The A-model was supplanted by the B, the first operational U.S. jet with an ejection seat. Soon after, the C supplanted both. With each evolution, the Shooting Star became bigger, heavier ...

For the United States, that transition began with the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star, America’s first operational jet fighter.

[Featured image by odbo29a via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY 2.0] The Lockheed T-33, known colloquially as the Shooting Star ... which jet is his grail and his endgame model.