if you glanced up into a clear Southern German sky in the 1950s then the chances are that you would spot contrails high above you look more closely and you might pick out dancing silvery shapes falling and Rising turning and twisting in the blue if you were lucky maybe one of those shapes would race past you at the bottom of a daring dive before barreling up and back into the fight one fighter owned these skies in the late 1950s and threw into the early 1960s the Canada a saber a NATO fighter that hounded its allies and defied its advancing years when it finally left the theater it would also leave a gap unfilled even by the technological Terrors that has succeeded it it was not until the F-15 that a true air superiority fighter would return to European Skies once more this is the story of Canada's darting silver saber it is also an examination of its claim cl to be the ultimate example of its breed I imagine some controversy will ensue Canada was one of the initiators of NATO in 1949 as a Founder member it needed to deploy forces to Europe to serve alongside its allies as a back stop to perceived Soviet expansionism this posed a problem for the Royal Canadian Air Force the araf had been an early adopter of jet fighters their chosen platform was was the robust and coste effective deavin vampire although a neat design and a clear step up from props and pistons the vampire was clearly obsolete by 1949 its suitability as a Frontline defender of NATO was marginal at best Canada's traditional partner in aircraft procurement was Great Britain however the British aircraft industry was at the beginning of its long and sad decline the only thing it could offer was the straight-winged meteor f8 and Hawker Seahawk or the promise of a hawker Hunter sometime in the coming decade fortunately there was another option closer to home by 1949 it was very clear that North American Aviation had another winner on its hands with the f86 since the araf wanted a very large number of aircraft to supply its burgeoning needs Canadair was tasked with negotiating a licensing agreement with North American that entailed the supply of around 46,000 drawings both for the aircraft and for some of the key machine tools needed to make it this latter Point can't be underplayed North American Aviation were more than just brilliant designers in some ways their Real Genius lay in the ways that they designed the machines that mass produced complex Parts like the saber Wing skins to this point 90% of the parts used to assemble the first batch of 100 f-86a made in Canada were sh shipped in from North American aviation's Factory to Caville near Montreal for final assembly by the end of the Canada Sabers long production run this situation would nearly be reversed with 85% of the components being made in Canada the procurement decision caused a degree of outrage in a section of the Canadian political establishment a campaign in the Toronto media always happy to throw shade at Montreal accompanied their by British fervor the center of the campaign was the relatively High Cost of Sabers versus de havin vampires for the same cost as the initially muted 130 Sabers the Royal Canadian Air Force could have 800 vampires I'm of the opinion that 130 Sabers would likely beat 800 vampires in any sort of conflict but that's a duck-sized horses versus horse-sized Ducks kind of debate at one point it was even claimed that the vampire was the world's top performance fighter in 1949 yeah fortunately Common Sense prevailed the first Canadian saber was an identical copy of the f86 A5 and was designated cl13 saber Mark 1 apparently this was a stipulation from the US dood requiring for them to give permission for the million doll license given that it was identical I'll link to a previous video on the American saber if you want more details on that model the short summary is that it has a wing with Leading Edge slats plumbed for drop tanks and an A1 CM Gun Site using the anap G30 radar for ranging fire power is in the form of 650 caliber machine guns and engine power is from a j47 ge13 producing £5,200 of thrust while the negotiations were happening and the factory being set up North American had developed the f-86e which featured many improvements over the early model most notable was the all flying tail which greatly improved transonic stability and maneuverability in general some consideration was also apparently given to purchasing the radar equipped f-86d but this was quickly shelved remarkably the first Canadian copy of the f86 E the cl13 Mark I flew only a month after the first US produced example so by the end of 1950 Canadair was also churning out the first of 350 Mark 2s some small changes that North American introduced were also incorporated into the mark 2 during the run so some of these aircraft have the flat windshield first seen on the f86 E10 in 1952 a slightly improved version emerged designated Mark 4 this included some changes in the details such as the compass cabin air conditioning pressurization and the canopy release mechanism the latter was an issue that all saber users had encountered as designed the canopy could only be jettisoned during the ejection sequence but if the aircraft barely landed and the pilot wanted to get out he didn't want to eject as well separating the system helped but in truth the jettison system was never really perfected and Pilots were killed during ejection sequences when the canopy didn't clear out of the way fast enough you might be wondering what happened to the Mark III well as production continued a render engines were working on an alternative power plant to the j47 supply of which was always very tight because it was installed in a variety of contemporary US aircraft their prototype engine was installed into the H 100th production aircraft and was designated Mark III giving £6,000 of thrust what became the arender 10 gave the Sab useful performance boost although the initial intention had been to fit them to the markv a desire to maintain commonality with Sabers being sent to Korea led to Canada sticking with the j47 for that version the render's debut was therefore delayed until the mark 5 which also featured the f86 f-25 63 Wing this to remind you is extended 6 in at the route and 3 in at the tip and deletes the Leading Edge slats to reduce drag and improve high altitude performance the cost of these changes is higher stall speed and reduce predictability at lower speeds but given the combat conditions in Korea this was regarded as a fair exchange by pilots the production AR 10 gave this version £ 6,355 of force versus just over 6,000 in the current version of The j47 Climb rate with the combination of new wing and new engine was twice as fast as the mark 2 The Mark 5 reached 40,000 ft in 9 minutes half the time of its predecessor the cost of the larger wing and the structural changes needed to mount the render engine was an increase in empty weight from 11,000 to 11,365 370 of these aircraft were produced with the Run ending in late 1954 all of this set the scene for the mark 6 there were two major changes between the mark 5 and the Mark 6 the first was the installation of the new arenda 14 engine this produced a whopping 7,275 lb of thrust and was a lovely smooth and reliable power unit by all accounts modern sources have the Renda 14 producing 7 half th000 of thrust but this conflicts with the imperior data sources I'm not sure whether there's been later retesting of a Renda 14's output but I've not found an actual source to that effect an interesting point about the installation of the arender in the f86 is that whereas on the earlier transatlantic flights the j47 powered Sabers had only about 5 minutes of fuel left even when carrying two drop tanks on the 778 M leg from Goose Bay to Blue West 1 Greenland this was increased to some 15 minutes for the saber 5 and even more for the saber 6 because of their improved specific fuel consumption despite its greatly increased thrust the saber 6 with two 120 galon drop tanks has the same range as the mark five with two 200 gallon external tanks each of the 700 mile transatlantic legs therefore took about an hour and a quarter for the Sabers depending on wind conditions during the crossing another big change was to add slats to the 63 Wing to improve low speeed handling characteristics at the expense of more drag at higher speeds otherwise the Mark 6 is the same as other Savers a hot rodded power plant in one of the lightest versions of the aircraft to give it the quick courtesy of a description it is a low- wied clear air mass day fighter with a low mounted swept wing of 35 and a bit degrees sweep back this is matched by The Sweep of the tail surfaces the wing is fitted on a 3° dihedral so the tips are slightly higher than the roots the tail dihedral is 10° all control surfaces are powered with feedback being provided to the pilot via a system of weights and pulleys that provide artificial feel ful length Leading Edge slats deploy automatically depending on air speed and angle of attack to improve low speeed handling the arender 14 engine is supplied from five self-sealing fuel tanks two in the fuel usage one in the wing Center section and one in each outer wing panel fuel is supplied by gravity feed to the center section tank and is then pumped into the engine under pressure for redundancy there are three hydraulic systems the normal system is powered by an engine driven pump and operates the aerons and tail surfaces the alternate is based around an electrically driven pump and can be used in the event of a normal system failure finally there is the utility system which also operates off the engine and can supply the landing gear speed brakes and wheel brakes to protect the pilot there is armor plate both ahead and behind the cockpit you can maybe see why the saber proved so tough in career Armament was typical of most Sabers six 50 caliber machine guns three each side of the engine intake each has its own cassette magazine able to hold 300 rounds although the normal load was 267 later modifications would enable the Mark 6 to employ The a9b Sidewinder two weapons could be carried one on each inboard Wing pylon although they look comically large on the diminutive saber their carriage had negligible impact on performance when they arrived in Europe at the end of 1956 they were the hottest aircraft the alliance could muster besides the onp paper capabilities of the f100a which would need to remain uncashed long enough to actually use said capabilities in an actual conflict the Canadian Pilots were also tasked solely with their superiority and they honed their skills on any passing NATO aircraft who could find time to have an impromptu scrap for this reason the reputation of both the Canadian pilots and the Mark 6 saber grew to Epic Proportions many books therefore have this as the ultimate saber but is it really well the case for it is based around the Mark 6 unique combination of lightweight and high power because a render 14 was slightly lighter than j47 it essentially weighs the same as an f86 e but with 40% more power and thus the same Wing loading if you look at the statistics in isolation then you have a 700 MH capable aircraft some sources say 710 which isn't what's in the official manual and doesn't sound right given the transonic drag the airframe experiences it climbs at 11,800 ft per minute from sea level and has the best power to wait of any saber so that's it then we're home and hosted well obviously I'm too contrary for that we should look at the other candidates for the ultimate saber if we stick for now to Ultimate meaning the best dog fighting aircraft then I think we need to look at three Alternatives the ultimate j47 saber was the f-40 based on the Japanese model built by mitubishi for the self-defense Force the F40 has a 63 Wing but with slatted leading edges extended by 12 in at the tip to give the largest Wing area of any saber model that Wing comes with added weight but greater area so the F40 has a marginally lower wing loading than the Mark 6 and greater lift but substantially lower thrust to weight as it only has a 6,000 thrust j47 the F40 does have some advantages over the Mark 6 at high altitude where the larger finer Wing should enable it to turn more effectively however the Rel lack of power would probably negate any benefits from that Arrangement and therefore I think we can conclude that the Mark 6 is Superior in most situations so let's try again the ultimate us saber chronologically at least was the f86h saber hog now the saber hog is so different from the standard saber that it should arguably be regarded as a different aircraft but whereas I'm excluding all weather Sabers from this comparison as they're genuinely completely different ples I'm going to allow the hog because I like it and I can the hog's j73 engine puts the arender firmly in its place it develops nearly 9,000 of thrust in a package that is also smaller and lighter the issue with the j73 was the amount of air it needed to feed the turbine which necessitated an increase in size of the original saber's fuselage because the Air Force wanted the hog as a nuclear strike aircraft they filled that space with fuel to increase range leading to a big increase in weight empty it weighs £3,000 more than the Mark 6 thrust to weight is therefore a little worse although the hog's big Power means that it still climbs faster it shares a wing with the F40 but the hog really was a low and medium altitude Fighter the other big change was in Armament most but not all saber Hogs have four M39 20 mm cannons in place of machine guns this is an important change because it increases throw weight in a 3 second burst from about 15 in the Mark 6 to 66 in the hog and remember a proportion of that is explosive still Firepower is useless if the enemy is behind you and unfortunately for the hog accounts by the National Guard Pilots that flew it in Europe suggest that in their regular tussles with the Canadians the Mark 6 always came out on top incidentally if Ultimate encompassed Fighter bomber capability then the saber hog was significantly Superior in any attack context it could carry more weapons further and the Cannons made it a much better option for strafing but this is about airto air and even then the Mark 6 is not quite over the line there was another on approximately the opposite side of the world from the Royal Canadian Air Force the Royal Australian Air Force also elected to buy Sabers but while the Canadians produced well over a thousand examples exporting many to NATO allies CAC and Australia produced a little over a 100 Sabers in a six-year production run their Avon saber also features a different engine and you guessed it it's the Rolls-Royce Avon fitting it led to a major structural change but not to the extent found in the hog whereas the Mark 6 went back to a slatted 63 Wing the Avon saber just has the normal noral aerodynamic hard Edge 63 Wing in its Mark 32 version it is also more powerful although very slightly increased takeoff weight means marginally lower thrust to weight and marginally higher Wing loading but I'm not dismissing the Avon saber based on those slightly worse statistics and I'm going to do that for two reasons first of course the statistics aren't Universal truths across the flight envelope the purpose of the 63 Wing without slats was to reduce drag and improve high altitude maneuverability the Mark 6 attempts to Brute Force through these problems which works when carrying the kind of performance Advantage it has over an f86 F or H I don't think it would give much of any advantage against the mark 32 however in fact at higher levels I suspect the advantage might be the other way round and if we were at combat weight the CAC saber carries more internal fuel than the Mark 6 which is where the weight increase comes from burn them down to the same number of gallons and the weight difference is negligible the balance is very fine between the two aircraft if the fight is long then it will likely devolve into one at lower and lower speeds and lower and lower altitudes in this regime the mark 6's Wing slats give it lower stall speed and better turning performance but then it has to have the fuel to sustain the fight in essence if the fighters are equivalent from a maneuverability perspective and the pilots have equal skill things start to come down to other factors particularly Firepower and this is where I think things are one and lost if we're talking ultimate Sabers as I mentioned the Mark 6 puts down 15 pounds of bullets in a 3 second burst from 650 caliber machine guns the Avon saber has two 30 mm Aiden cannons each of these monsters fires 1500 high explosive shells a minute giving a projectile weight of nearly 73b in a 3 second burst the saber was tough but three or four hits from High Velocity explosive 30 mm shells would likely see to its day my view then is that objectively the ultimate air-to-air saber is the mark 32 with the mark six an exceptionally close second I can imagine that opinion will cause me some problems at a later date none of this of course makes the Canada a saber bad aircraft on the contrary it was a justif Prov success many hundreds were sold to export customers as an alternative to American built Sabers which were typically quite hard to get hold of due to the usaf's own isable demand for the type in the early 1950s outside of Canada the biggest user of the early marks was the RAF which acquired 428 Mark 4S between December 1952 and December 1953 financed by the US and Canadian governments many of these aircraft fought in Korea and were then returned to the US between 56 and 58 as Hawker Hunters entered RAF service in large numbers West Germany was the largest Export customer for the mark 6 operating 225 of these and 75 Mark 5 from 1957 to 1964 some were retained for training or more likely for joy riding and only retired in the early 1980s 90 Mark sixes were sold to Pakistan in in 1966 from those German stocks in Canadian service the first sabes made the Atlantic Crossing in 1951 eventually a dozen squadrons will be stationed in Europe typically those equipped with Mark 2s would trade up for fours F and sixes as soon as they came available the last operational Canadian saber was paid off on the 22nd of January 1970 some were later converted to drones and expended as targets very various proposals were made to improve performance still further these were possible because of the depth and quality of understanding that Canada had about the saber no other license he got anything close to that level the Canadian Aerospace industry was able to build both the aircraft and the engine within the same industrial base no mean feat even in the late 1950s notable amongst those proposals was the idea of fitting an afterburner for the mark 6 which seemed to have some Merit but would ultimately have pushed up against the airframes aerodynamic limits for little real benefit rather less credibly an Armstrong Sidle snarler rocket system was fitted to one prototype to increase climb rate in top speed totally mad on the subject of drag one intriguing prototype was made from the 21st Mark 5 build this aircraft was modified with an area ruled fuselage in an attempt to reduce transonic drag and perhaps enable the overpowered Mark 6 to break the sound barrier in level flight sadly the experiment was a failure and there was no meaningful impact on performance from the adjustments that aircraft also met its end as a Target drone at white stands an ignominious end to a tantalizing idea questionable Innovations aside the Canadian military aviation industry was approaching its peak in the middle to late 1950s they had scale money and ideas to burn in a tragically similar story to that which was about to hit Great Britain what they lacked was political shity vision and will
