Could You Fly a Sabre?
The challenge of handling a 1950s MiG killer.
- By Paul Hoversten
- Air & Space magazine, November 2011
At the 2002 Nellis Air Show near Las Vegas, a Sabre heads up an A team in a USAF Heritage Flight: (from left) P-51 Mustang, P-47 Thunderbolt, F-15 Eagle, P-38 Lightning, and TF-51.
Erik Hildebrandt
Dominant in dogfights more than a half-century ago, the North American F-86 Sabre reigned long before fighters were designed to be so twitchy that pilots needed computers to fly them. U.S. and Royal Air Force pilots have called the F-86 the best-handling fighter of its time, and today pilots fly it at airshows. So if you want to fly a Sabre, how hard can it be?
You’d certainly need experience flying a high-performance jet, says Steve Kirik, who flew F-15s in the Gulf War and is now one of two Federal Aviation Administration examiners for Sabre pilots. After that, he says, “it’s actually a fairly easy airplane to fly. There’s no huge amount of skill required, but you’d want to step your way up to it. You’d want to fly the T-33 [two-seat trainer] first. If you can fly that, it’s a natural stepping stone to the F-86.”
Kirik is a first officer with United Airlines and a demonstration pilot with the Warbird Heritage Foundation, a group formed to preserve military aircraft in flying condition. “If you’re a civilian and you wanted to get checked out, you’d go to someone who trains on the two-seat MiG-15, then get ground training and prepare for a practical test,” he says. “Then someone like me would mentor you through. The examiner would do either a ground observation or a chase flight.”
The Soviet-built MiG-15 is a good precursor for aspiring F-86 pilots because both aircraft share a “systems philosophy,” says air racer John Penney of Evergreen, Colorado, the other FAA examiner (and the one who checked out Kirik). “They’re both first-generation swept-wing fighters, although the F-86 has no wicked stall characteristics like the MiG-15. It’s one of the reasons why the airplane enjoyed such a success rate in the Korean War.” (According to the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, Sabre pilots shot down 792 MiGs in Korea, and only 76 Sabres were lost.)
Of the dozen or so F-86 pilots in the Classic Jet Aircraft Association, “I would say maybe two-thirds of those who are qualified didn’t have a former military fighter jet background,” says Penney. “They are civilians, but they have experience in the T-33 or the L-39 [trainer, built by Czech manufacturer Aero Vodochody].”
“Any airplane, if you abuse it, can get you into a stall-spin situation,” Penney continues. “But the F-86 has excellent control harmony, very good visibility, and good handling during landing approaches. It’s a lovely machine.”
Flying the F-86 is challenging in another sense though. You first have to find one. Rich Sugden, a former Navy flight surgeon in Jackson, Wyoming, found one of the rarest: He owns the only airworthy FJ-4B Fury in the world. The Fury was North American’s Navy attack jet based on the F-86. He also owns a Canadian-built Sabre. “Every time I go to an airshow, Fury pilots come up to talk to me about [the airplane],” says Sugden. “Some of them had flown my airplane.”
Only 21 Sabres are registered with the FAA (including some in museums), but Sabre pilots in the Classic Jet Aircraft Association estimate only about a dozen are airworthy in the United States—with about an equal number of active pilots who fly them. Almost all of the Sabres removed from U.S. service have been destroyed; Department of Defense policy is to de-militarize retired combat aircraft, a process that ensures they will never fly again. The only F-86A flying today went directly from the U.S. military to civilian hands, but it was salvaged in 1970, before the de-militarization policy was as carefully observed as it is today. Owned by a company in the United Kingdom today, it appeared at 20 British airshows this year (and is on this issue’s cover). Sugden’s FJ-4B also escaped destruction and flies at U.S. airshows with the team MiG Fury Fighters.
Comments (6)
I realize this was a fairly short article intended first for print, but I am surprised that it does not mention the September, 1972 crash of an F-86 into a shopping center ice cream parlor. The history of number 1054 encapsulates many of the points touched on in this article - built in 1954, flown some 300 hours, then placed in storage for some ten years before being refurbished and relicensed as a civilian craft - one that obviously was not well-enough refurbished and whose pilot obviously did not have command of its quirks.
The crash killed 22 people, 12 of them children... three of them classmates of mine, one of whom was the object of my first serious crush. Many may have forgotten this horrific event, but I haven't - and I don't think Mr. Hoversten should have omitted it, either.
Posted by James Gifford on September 24,2011 | 07:56 PM
About your statement that "U.S. and Royal Air Force pilots have called the F-86 the best-handling fighter of its time." Undoubtedly true for U.S. pilots, but a majority of the RAF pilots would probably prefer the Hawker Hunter, considered by many to be the most graceful jet ever made, and the plane that took the absolute speed limit away from the F-86.
Posted by Jeff Tonn on September 30,2011 | 10:22 PM
I understand the Australian-built RR Avon Sabre had considerable more performance than the later US variants.
Posted by Brett Lewis on October 27,2011 | 06:43 PM
The story of the crew chief who took the Sabre flying one evening from Williams AFB back in the 1956 is great. I was a crew chief once or twice and wondered if it was possible... George Johnson lives East of me; not very far.
Posted by GregG on October 29,2011 | 01:36 PM
Flew several models of the Sabre and it was pure joy. The D/L was like a computer game. Lock on and fly the attack. Wish someone would invent a
game where you could lock onto a bogie and fly the attack through. Would buy one today.
Posted by LtColRichard O. Miller USAF(Ret.) on November 7,2011 | 12:17 PM
A shipmate and I in USN Attack Squadron 147 were driving through Sacramento on our way from NAS Lemoore to NAAS Fallon for exercises and we heard the crash, then the sounds of a multitude of emegency vehicles. Saw the smoke. No, I won't forget that. As a former member of the Military Air Services and always an airshow fan, I am disturbed each time I learn of such a tragedy. We worked very hard to keep our planes in the air and their pilots safe. When one or more fall, it still "hits home".
Posted by Rich Paton on March 22,2013 | 05:19 PM