There aren’t too many of these around.
I don’t think there were ever any two-seat versions of the F-86 built, so a pilot’s first flight in the Sabrejet is going to have to be solo.
17 thoughts on “Well, Here’s Something Out of the Ordinary…”
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I’ll take two!
Actually there were I think 2 two-seaters built.
http://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_fighters/p86_15.html
Huh…I stand corrected. Still, there don’t appear to be any F-86 two-seaters available currently…and I doubt if there are any serious F-86 simulators..so it’s still got to be kick the tires, light the fires, and take off all by yourself.
There used to be one that did mock dogfights with a MiG at the El Toro air show. One time, about 15 years ago, the MiG didn’t show up so the guy with the F 86 decided just to do some aerobatics. He crashed and was killed.
Here’s the the video.
A USAF mechanic was doing a high-speed taxi test in an F-86 following some maintenance…got it up to about 105 knots and decided he didn’t have room to stop on the remaining runway, so took off. Amazingly enough, given that his total flight experience consisted of 2 hours with an instructor in a Cub, he got down in one piece. Apparently the airplane was repairable also, though he did as he had been advised on the radio and let the plane roll into the barrier at runway end rather than using the brakes.
http://www.courtesyaircraft.com/misc%20images/Air%20and%20Space%20Sabre.pdf
Then there was this
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/09/06/4795656/farrell.html
I was drafted and at Ft Ord just a few days – my parents house was maybe a mile from the accident
I think Connie Edwards has one in his collection of warbirds.
A friend of mine, Air Force vet and pilot who flew everything from F105s to the EC-121 – said the F86 was the nicest plane to fly.
Bill, the article about the mechanic mentioned that takeoff stalls were a notorious problem with the plane.
Michael, I think that was a problem of the second generation jet engines which the F-86 used. Flame-outs and sudden thrust loss were typical problems of that generation. The F-80 was even worse in 1944-1947.
I bet a modern engine of the same thrust would not have that problem. Several NATO nations used a F-86 derivative built in Italy and West Germany as a ground attack plane well into the 80’s.
The kind of takeoff stall that the article mentioned is an aerodynamic stall, totally separate from engine compressor stalls.
Speaking of the engine, some later versions of the F-86 used electronic engine controls, which included vacuum-tube amplifiers. I wonder what happened when a tube burned out…
“I bet a modern engine of the same thrust would not have that problem. Several NATO nations used a F-86 derivative built in Italy and West Germany as a ground attack plane well into the 80”²s.”
For an amazing story of an “unstart” with a modern jet engine, read this . An astonishing story.
Argh ! The link doesn’t work. Here try this one.
That worked. I like this sentence. “The SR-71 had a turning radius of about 100 mi. at that speed and altitude, so I wasn’t even sure what state we were going to land in. “
Is a takeoff stall due to not enough speed and angle of attack? The runway has plenty of length – I remember that the jet just never left the runway. Slid across Freeport Blvd (a 4 laned major artery) and slammed into the Crossroads shopping Center into the ice cream parlor.
The Crossroads never really recovered financially after that and today it is the headquarters of the police and fire depts.
In the article he describes the F 86 “nasty characteristic.” “If you put the nose up too much, the drag increased and you couldn’t accelerate out of it.” That’s aerodynamic stall.
Fortunately, the SR 71 was 78,000 feet higher. It’s just coming out recently how high those planes really flew. In 1959, I worked for Douglas and knew guys who had been involved with the U 2 project. They told me it went over 90,000 feet. The SR 71 went higher.