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Originally Posted by 3.0L
One of my favorite jet aircraft.
I spotted my first view of an F-86 when I was in 6th grade. That would've been in 1958. Much to the annoyance of my teacher, I was gazing out the windows of our classroom when I saw an F-86 pass over our school at a low altitude. Flames were intermittently coming out of the tail pipe. I could hear popping sounds. Later, on the playground, I saw smoke out towards our local airport, about 3 miles away.
Later news reports stated the pilot was experiencing engine problems and tried to land at our little airport. The f-86 stalled and crashed about 1 mile short of the main runway. Unfortunately, the pilot was killed.
The sight of the flaming F-86 passing overhead has never left me.
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The ultimate development of the F-86 was the Navy FJ-4. Bigger wing, more fuel, etc. The FJ-4B version added provisions for more underwing stores, including nuclear weapons and also added an extra pair of airbrakes below and behind the regular ones. But what the FJ-4 lacked in the mid-50s was speed. It was a transonic aircraft and could only exceed the speed of sound in a dive. The FJ-4 fighter version had a very brief service history and then ended up in utility and reserve squadrons. The Navy/Marine fighter of choice ended up as the F8U (F-8) Crusader. Here are a few FJ-4B photos -- the first of these, illustrating the speed brakes, is of a civil-registered FJ-4B, one of the rare civilian-operated jet fighters. The second shot shows a Mark 7 nuclear bomb under the wing of an FJ-4B. The sharp-eyed will note that the last photo of an FJ-4B with four underwing fuel tanks has only one pair of speedbrakes deployed; that was because when the landing gear was down, only the front pair would deploy, presumably so as to avoid scraping the rear pair if on the ground in a nose-high attitude.