F-86F Sabre - Mikes Bird

Here’s my second Christmas F-86F Sabre, Capt. Charles McSwain’s “Mikes Bird”, which coincidentally flew in the same squadron as my first F-86, “The Huff”: 39th FIS / 51st FIW, Suwon (K-13), South Korea.

Although I can not find anything about the history of “Mike’s Bird”, I did learn an interesting fact relating to why it and its fellow squadron aircraft wore yellow bands and had checks on their tails. 

When the Americans arrived in Korea with their F-86 Sabre it became apparent that it looked dangerously similar in flight to that the Soviet MiG-15. Therefore, the 4th Fighter Interceptor Wing (FIW) started to paint forward-slanting black-and-white stripes on their fuselages - similar to 'D-Day invasion stripes - to prevent F-86 Sabre pilots from mistaking each other for the MiGs. When in  November 1951, the 51st FIW Group transitioned to the F-86 Sabre, their commander, Lt Col George Jones, didn't want to just copy the 4th FIW stripes, so he asked Capt Ed Matczak, his group material officer and budding artist, to design something different. He came up with the rearward-slanting yellow band on the fuselage, and yellow bands on the wing and tail. Later, the wing also went on to add the black checkered markings copying the WW2 design used by 325 Fighter Group the 'Checkertails’.

In my build of “Mike’s Bird” I used Academy’s amazing 1998 moulding of their 2011 “The Huff” kit and while I used the kits “The Huff” decals on the 1:48 scale Airfix kit I shared earlier, these “Mike’s Bird” decals were gifted to me by a good friend from the original 2011 Academy kit that he had in his stash. However, while the moulding has stood the test of time the decals less so, but if you’ve been following you’ll know that I pressed on regardless!

If you were looking to build an F-86F Sabre and were undecided over whether to go 1998 Academy or 2022 Airfix, unless you wanted to show the earlier model’s extended leading edges, I’d have to recommend Academy every time. From quality of design to crisp moulding, detailing through out from interior to engine, guns to airbrakes and most surprising of all, two excellently crafted pilots!

Happy Christmas all! 

F-86F Sabre - The Huff

Finished for Christmas. The 1:48 scale Airfix F-86F Sabre. 

Lieutenant Jim Thompson's F-86F "the Huff", famous for being photographed with the most astounding nose art of any USAF fighter in Korea. 

Thompson, was a wingman in the 39th Fighter Interceptor Squadron (FIS) of the 51st Fighter Interceptor Wing (FIW), at Suwon (K-13), South Korea, in 1953. 

When he shot down a North Korean MiG-15 in May 1953 that had a dragon painted on its nose he convinced his Crew Chief to put a dragon on his Sabre. He must have eventually shot down another MiG as the decals come with the option of one or two kill star markings. I went with two, just three more required to make him an ace! 

 

 

I am not sure why, but on the starboard side of "The Huff" there is artwork for ‘Miss Jenny" & "Bill’s Baby" with the names of JW Manney and LD Cromwell. I've yet to find any reference to why or when these were added ... so most interesting! 

The kit I’ve used here is the 2022 release of Airfix’s F-86F Sabre with "The Huff" decals from the 1998 (2011 release) Academy F-86F kit. The Airfix kit does allow for the modeller to have gun covers and air brakes open and even forward wing slats extended but I wanted to show the aircraft ready for flight and use the second more detailed Academy kit as an aircraft under going maintenance. I’ve also installed Academy’s pilot which in addition to be better detailed is also more historically accurate. 

Paints used were all Vallejo and the silver was their unique alcohol based Liquid Metal. 

Canadair Sabre Mk.4

My 5th lockdown aircraft mode build!

For as long I can remember, the one non-british made aircraft which has fascinated me more than any other has been the North American F-86 Sabre.

Based on the design of captured Messerschmitt 262s at the end of WW2, the F-86 Sabre entered service with the USAF in 1949, one year before the Korean War in which it proved its exceptional capabilities in combat against the Russian Mig 15, also heavily influenced in its swept wing design by the Me 262. One interesting factoid about these two jets was the distinguishing characteristics of their engines which made it very easy to distinguish, from some distance, which was friend or foe. The F-86 was powered by a General Electric power plant and the Mig used a reverse engineered Rolls Royce Nene engine which the British government had crazily gifted to Stalin in the early post war years! The Sabre left a smoke trail a Red Arrow would have been proud of, while the Mig’s exhaust was smoke free .. quality British engineering!

I’ve made more model kits of the Sabre jet than I care to remember but never this variant. This is the 1952, the Canadair Sabre Mk.4 which served with the RAF until mid-1956 when they were replaced by Hawker Hunters. Britain needed to look to the United States at this time as it had no jet fighter capable of standing up to the Mig-15. During the Korean War, British jet fighters, such as the famed Doodlebug chasing Gloster Meteor, were found to be inferior to the Mig. Britain was actually supplied with Sabres via Canada, who built the Sabre under licence and gave it the designation of the Canadair CL-13.

Canadair Sabre Mk.4 112 Squadron RAF

The colours of this model is probably that of one delivered in Jan 1954 to No 112 (F) Squadron, RAF Bruggen, W. Germany. 112 Squadron’s aircraft carried Shark’s teeth beneath the nose and a white fin letter. The use of shark teeth date back to 1941, when inspired by the unusually large air inlet on their P-40 Curtiss Tomahawk, the squadron copied the "shark's mouth" logo painted on some German Messerschmitt Bf 110s seen earlier in the war. This practice was later followed by P-40 units in other parts of the world, including the Flying Tigers, American volunteers serving with the Chinese Air Force and most recently, my last build of the Desert Storm Tornado.

Sabres eventually equipped 10 RAF fighter squadrons in Germany and 2 in the UK as part of NATO's 2nd Allied Air Force; their main task was to patrol the Air Defence Identification Zone along the "Iron Curtain" and standing on alert to be scrambled to intercept unidentified aircraft. Until replaced by Hawker Hunters 1955-6 they provided air cover for the defences of Western Germany and the Rhine Army.

My picture of the F-86 taken in 2011 at the Duxford Korean War Airshow

There are a couple movies in which you get to see the F-86 in action but none, in my view, better than 1958’s The Hunters, staring Robert Mitchum and Robert Wagner, set In 1952, during the Korean War. The air scenes are fantastic, obviously using real aircraft with smoking engines and not a model in sight!