🇦🇺 Australian Sabre vs Canadian 🇨🇦 Sabre: which was the ultimate dogfighting Sabre?

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Full disclosure: If you came here to read about mastodons fighting Rottweilers, look elsewhere. We are talking Cold War fighter aircraft.

One packed 25% more power than the F-86F and had 30mm guns. The other was lighter and with a slatted wing and six fifty calibre heavy machineguns. So, which ruled the roost? We enlisted fighter pilots, an Air Warfare Instructor, and an aerospace engineer to settle the debate in this fabulous deep dive into the ultimate Sabre showdown.

The North American F-86 Sabre was the most advanced fighter aircraft of its generation, offering a combination of high performance, fine handling, and advanced technology unmatched by any other. The Sabre began as a plan for a straight-winged jet carrier fighter in 1944, intended for the invasion of Japan. Then, after the Allies won, North American Aviation took German swept-wing research and its own design brilliance, and (after stumbling past the FJ-1 Fury) created a masterpiece. It was so good that British test pilot ‘Winkle’ Brown described it as a ‘jet Spitfire’ (something he certainly didn’t say about the Supermarine Attacker despite its Spiteful wing).

In the Korean War, the fast, manoeuvrable Sabre proved itself a match for the similar Soviet MiG-15. Soon after, though the F-86 had much developmental potential, the US became besotted with supersonic fighters. The US had the budget to leap ahead to other fighters, but the final USAF F-86 had not squeezed every ounce of fighter potential from the Sabre. It took a couple of Commonwealth nations to refine the F-86 into its ultimate fighter form.

(For those unfamiliar with the term, the original British Commonwealth was essentially the Empire’s racist platinum card: self-rule for white-run dominions, colonial rule for much of everyone else)

Today, we’ll examine the ultimate Sabres and, alongside an aerospace engineer, a former fighter pilot and test pilot, and a pilot who flew one of the Sabres in question, decide which was the best.

As I write this, it is a dreich October day in England; I want to think about sunny places. So, let’s start in Australia. Australia produced some brilliant aerospace talent, from Don L. Brown, designer of the Miles M.52, Britain’s ambitious but doomed answer to the Bell X-1, to Fred David, the man behind the CAC CA-15, a Griffon-powered fighter capable of around 442 mph, to Lawrence Wackett – a pilot, engineer and the driving force behind Australia’s aircraft industry. As head of CAC, he helped build the company while pushing Australian engineers to develop their own designs.

His influence carried into the jet age. Before anyone asked, he had started chatting with North American Aviation in 1949 about making Sabres in Australia. Local production, including spare parts, was essential. Relying on a support chain stretching halfway around the world made little sense — a lesson Australia would struggle to learn again with the scuppered Tiger attack helicopter decades later.

In 1949, the Royal Australian Air Force had just begun flying its locally built, licence-produced Vampires, but it was already considering its replacement. It also needed a replacement for the F-51D Mustang, the mainstay of its air force. After considering an indigenous effort, the CAC CA-23 (think Hunter meets Lightning meets MiG-21 meets a trout but uglier than any of them) was deemed too risky and time-consuming to develop. Australia had traditionally bought British aircraft, and ordered the Hawker P.1081 in 1950. CAC was to assemble these in Australia. The P.1081 was a halfway house between the Seahawk and the yet-to-fly Hunter, with swept wings and a Nene engine. Australia had wanted to license-produce a P.1052 derivative, but this would have to do.

Soon Australian interest waned, the project struggled, and Hawker seemed unlikely to support a licence agreement while busy with British projects. Then came the Korean War, and the RAAF’s fighters’ inferiority became critical; waiting for an unbuilt fighter was not an option. They asked the US for Sabres, but the US could barely meet its own demands. The British offered the Meteor F.Mk 8; it had to do. The RAAF rushed Meteor F.8s into service for Korea in 1951, but they were hopelessly outclassed at higher altitudes. Five were shot down by MiG-15s in air combat, including three during the disastrous engagement of 1 December 1951. No. 77 Squadron lost 54 of the 90 Gloster Meteors it operated during the Korean War. The majority of the squadron’s aircraft losses, however, occurred during ground-attack operations, largely due to enemy anti-aircraft fire and operational accidents. The Meteor’s inferiority to the MiG-15 in speed, climb and high-altitude manoeuvrability forced the squadron to abandon its principal fighter role in favour of ground attack. The Meteors claimed five MiGs destroyed, but this was in more favourable set-ups, and the figure is much disputed, with only one fully confirmed.

The RAAF kept thinking about its next fighter. They considered the Hunter and the Sabre (factoring in the time to licence-produce it). The Sabre was attractive: available, capable and combat-proven. But buying an American aircraft straight off the shelf would have been politically difficult for a government committed to its “Buy British” preference.