Normally the Sabre possessed delightful handling characteristics, and was one of the few aeroplanes of its generation that could honestly be referred to as completely viceless. The controls were fully elective from below the stall right up to the maximum attainable speeds of around 600 knots (1,110 km/h) and a little over Mach 1. Artificial feel was provided by spring bungees so that the stick load varied only with stick displacement and not at all with speed. Pitch and roll trim were applied by means of the usual conical button on top of the stick, and on earlier aircraft, prior to XB801, the rate of pitch trim was so fast that it was virtually possible to fly the aircraft entirely through the trim button, although the practice was frowned upon. Hydraulic power for the controls was normally supplied by an engine-driven pump, and an electrical back-up pump was designed to cut in automatically in the event of a failure, although I never heard of a case of control failure with a RAF Sabre.

Somewhat underpowered

        When they received their Sabres, the former Vampire squadrons switched their primary ro1e from ground attack to day intercept and air superiority, but even with a clean aircraft, the Sabre’s initial rate of climb was only something of the order of 5,000 ft/min (25.4 m/sec), and it took around 12 minutes for a formation climbing at 97 per cent power to reach 35,000 ft (10,670 m). Such a shallow climb covered a substantial slice of countryside, and it took the GCI radar controllers some time to appreciate this fact, often to our considerable frustration. Inadequate engine thrust was undoubtedly the Sabre’s principal handicap as a weapon, and our operational techniques were largely dictated by the strictly limited acceleration and climb, and, to quote current parlance, the inadequate SEP (Specific Excess Power) that resulted. Our most likely adversary at the time, the MiG-15, did not suffer so serious a handicap, and a basic rule was to regard 400 knots (740 km/h) IAS or Mach 0.8 as absolute minimum speeds from which the Sabre could be accelerated reasonably quickly.

        For cruising in battle formation, Mach 0.87 was about the best that we could do. The magnificent all-round vision made for first class cross cover with a relatively tight formation, and this was just as well, as emphasis during training was placed on being bounced from above, it being assumed that the MiG-15 would invariably have altitude advantage. The tactic found most effective in such a situation over Korea had been to leave the "break" to the last possible moment, and then turn hard in a downwards direction to achieve and maintain both a high rate of turn and high transonic speed. Attempts on the part of MiG-15 pilots to follow this manoeuvre had frequently presented them with some ,embarrassing control problems.

        From above 35,000 ft (10 670 m), Mach 1 was achieved quite easily by a clean Sabre diving steeply, and it took quite a while for this novelty to wear off when we first acquired our new mounts. On one fine day, no fewer than 40 sonic booms were recorded over our airfield alone. With drop tanks it was quite difficult to exceed Mach 0.97, but clean or otherwise, at such speeds the Sabre produced no significant control phenomena. At around Mach 0.95 there was a brief and easily-held heaviness of the port wing, and the occasional aircraft produced aileron reversal if very high roll rates were initiated close to the maximum speed. However, the latter caused no control difficulties, simply reducing the achieved rate of roll. The reason for this phenomena was wing flexing, and the Sabre structure certainly had quite a lot of give in it which we always believed to be the secret of its durability.

        Although we were presented with few opportunities to give public displays, the Sabre was a very pleasant aircraft with which to perform formation aerobatics, and we were rather proud of the relatively small amount of airspace that we occupied for our display. It was during this kind of flying that one could see the structure flexing, the wings bowing noticeably and the aft fuselage wrinkling as g was applied.

        Possessing such good handling characteristics, the Sabre simply had to be a good gun platform, although its six 0.5-in (12,7-mm) Brownings did not endow it with too much hitting power. On some of our early practice shoots there were disputes as to whether the small holes in the flag target were hits or runway tears! The Sabre was equipped with the A4 gunsight and AN/APG-30 radar that would lock on to and track targets at ranges of up to 1,800 yds (1,645 m). Initially, technical support for the gun ranging radar was a little thin under foot, but once this problem had been ironed out we began to achieve dramatically better results than were possible with the old manual ranging gyro sight.

        In air-to-ground firing it took some time and a few painful experiences to prove that good results demanded much lower dive angles than we had used with earlier aircraft if we were to both get in range and pull out safely with a reasonable attacking speed. The Sabre was equipped to deliver a variety of bombs, rockets and other stores, with provision in the sight for automatic bomb release, but in RAF service these facilities went unused. On occasion, however, we did tow our own targets for air-to-air gunnery. A target could be launched from beneath each wing, but we always towed our targets off the runway.

        Unlike some aircraft in its category, the Sabre was cleared for intentional spinning, even with two 100 Imp gal (455 1) drop tanks slung beneath the wings. It invariably stalled quite straight, and if held in the stall simply oscillated gently in pitch while descending rapidly, recovery being immediate. Vigorous use of the rudder was called for to get into a spin, and when this materialised it was completely innocuous, with a slow rate of rotation coupled with a gentle rise and fall of the nose as about 2,000 ft (610 m) was lost in each turn. Normal recovery action was always effective, and if hands and feet were removed the Sabre would recover from the spin without any effort on the part of its pilot.

        Two strange deficiencies in such a well equipped aircraft as the Sabre were the artificial horizon and the gyrosyn compass, both of which would topple during relatively mild deviations from straight and level flight, and thus left much to be desired. The compass could be quickly reset on some aircraft by means of a button on the panel and on others by tripping and resetting the appropriate circuit breaker, the latter usually having a piece of string attached to cater for pilots who were not also contortionists. The horizon also had a caging button, but Sabre pilots soon became skilled in limited-panel letdowns. The instrumentation did not conform with any standard layout, but instrument flying presented no problems, and like most aircraft, the Sabre had a power setting catering approximately for letdown, circuit and final approach, drag being varied by the items extended into the airstream.

        For the Sabre the power setting was around 80 per cent, the letdown speed with air brakes extended being 280 knots (5-0 km/ h), dropping to 160 knots (296 km/h) with undercarriage and flaps extended for the intermediate approach, and to 135 knots (250 km/h) with full flap on finals. These figures allowed wingmen plenty in hand during formation approaches. One novelty, in so far as the RAF was concerned, was provision of a radio compass. It was useful when we operated in concert with the USAF, and even more so on detachments that took Sabre squadrons to the Middle East, but instructions on its use for instrument procedures came almost entirely from fellow pilots who had undergone training in North America.

        We took considerable pride in our snappy breaks into tight circuits, the Sabre being ideal for this. The favoured method was to fly low along the runway at 400 knots (740 km/h), close the throttle, pop the airbrakes, roll and pull all in one movement so that the aircraft did a smart 180 degree turn, pulling as much as 6g, and arriving at about 1,500 ft (457 m) in the downwind position. The speed would then be failing through 200 knots (370 km/h) so that, as the turn was continued on to final approach, the undercarriage and flaps could be lowered, and, with a modicum of luck, the threshold crossed at about 110 knots (204 km/h) without further application of power.

        This threshold speed was about right for a clean aircraft with less than 500 lb (227 kg) of remaining fuel, this being the most common condition in which the circuit was rejoined. At higher landing weights the speed could rise as high as 130 knots (240 km/h). It was possible to make the initial run in at much higher speed, and by pulling even harder, get the aircraft to rotate to a point in the general direction of downwind while it continued for an appreciable distance in horizontal flight, the various force vectors sorting themselves out meanwhile. The air brakes were designed to produce a 3g pitch-up at 400 knots (740 km/h) which was of great help, but such a manoeuvre was, of course, quite useless other than to show just how docile the Sabre was.

        Towards the end of the Korean War, it was found that the onset of buffet could be delayed and the pilot of the Sabre given an increase in usable gs by deleting the leading-edge slats and extending the wing leading-edge six inches (15.24 cm) at the root and three inches (7.62 cm) at the tip. There were slight increases in climb rate and maximum speed, but these had to be paid for at the other end of the scale where circuit speeds rose by five to ten knots (9-18 km/h), and at low attitude the modified Sabre demanded a little more respect. At the stall, modified aircraft usually dropped a wing.

        Very few of the Sabres delivered to the RAF arrived with this so-called "hard" (or 6-3) wing, but the last RAF Wing to re-equip with the Sabre, at Jever in northern Germany, received the modified aircraft, and on No. 26 Squadron at Oldenburg we briefly operated two "hard" wing Sabres in concert with our 22 slatted aircraft. This came about through our success in diverting, as temporary replacements to make up our own attrition, two aircraft en route to No. 4 Squadron. This temporary expropriation on our part was not very well received by the pilots of No. 4 Squadron, and their annoyance was undoubtedly increased by the lack of tact that we displayed in painting our squadron markings on their aircraft.

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