Canadair F-86 Sabre

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Canadair Sabre

Canadair Sabre
Type	Fighter
Manufacturer	Canadair
Maiden flight	1947-10-01
Introduced	1949, USAF
Retired	1980, Portugal
Primary users	Royal Canadian Air Force United States Air Force Royal Air Force Luftwaffe
Number built	1,815
Variants	F-86 Sabre FJ Fury

The Canadair Sabre was a fighter jet built by Canadair Ltd. in Montreal, Canada under licence from California-based North American Aviation Inc.

1 History
2 Production
3 Women's Speed Records
4 Operators
5 Specifications (for the Sabre 5)
6 Reference
7 See also

[edit] History

In 1948 the Canadian government decided to re-equip the RCAF with the F-86 Sabre and Canadair was contracted to produce them. An initial batch of ten aircraft was ordered for tool verification. The Korean War changed this to a production batch of 100 aircraft. Due to difficulties in obtaining parts & equipment from the USA, Canadair slowly built up its production facility to make all parts, and equipment was obtained from Canadian suppliers. Canadair gave the Sabre the project number CL-13, but this was seldomly used, even internally.

[edit] Production

There were seven types of Sabre produced at Canadair. The Sabre Mk 1 was the same as the North American Sabre F-86A. It had a General Electric J47-GE-13 turbo jet of 5200 lbf (23 kN) thrust. The Sabre Mk 2, which was started after about twenty aircraft had been finished, had the same engine, but had power-assissed controls and an "all-flying" tailplane. The Sabre Mk 3 was the start of the Canadian Sabres having an Avro Canada Orenda 3 turbo-jet with 6000 lbf (27 kN) thrust. The Sabre Mk 4 reverted to the General Electric engine and were destined for the RAF and other overseas Air Forces. The Sabre Mk 5 was the main production version, each with an Orenda 10 with 6500 lbf (29 kN) thrust. A change to the Orenda 14 with 7440 lbf (33 kN) powered the Sabre Mk 6. The designation Sabre Mk 7 was mainly experimental.

Sabre Mk 1 - one built, prototype F-86A
Sabre Mk 2 - 350 built, F-86E-type, 60 to USAF, 3 to RAF, 287 to RCAF
Sabre Mk 3 - one built in Canada, test-bed for the Orenda jet engine
Sabre Mk 4 - 438 built, production Mk 3, 10 to RCAF, 428 to RAF as Sabre F.4
Sabre Mk 5 - 370 built, F-86F-type with Orenda engine, 295 to RCAF, 75 to Luftwaffe
Sabre Mk 6 - 655 built, 390 to RCAF, 225 to Luftwaffe, 6 to Colombia and 34 to South Africa

In all, 1815 Sabres were built at Canadair, the first in August 1949 and the final one in October 1958.

[edit] Women's Speed Records

In 1952, Jacqueline Cochran, then aged 47, decided to challenge the World Speed Record for Women, then held by Jacqueline Auriol. She tried to borrow an F-86 from the USAF, but was refused. She was introduced to an RCAF Air Vice-Marshal who, with the permission of the Canadian Minister of Defence, arranged for her to borrow a Sabre 3. Canadair sent a 16 man support team to California for the attempt. On 18 May 1953 Ms. Cochran set a new 100 km speed record of 1050.15 km/h (652.5 mph). Later on 3 June she set a new 15 km closed circuit record of 1078 km/h (670 mph). While she was in California, she exceeded 1270 km/h in a dive, and thus became the first woman to exceed the speed of sound.