Chino, California[1]

References

• National Museum of the USAF JB-2 LOON Fact Sheet
• Mindling, George, and Bolton, Robert, 'U.S. Air Force Tactical Missiles 1949-1969 The Pioneers', 2008, Lulu Press