The following article is presented through the kind permission of the Sabre Pilots Association and Larry Davis, Editor of their excellent publication Classic Sabre Jets.

Visit their website at: www.sabre-pilots.org

F-86H of the 138th FIS, Syracuse Air National Guard, "The Boys From Syracuse"

Photo: NYAviator Collection

The Late Fifties

    The "H", like all Sabres, would go supersonic, but only when rapidly descending, and then after a climb to above 40,000 feet, throttle to max, and split-s to straight down. The needle would cross Mach one by .01. If we were not supersonic by 30,000 feet, forget it! Also, we experienced considerable wing roll, but we could easily correct it with opposite stick. The ailerons and elevators were boosted and very sensitive. Most pilots had to get used to this before they stopped wobbling all over the sky!

Training In The F-86H

    Air-to-air gunnery was by far the most challenging of all fighter pilot sports, and it always started the same way. An F-86H with the call sign "Tugboat" would race down the runway with 3,000 feet of cable and a large rag attached at the end, and then pull sharply into a steep climb to get the target airborne before it ripped off. The shooters, four other Sabres, would follow. No one wanted towing duties as the only way for the Tugboat to terminate its mission was to rip the flag off. If this happened, the actions of the tow pilot were assumed to have caused the loss of the target and the end of an enjoyable mission for the shooters. When this occurred, often the tow pilot would be threatened with, "If you lose another flag, you will be the target!"

    Tugboat, however, usually got the rag to the restricted area where the fun began. The shooters would race by the tug on the spacer pass and start the intricate pattern of climbing to the perch (line abreast and above the tow ship), and then diving into firing position, a thousand feet from the target. This was not easy. First of all, when we rolled in on Tugboat, we had to miss the guy coming back to the perch, and then reverse the turn to get into firing position. Now, we were going faster than blazes while closing on a target that was going slower than syrup. The radar would not lock on, so we manually ranged the sight with our throttle hand and tried to track the rag with smooth stick movements. The sight was now swimming with movement from our control inputs. We tried desperately to track the rag as it got very big very fast. It was now collision time as we squeezed the trigger. The cannons blazed, our heart stopped, we rolled over the rag (missing by inches), raced by the tow ship, pulled back into a steep climb while aiming for the perch, missed the guy coming down who raced right at us as he reversed to fire. This went on, pass after pass, until we were wringing wet with sweat and out of ammo.

    Sometimes the day was cloudy and Tugboat was not in the restricted area over Lake Ontario, and bullets ended up hitting the outhouse of a bar and grill on the south shore. But luck was with us, no one was in the place! The guilty pilot, however, was easily traced. Each pilot had his ammo dipped in color-coded paint to assist in scoring the target. Nasty break.

    Sometimes we did not miss the target when we rolled over the top, and instead we flew right through it, hitting a large iron bar that could slice a wing off, ruining our whole day! "Baron" Von Thisen was lucky, however, when he brought the bar back home, embedded in his wing. Strong aircraft, that Sabre! The maintainers, ever resourceful, swapped the damaged wing for a good one located on a display Sabre at the local American Legion. It worked fine!

    Speaking of bringing things back home, recovering the banner from Tugboat was not a piece of cake. The target was dropped at home plate and involved a lot of nail biting by the following players: The tower, who would broadcast over Guard frequency, "Everyone must exit the area. Tugboat is inbound for a target drop." Then by the pilot in mobile control who would call, "Drop target now." He often scored a bull's eye on the runway, tying up traffic for awhile! Finally by Tugboat, who was very, very low on fuel, and who once flew too low, dragging the target through the power lines, cutting electricity to northern NewYork. We needed the target back to score our hits. It took 17% to qualify, and it was not easy. I have been on missions where we all fired one color to qualify a squadron mate, but failed. Most of the time, though, we were successful (they never knew what we did for them!).

    This all became a lot easier when we started firing on the dart. First, we only needed one hit, and we could usually see that happen. Second, the dart was not speed limited, so closure rates when tracking were a lot lower, which gave us much, more time to fire. Dart recovery however, was trickier, to say the least. When the dart was released. it sailed a long way and not always in a straight line. Once. 'TY' Costello was in the mobile control unit and called. "Drop target now." He scored a bull's-eye on a moving tractor!

    We flew low level navigation through the beautiful Adirondack Mountains near the Canadian border to the air-to-ground gunnery range at Fort Drum in northern New York. In the winter. we deployed to Florida for several weeks. The usual bet was a beer per event with the losers paying the winner. In a flight of four doing skip and dive bombing plus rockets and strafe, if one guy won them all, it could result in a good many free ones at the bar! This, however, seldom happened because competition was keen.

    Skip bombing was the most fun, once we got over the fear of racing over the ground at 400 knots at 35 feet. The target was a large rectangular banner hung between telephone posts. A hit in the banner was a hit, but a hit in the base of the banner was what we all aimed for. The secret was to go low without getting fouled by the range officer, another pilot doing detestable duty. Once Ron Lang was lining up on the target and pressing hard when he flew through a tree. Always a resourceful fighter pilot, he claimed a bird strike. After landing, however, the Ops officer (our boss) found bark embedded in his wing. He then announced that, "The bird must have been sitting in a tree!"

    Once when we were in Libya, North Africa in 1962, John "The Baron" Von Thisen set his switches wrong and dropped both external tanks on the skip target. His comment then was, "Well, was it a skip hit or a hit on the fly?" In his defense, ”switchology” was a problem with the '86 due to the location of the armament panel.

Dive bombing was the most challenging of all air-to-ground events. At first our dive angle was 60 degrees, which seemed like straight down. For this we used idle thrust and speed brakes. Later we went to a less thrilling 30 degrees, which was also less accurate.

    We had no computers to tell us when to release the bombs to get a hit; it was all Kentucky windage and pressing as low as we could go without getting fouled by the range officer. If he was a good guy and we bribed him with enough drinks he would call us for pressing as a warning before fouling us on our next pass. If we got one foul, we lost the event and our bomb was calculated as a 300 foot miss from the target (a gross error). If we were fouled twice on the same mission, the range officer would throw us off the range, and this meant big trouble from the Ops officer when we landed. To qualify in high-angle bombing, the average of all bombs dropped had to be 140 feet or less from the bulls-eye. To win the event and collect the beers. our score would probably have to be 50 feet or less.

    The rocket event offered the gratification of seeing a white streak leap out in front of our aircraft and race to the target. It had a hypnotic effect, however, on the shooter which could cause a delay in the aircraft's recovery while watching the rocket impact the target. Needless to say, this would upset the range officer, and the shooter would hear the dreaded word, "foul". We fired the 2.75-inch folding fin jobs. They had fair ballistics, except when one of the four fins would not extend. The rocket could and would go anywhere, even at the range tower inhabited by the range officer who saw no humor in it at all. This was a very bad break for the shooter!

    “Switchology” was also a real problem in this event. The armament panel was behind the pilot's left elbow, and it had to be set after each shot as a safety precaution. During this procedure, Cal Fearon once fired two rockets, just missing his leader. His comment was, "Sorry about that!"

    Strafe was the last event, and it always separated the men from the boys in our squadron. We fired only two of our four 20mm cannons, which were relatively accurate when compared to the ballistics of the old .50 caliber mounted on other Sabre variants. Qualifying required 25%, but to take the beers our score had to be well over 50%. We rolled in on the strafe panels from 3,000 feet in a rectangular pattern, accelerating to above 350 knots. Pipper placement was everything, and it required a lot of concentration and coordination to get it right. Initially the pipper was well in front of the panel. As we accelerated to 350 knots and closed on the target. we allowed the pipper to slowly work its way to the panel stopping the pipper on the target and firing a burst just prior to reaching the dreaded foul line. Then it was yank the nose above the horizon and bank in the direction of traffic and do it again and again. until we called 'Winchester’ (ammo gone-generally 100 rounds).

    Being a range officer was a learning experience. I caught G. William Gregory cracking his speed brakes on final to stabilize the aircraft before he fired. This must have helped because he usually won the event. I was the range officer when Major Freddy Helderfine gave me the scare of my career. I watched him pass the foul line, then fire and yank the stick, just missing the target with his tailpipe. The panel was blown over by his jetwash! My shaky brown bar comment was, "You're pressing, Lead".

    After the last pass, some flight leaders would request a "rack check" from the range officer to be sure all bombs were expended. This was nothing but a legalized buzz job over the range tower to scare everyone there, and we did!

F-86H 52-5747 of the 138th TFS, Syracuse Air National Guard, "The Boys From Syracuse"

Artist: Rudnei Dias da Cunha

Website: Sabres and Furies