The Sabre leaves the RAF

        The Sabre’s career in the RAF was decidedly brief, lasting less than four years, but when we received our first Hunter F 4s, the well-known early deficiencies of this swept-wing second-generation British fighter served to remind us of what a good aircraft the Sabre in fact was! Although we were happy with the considerable increase in thrust that the Hunter offered, we initially regarded conversion to the new aircraft as something of a retrograde step, and looked wistfully at the newer Orenda-powered Sabre 5s and 6s then equipping the RCAF’s squadrons in Europe.

        I was lucky enough to renew my acquaintance with the Sabre after leaving the RAF to take up a position as a test pilot, my new tasks including flying aircraft overhauled for the RCAF in Europe, and also the ex-RAF Sabres after refurbishing for delivery to other air forces under various aid programmes. The former RCAF Sabre Mk 2s now known as F-86E(M) Sabres, were delivered in equal numbers to Greece and Turkey (receiving 107 each), while 180 ex-RAF Sabres went to Italy’s Aeronautica Militare and 121 of the remainder to Yugoslavia. Many of these aircraft had long and useful lives with their new owners, and I recall watching some attractive displays by the Aeronautica Militare formation acrobatic team mounted on these ex-RAF Sabres.

        The division of responsibility for the overhaul of the Sabres was unusually complicated. Airwork, Aviation Traders, and Westland were the principal companies concerned, with engines overhauled by Bristol, all under contract to the Ministry of Supply. The overhauled aircraft, usually retaining the RAF’s 2nd TAF grey-and-green camouflage but sporting USAF insignia and RCAF serial numbers, were mostly ferried to Pratica di Mar, near Rome, by USAF personnel. The rather involved reason for this would seem to have been that the Sabres, originally assigned to the RAF from MDAP funds, were now being reassigned under the MDAP, but the Sabre refurbishing programme was the financial responsibility of the British government as an offset for some of the US financial support for new aircraft, mostly Hunters and Canberras, going to the RAF. Nevertheless, US project officers and inspectors as well as pilots exercised quality control in co-operation with the usual AID inspectors and company pilots. The politics of this situation created far more problems than did aircraft defects.

        By the beginning of 1958, the Sabre refurbishing programme, bedevilled by contractual and industrial disputes, was rapidly running down. In any case, there was by then no longer any great demand for the aircraft. An attempt was even made to sell some of the Sabres to Switzerland, and a demonstration machine went to that country. Various schemes, including the fitting of an uprated engine and a tail ‘chute, were mooted to render the Sabre more suitable for the unique Swiss operating conditions, but the Sabre’s only real asset was, by then, its extremely low price, and this in itself was not enough to attract a Swiss buy. Eventually, arrangements were made with Fokker in the Netherlands to store the few remaining J47-powered Canadair Sabres, but these arrangements fell down, and a few years ago these once-proud fighters were presenting a rather sad spectacle as they rotted quietly away on the airfield at Lasham.