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Aviation History
1953
1953 - 0138.PDF
'•••• —I—II—H——I "Flight" photograph Canadair-built North American F-86E Sabres of No. 410 (Cougar) Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force, based at North Luffenham. SABRE A Study of a Renowned Fighter WHEN the last piloted fighter has made its final land ing and the truly great military aeroplanes have taken up their ultimate niches in history, the North American Sabre will be seen to occupy a secure place. Whether it will have influenced the course of world events as did our own Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire it is as yet too early to be sure; but one fact can never be refuted—that, at a time of world peril, the Sabre was the only available Allied fighter which could engage the enemy's best on equal terms. Certainly an American writer's asser tion that the Sabre has saved his nation's face (if not its neck) in the Korean war is no exaggeration; nor is it an overstatement to attribute this timely success to the single factor of wing sweepback—a consideration which is the more gratifying because this feature was, as we shall see, wholly adventitious. Our short introductory history of the Sabre must open in the last year of the war—1945—when the North American company was awarded a U.S. Navy contract for three XFJ-i straight-wing fighters of the type later to achieve a limited distinction under the name Fury. For the consideration of the U.S.A.F. a similar design, stripped of naval impedimenta and designated XP-86, was then submitted, resulting in an order for three prototypes. Had the original XP-86 project been realized (and detailed design was carried to an advanced stage) the performance of the aircraft would almost certainly have proved inferior to that of the contemporary Republic XP-84, later to achieve fame as the Thunderiet. Thus the jet fighter which was to succeed the brilliant piston-engined Mustang almost proved a mediocrity. This near-calamity (for, in the light of events, it might have proved a calamity indeed) was averted only by the capture of German research data which disclosed the virtues of sweepback in delaying the onset of compressibility. In conjunction with a specimen Me 262 wing, this material encouraged the N.A. tech nicians to redesign the XP-86 to incorporate swept-back surfaces. Their drasdc revision entailed a lengthening of the fuselage and THIS review has been compiled by H. F. King, with the gratefully acknowledged co-operation of the Royal Canadian Air Force and Canadair, Ltd. The illustrations include special "Flight" copyright drawings by Arthur Bowbeer, and a new set of air-to-air copyright photographs by John Yoxall. various incidental modifications, so that when the new fighter appeared in the autumn of 1947 it differed very noticeably from the straight-wing naval Fury, construction of which had proceeded as originally planned. The first of the two flying prototypes took the air on October 1st, 1947, and was powered with an Allison J-35 turbojet of only 4,000 lb thrust. t Clearly the F-86A, as the production version was designated, was something uncommonly good. Powered with the brand-new General Electric J-47, it demonstrated not only extremely high speed, but—all things considered—surprising tractability in handling. Moreover, it was remarkable for the ingenuity of its design and construction. Its wing, in particular, was quite extra ordinary. It had 35 degrees of sweepback (measured on the 25 per cent chord line), was of 12 per cent thickness/chord ratio, and its construction was of "sandwich" type, whereby the structural material was laminated between inner and outer tapered skins. Another innovation was the "lipping" of the air intake to maintain air flow in a nose-up attitude. Though the Sabre—as the F-86 came to be dubbed—was never designed for supersonic speed, the makers did proclaim that it had been built "to come nearer the speed of sound under actual combat conditions than any other American fighter." Beyond mentioning a range of over 1,000 miles and a service ceiling of over 40,000ft, however, they disclosed little more of importance. By September, 1948, the world suddenly became aware of the Sabre's quite extraordinary speed, for on the 15th of that month a standard F-86A, carrying its full military load and flown by Major Richard L. Johnson, U.S.A.F., established a world record of 670.981 m.p.h. over Muroc Lake—a record which was to stand until Capt. J. Slade Nash attained 699.9 m.p.h. in an F-86D on November 19th, 1952.
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