Lockheed F-94 Starfire

What Was the Lockheed F-94 Starfire?

The Lockheed F-94 Starfire was a two-seat, radar-equipped jet interceptor built to find and shoot down bombers at night and in bad weather. It was the U.S. Air Force’s first jet-powered all-weather fighter to enter service.

Lockheed built it quickly by adding a radar nose, guns and an afterburner to the T-33 Shooting Star trainer. The National Museum of the U.S. Air Force calls it the first U.S. production jet with an afterburner.

Three production models followed between 1949 and 1954: the F-94A, the F-94B and the heavily redesigned, rocket-armed F-94C. Official Air Force records count 854 aircraft, including two prototypes.

Why the Air Force Needed a Jet Night Fighter in a Hurry

In 1947 the Soviet Union showed off the Tupolev Tu-4, a copy of the B-29 Superfortress. With a Soviet atomic bomb expected, the continental United States was suddenly within reach of a nuclear-armed bomber.

The Air Force had no modern answer. Its night fighters were piston-engined types such as the F-82 Twin Mustang, the Curtiss XF-87 Blackhawk had failed, and the Northrop F-89 Scorpion was running late.

On October 8, 1948, the Air Force issued a requirement for an interim all-weather jet interceptor. Its own official history is blunt about the priority: early availability mattered more than the ability to beat any threat beyond the Tu-4.

From T-33 Trainer to Interceptor

Lockheed’s answer was the two-seat TF-80C trainer, the aircraft that became the T-33. The front seat stayed with the pilot, and the rear seat went to a radar operator.

The nose was lengthened to hold a Hughes E-1 fire-control system, with an AN/APG-33 radar adapted from the B-36 bomber’s tail-gun radar. Four .50-caliber machine guns sat below it.

All that extra weight needed more power, so the Allison J33 turbojet got an afterburner. The resulting J33-A-33 made about 6,000 pounds of thrust (26.7 kN) with the afterburner lit.

Roughly 75% of the parts were shared with the F-80 and T-33, which is why the Air Force saw the program as low risk. By December 1949 the order had grown to 368 aircraft, driven by the Soviet atomic test that August.

When did the F-94 first fly? Sources give two dates, and both are right about different aircraft. April 16, 1949 is the flight most references cite, and the Air Force’s official history dates that flight to a radar-equipped TF-80C.

The same history gives July 1, 1949 for the first flight of the YF-94 prototype itself, which is the date the Air Force Museum uses.

How a Two-Seat Radar Interceptor Worked

The F-94 did not hunt on its own. Ground radar stations vectored it toward an intruder, because the early E-1 radar only had the range to handle the final phase of an interception.

Once the target showed on the rear-seat scope, the radar operator talked the pilot into position behind it. The early system then led the fighter into a tail chase, which kept it exposed to the bomber’s defensive guns for a long time.

That dependence on ground control, plus shorter endurance than the piston fighters it replaced, was the main operational criticism of the early F-94. It was also what made it useful: it could find a target it could not see.

The F-94A and F-94B

The F-94A reached Air Defense Command squadrons at McChord and Moses Lake, Washington, in May 1950, about six months late. Lockheed built 109 of them.

Crews did not like it at first. The afterburning J33 suffered turbine blade failures, the fuel system was unreliable, and the aircraft was unstable at high altitude.

The cockpits were also too narrow to get in and out of quickly during a scramble, and ejection-seat clearance was so tight that several emergency ejections ended in fatal accidents. The Air Force later paid Lockheed about $4.5 million to rebuild the cockpits and seats of 330 F-94As and F-94Bs.

The F-94B entered service in 1951 and looked almost identical. It added a more reliable engine, a roomier cockpit, a better hydraulic system, a new instrument landing aid and bigger wingtip tanks.

Lockheed built 356 of them, and they fixed most of the A model’s problems. The A models went back to Lockheed to be brought up to B standard.

The F-94C: Nearly a New Airplane

The F-94C began as a Lockheed proposal so different from the F-94 that the Air Force gave it a new designation, F-97. Lockheed paid for a demonstrator itself, which first flew in January 1950.

It was redesignated F-94C on September 12, 1950. Compared with the F-94B it had a thinner wing with more dihedral, a swept horizontal tail, a drag chute and a much more powerful engine, the Pratt & Whitney J48, a license-built Rolls-Royce Tay.

The guns were gone. A Hughes E-5 fire-control system with an AN/APG-40 radar directed 24 unguided 2.75-inch (70 mm) Mighty Mouse rockets, carried in a ring around the nose behind doors that snapped open just before firing.

The rockets were the F-94C’s biggest problem. Salvoing all 24 nose rockets above 25,000 feet (7,600 m) could flame out the engine, and the flash and smoke blinded both crew members.

From the 100th production aircraft, Lockheed added a pod on each wing’s leading edge holding 12 more rockets. In the field the nose rockets were often left out, leaving the wing pods as the only armament.

The F-94C finally entered service with the 437th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron at Otis Air Force Base, Massachusetts, in March 1953, nearly two years behind schedule. Lockheed built 387 before production ended in May 1954.

A single-seat ground-attack version, the F-94D, was ordered, but all 112 on order were cancelled.

The Starfire in Korea

F-94s reached the Far East Air Forces in March 1951, first to protect U.S. bases in Japan. After MiG-15s appeared over Seoul, they began standing alert at Suwon, South Korea, in December 1951, and the 319th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron started flying from there on March 22, 1952.

At first the Air Force would not let them fly over North Korea, for fear the secret fire-control system would be captured. That changed only after mounting night losses of B-29s, when F-94s began flying barrier patrols between the Yalu and Chongchon rivers, ahead of the bombers.

On the night of January 30, 1953, Capt. Ben L. Fithian and his radar operator, Lt. Sam R. Lyons, shot down a Lavochkin La-9 they never saw until it burst into flames. It was the F-94’s first kill in Korea, and its first of four claimed victories there.

The Air Force’s official history describes the other three as enemy jets. It also records 28 F-94s lost between January 1952 and the armistice on July 27, 1953, only one of them to direct enemy action.

Chasing the slowest targets in the war was its own hazard. North Korean Polikarpov Po-2 biplanes raided at night, low enough to hide in radar ground clutter, and one F-94 crashed after throttling back to 110 mph (177 km/h) in pursuit of one.

After that crash, U.S. aircraft were barred from flying below 2,000 feet (610 m) or slower than 160 mph (257 km/h). Joe Baugher’s history of the type records a separate loss on the night of June 12, 1953, when an F-94B collided with a Po-2.

For the Starfire’s place alongside the Sabre and the Shooting Star, see our guide to Korean War fighter jets.

Guarding North America

At home, the F-94 was the Air Force’s only jet all-weather interceptor available in numbers from 1950 to 1953. Air Defense Command eventually equipped 26 squadrons with it.

Starfires also stood alert far beyond the continental United States. They flew from Alaska, where winter temperatures at Ladd AFB fell below -40°F, from Goose Bay in Labrador, from Thule in Greenland, and from Keflavik in Iceland.

The F-94A and B left active squadrons by mid-1954, replaced by the Northrop F-89 Scorpion and the F-86D Sabre. They moved to the Air National Guard, which eventually flew Starfires in more than 20 squadrons.

The F-94C lasted longer. The 319th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron finished trading its F-94Cs for F-89Js in late 1957, and the 179th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron of the Minnesota Air National Guard at Duluth flew the last ones until the summer of 1959.

The Air Force’s official history dates the Starfire’s final exit from the Air Force’s books to early 1959, and from the Guard’s to mid-1960.

Explaining the Numbers

The specification table on this page describes the F-94C, the last and most capable model. A few of its figures get quoted against each other, so here is what they mean.

Range. The panel shows the normal range of 810 miles (700 nm). The 1,275 miles (1,108 nm) that some pages quote is the ferry range, not a typical interception sortie.

Fuel. The panel’s 1,530 US gallons (5,800 L) is total capacity with every tank fitted. Joe Baugher’s breakdown for the YF-94C puts only 566 gallons (2,143 L) in the wings and fuselage, with 500 in the wingtip tanks and 460 in drop tanks under the wings.

Top speed. The 640 mph (1,030 km/h) maximum was reached at sea level, about Mach 0.84. Higher up the figure falls, to 585 mph (941 km/h) at 22,000 feet, which is the number the Pima Air & Space Museum lists.

Cost. The Air Force’s official history gives a flyaway cost of $534,073 per F-94C, against $196,248 for an F-94B, in early-1950s dollars. The redesign nearly tripled the price of each aircraft.

Where to See an F-94 Today

We found no F-94 listed as airworthy as of September 2026. The survivors are museum and gate-guard aircraft, and several are well worth the trip.

• F-94A 49-2498 and F-94C 50-980, National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, Dayton, Ohio (the F-94C is painted as 50-1054)
• F-94C 51-5623, Pima Air & Space Museum, Tucson, Arizona
• F-94A 49-2500, Castle Air Museum, Atwater, California
• F-94C 51-13563, Minnesota Air National Guard Museum, Minneapolis, Minnesota

The F-94 sits at the very start of the jet-fighter story. Our guide to the five generations of fighter planes shows where it fits.

Frequently Asked Questions

What was the Lockheed F-94 Starfire?

A two-seat, radar-equipped jet interceptor built by Lockheed from the T-33 trainer. It was the U.S. Air Force’s first jet all-weather fighter in service, entering service in 1950 and leaving the last Air National Guard squadron in 1959.

Is the F-94 Starfire the same as the F-104 Starfighter?

No. Both are Lockheed jets with similar names, but the F-94 Starfire was a two-seat radar interceptor that first flew in 1949, while the F-104 Starfighter is a different aircraft altogether.

What was the F-80 Shooting Star, and how is it related?

The P-80 (later F-80) Shooting Star was the U.S. Air Force’s first operational jet fighter. Lockheed turned it into the two-seat T-33 trainer, and the F-94 was built from that trainer.

How fast was the F-94 Starfire?

The F-94C reached 640 mph (1,030 km/h) at sea level, about Mach 0.84. Lockheed test pilot Tony LeVier said it could go supersonic in a steep dive with the afterburner on.

Did the F-94 have an afterburner?

Yes. The Air Force Museum calls it the first U.S. production jet with an afterburner. For how the system adds thrust, see what an afterburner is and how it works.

Did the F-94 see combat?

Yes, in Korea. It scored its first kill on January 30, 1953, and F-94 crews claimed four enemy aircraft by the July 1953 armistice.

How many F-94 Starfires were built?

Air Force records count 854: two prototypes, 109 F-94As, 356 F-94Bs and 387 F-94Cs. Other references give 853 or 855 depending on how prototypes and conversions are counted.

Why was the F-94C called the Starfire?

The name followed Lockheed’s habit of naming aircraft after celestial objects. Officially only the F-94C carried it, but the whole family is now called the Starfire.

What replaced the F-94 Starfire?

The Northrop F-89 Scorpion and the North American F-86D Sabre replaced it in active squadrons from 1954. The last F-94Cs were exchanged for F-89Js.