NORTH AMERICAN F-86 "Sabre" #planemondays

Video from the channel AmigosMuseoAire about North American F-86 Sabre, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 29:30. Language: Spanish. Video type: Onboard.

A former Air Force Sabre pilot, who served in the then 101 Squadron, tours a preserved F-86F painted in the colours of the Ascua patrol at the museum. He explains that the patrol took its name from the callsign of Berriatúa, who was killed near Manises air base while performing the "descending bomb", a manoeuvre in which the aircraft crossed paths firing their cannons. He then tours the aircraft from tail to nose and, in hangar 5, shows the exposed engine, the air-to-ground armament and the fuselage markings.

The canopy bears painted lines marking the dive angle, 90 and 30 degrees, useful for releasing unguided weapons. The horizontal tail is an all-moving stabiliser, and the hydraulically boosted controls allowed turns of 4 to 6 G, with the pilot protected by an anti-G suit. The footstep and handholds for climbing aboard without a ladder are visible, along with the muzzles of the six .50 calibre machine guns and the air intake with folding grilles, which deployed below 10,000 feet to prevent foreign object ingestion. The nose houses a rangefinder, not a radar, which measured distance to targets within 800 m and fed a projected gunsight. Also shown are the F-series wing, widened about 15 cm and carrying more fuel, the automatic slats, the flaps, the self-sealing wing tanks, the drop ordnance and an external tank. Finally, the guide points out misspelt markings and one with rescue instructions that has been covered over.

According to the guide, the Sabre first flew in late 1947 and broke the sound barrier in the spring of 1948. He considers the J47-GE-27 engine a good design let down by its materials: blade failures and compressor stalls from abrupt throttle increases at low speed caused many ejections. He recalls that around 80 aircraft and about 28 pilots were lost in Spain, five of them in mid-air collisions. He also recounts two sea rescues in his unit: one, after 24 hours, thanks to a survival whistle.