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North American F-86 Sabrejet

America’s famous first swept wing transonic Jet Fighter aircraft the F-86 Sabrejet. The first swept wing fighter jet was produced by North American Aviation. The new F-86 Sabre could counter the Soviet MiG-15 in the high speed dogfights in the Korean War. The Sabre was developed in the late 40s and proved to be a very important fighter that was highly rated. By American standards the F-86 was an outdated aircraft by the late 50s but continued to be a front-line jet fighter for many other air forces. The Bolivian Air Force used the F-86 Sabrejets up until 1994 as their front-line fighter.

The success of the swept wing jet fighter led to production numbers of more than 7,800 being built between 49 and 56 by the U.S., Italy and Japan. Different versions of the Sabre were built by Canada and Australia and enjoyed the highest productions runs of any Western Jet Fighter to date. Production numbers reached just short of 10,000 Jet Fighters.

F-86 Sabrejet Development

North American being very successful with the production of P-51 Mustang that did the job in World War II in combat against some of the early jet fighters. North American proposed a jet fighter to the U.S. Navy identified as the FJ-1 Fury. The new jet fighter made use of the P-51 wing but was not very impressive. Later North American submitted proposals for 4 other designs of which the USAAF chose one. The USAAF contracted North American to build three examples called XP-86. What they came up with was faster than the Fury’s 547 mph by a little bit but still not very impressive. The basic speed requirements for the XP-86 were 600 mph which meant some real changes in the technology had to take place to reach the 600 mph goal.

North American explored the German aerodynamics studies found at the end of the war. What they discovered was the swept wing reduced drag and delayed compressibility that caused problems with other prop driven fighter like the Lockheed P-38 Lightning when reaching the speed of sound. The swept wing low speed problems could be extended by adding a slat on the wings leading edge.

Armed with the German technology and proving it to be the answer from wind tunnel tests. Some of the North American staff still did not like the idea. Being up against the wall and with successful test results the new swept wing concept was adopted.

With the delays caused by the wing redesign the prototype that would lead to the Famous F-86 Sabre was not rolled out until August of 1947. The first flight did not occur until October in Muroc Dry Lake. Muroc Dry Lake, California eventually became Edwards Air Force Base.

The F-86 Sabres went into service in 1949 for the Strategic Air Command. Being the primary fighter of the U.S. the first three production models saw some combat in the Korean War.

The F-86 Records

The first official world speed record was set by the F-86A in September of 1948 at 670 mph. Although unofficially one of North American’s test pilots broke the sound barrier in a dive in October of 1947. The official sound barrier was broken by Chuck Yeager on the 14th of October 1947 in the Bell X-1 in level flight proving the first supersonic aircraft. But just 5 years later in May of 1953 Jacqueline Cochran broke the sound barrier in an F-86 Sabre Mk 3 Canadian-built while flying alongside Chuck Yeager.

As always there is some interesting facts to go along with the history of America’s Warbirds. The GE J35-C-3 engine could generate 4,000 lbf of thrust and the amazing thing was it was built at the GM Chevrolet division for the XP-86. Production was later turned over to Allison. Later the General Electric J47-GE-7 engine was used in the F-86A-1 had 5,200 lbf of thrust. In the F-86H model used GE J73-GE-3 engine with 9,250 lbf of thrust.

Armaments for the F-86H fighter bomber consisted of up to 2,000 lbs of bombs one of which was an external fuel tank that carried napalm. F-86 fighter bombers and interceptors carried 6 12.7 mm M3 Browning machine guns. In later version of the F-86H 4 20 mm cannons were used.

F-86 Sabrejet operational history is very impressive with distinguished service in Korea, many F-86s also served in various stateside and overseas roles throughout the early part of the Cold War. As the Saberjets were replaced with newer Century Series fighters, F-86s were transferred to Air National Guard and the air forces of allied nations. The last Air National Guard F-86 Sabrejet remained in service in US until 1970.