Role Fighter-bomber
Manufacturer Republic Aviation
First flight 28 February 1946
Introduction November 1947
Retired 1964 (USAF)
1974 (Yugoslavia)
Primary user United States Air Force
Number built 7,524
Developed into Republic F-84F Thunderstreak
Republic XF-84H Thunderscreech
Republic XF-91 Thunderceptor
In 1944, Republic Aviation's chief designer, Alexander Kartveli, began working on a turbojet-powered replacement for the P-47 Thunderbolt piston-engined fighter aircraft. The initial attempts to redesign the P-47 to accommodate a jet engine proved futile due to the large cross-section of the Thunderbolt's fuselage. Instead, Kartveli and his team designed a new aircraft with a much-slimmer fuselage housing an axial compressor turbojet engine in the rear fuselage, and an air intake in the nose of the fuselage, with air ducts running from the nose to the engine and taking up much of the fuselage volume. Fuel was mainly stored in tanks in the thick, but laminar flow airfoil, unswept wings
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The Bf 108A first flew in 1934, followed by the Bf 108B in 1935. The Bf 108B used the substantially larger, 12.67 litre displacement Argus As 10 air-cooled inverted V8 engine. The nickname Taifun (German for "typhoon") was given to her own aircraft by Elly Beinhorn, a well-known German pilot, and was generally adopted
Development of the type continue and in 1935 the Bf 108B appeared with the fin and rudder having undergone modifications.
Conceived as a competitive aircraft the Bf 108 would take part in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.