F-86 SABRE

Americas first swept wing jet fighter. Early in the Korean war the U.S. enjoyed complete air superiority. But the Russian built MIG-15s appeared and swept NATO from the sky's. The U.S. needed a new fighter able to combat this menace. Enter the Sabre.  It was not better than the MIG buts its pilots were. The Sabre claimed a 20:1 kill ratio when engaging enemy MIGs. On paper the MIG outclasses the Sabre with a bigger gun faster climb rate and tighter turn radius. The MIG pilots didn't have as good of training and they lacked G-Suits. These are suits worn in combat that inflate to keep blood in the upper body to prevent blackouts. The U.S. pilots could pull higher G maneuvers and not have to worry about blacking out. This allowed U.S. pilots to pull harder turns and maintain higher speeds. This along with better training allowed the Sabre to take control of the sky's from the communist forces.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Daylight Bombing vs Night Bombing

Image
In WWII There was a debate on the best time to deliver ordinance. At night casualties would be lower, but at day munitions could be dropped more accurately. The  British went with night bombing as their early war causalities were atrocious. But then the Americans joined. The American bombers were equipped with something called a Norden bomb sight. This was the most advanced bomber sight ever designed. It allowed bombers to target and destroy targets with pinpoint accuracy. But these bomb sights couldn't be used at night. You cannot target what you cant see. The British worked around this with fire munitions. But American commanders were not willing to take the hit in accuracy. So they gathered massive swarms of bombers that were armed to the teeth with guns. Unfortunately this was not enough to deter the German Luftwaffe. Causalities were astronomical. The commanders knew they needed to protect the bombers if they were to keep up the campaign. The solution they found was the P-5
Read more

Robin Olds The Epitome Of Fighter Pilots

Image
Robin Olds started his piloting career in a P-38 Lightning in the European theater. His first kills were a pair of Focke Wulf 190s. Late he and a wingman engaged a formation of 40 BF-109s and he came out with 5 kills one of which occurred while his engine was off due to fuel starvation. He became the first ace of the 479th fighter group. When the 479th converted to P-51s he had a total of 8 kills in the 38. In the P-51 he topped off his kill count with 4 more air to air kills and 11 destroyed while on runways. In Vietnam he took to the sky again and killed 4 more enemy aircraft. 2 of these were scored in operation Bolo. Bolo was an attempt to bring enemy MIGs out to fight. MIGs avoided fighters and instead went for slow vulnerable attack aircraft  like the F-105 Thunderchief. Olds fitted 105 jammer pods to the F-4s and used their callsigns in order to make the MIGs think they were bombers. at the end of the day the Vietnamese lost 7 of their remaining 16 aircraft in the inventory. Th
Read more

Battle of Guadalcanal

Image
During WWII the Japanese Empire took many islands in the pacific. During the campaign to take them back the allies took the island of Guadalcanal. This island was chosen due to the small airfield being constructed there. This would become the main airbase of choice during this phase of the campaign. The Marines there operated F4F fighters and SBD dive bombers. The Japanese tried for a year to regain control the the island and this lead to a almost daily combat from august 7th 1942 to February 9th 1943. The pilots employed a particular tactic called Thatch's Weave. It involved 2 Wildcats making a crisscross pattern. If an enemy plane goes after one the wingman can engage and shoot down the threat.  The Marines    sank or destroyed 17 large enemy vessels as well as shooting down   268 Japanese planes in aerial combat. This was one of the largest air engagements of the Pacific theater and really demonstrated the skill of the U.S. aviators.
Read more