Butch, I have fond memories of the F-80/T-33. I flew the AT-33, which was a hybrid model. Think of it as either an F-80 with two seats or a T-33 with bomb, rocket, and gun capability. It was crude even compared to the 60s-era jets I trained in to get my wings. But it was an honest airplane with few faults - but two of those could get you dead pretty quick.
One fault involved the tip tanks. On takeoff, they were so heavy and you had so little aileron control that if a wing dropped, you had to be damn quick on rudder and aileron to keep from going in at a 90° bank. By the time you got flaps and gear up, it wasn't so bad, but it still took a lot of heavy pressure to roll with the tips full.
The second was that huge centrifugal compressor engine. The compressor was so big and heavy that it was VERY slow to accelerate. It could take up to 15 seconds from idle to near full power as the compressor disk laboriously sped up. Pull the throttle too soon on landing and if you needed power after that, you were SOL. We learned to keep at least 80-85% power all the way through the pattern, until the flare. The slow windup also meant you had to keep pace with the throttle and not advance it too rapidly or else you'd flood the combustion chambers with excess fuel and overtemp the engine. You could even burn through the engine walls in extreme cases. No "flooring" that beast!
