North American F-100 Super Sabre
North American Aviation's F-100 Super Sabre was the first operational fighter capable of supersonic speed in level flight. First flown on 25 May 1953 and developed from the F-86 Sabre, it entered service as a day fighter and matured into a fighter-bomber that flew more than 360,000 combat sorties in Vietnam, among them the first Wild Weasel radar-suppression missions. North American built 2,294; the type later served with the Air National Guard and allied air forces, and retired airframes went on to target-drone conversions and museum display.
Why It Mattered
The F-100 Super Sabre was the first operational fighter able to fly faster than sound in level flight, the step that opened the supersonic era for the U.S. Air Force. North American Aviation developed it from the F-86 Sabre, making a bigger and more powerful aircraft, and it led off the Air Force's celebrated Century Series of fighters. It was designed as an air superiority fighter meant to counter Soviet airpower. In service, though, its lasting work was done as a fighter-bomber, above all in Vietnam, where Air & Space Forces Magazine credits the type with more than 360,000 combat sorties. The main production model, the F-100D, was built only for the fighter-bomber role and was the most widely produced version of all, with over 1,200 built.
Design Notes
The wing was swept back 45 degrees and carried leading-edge slats and slatted ailerons, but no conventional trailing-edge flaps. To withstand heating at high speed, the all-metal airframe incorporated titanium. Power came from a single Pratt & Whitney J57 turbojet with an afterburner. The YF-100 prototype went supersonic on its very first flight, on 25 May 1953. A series of early crashes forced changes to the design, among them a vertical tail enlarged by 27 percent and lengthened wings. The type also had a treacherous side: at high angles of attack it could pitch up and stall violently, a reaction pilots named the "Sabre Dance."
Operational History
The Super Sabre was declared operational in September 1954, and North American built 2,294 aircraft in all. The F-100D, the dedicated fighter-bomber version, entered service in 1956. In 1955 the type set a world speed record of 822 mph, flown by Horace Hanes. Allied air arms flew it as well: France, Denmark, Turkey and the Republic of China all operated F-100s. The Air Force's Thunderbirds demonstration team flew the type from 1956 to 1968. Nicknamed the "Hun," the Super Sabre first saw combat in Southeast Asia, and the F-100D flew its first combat strike on 9 June 1964. The F-100 became the first fighter used in the Wild Weasel mission against enemy radars. Two-seat F-100Fs flew those missions and also worked as fast forward air controllers, the celebrated "Misty" role, directing air strikes. The accident record was grim: the Smithsonian counts more than five hundred F-100Ds lost in accidents between mid-1956 and mid-1970, more than the type lost in combat in Vietnam. The last F-100Ds left Vietnam in July 1971.
Afterlife
By the early 1970s most surviving Huns had passed to Air National Guard units, and the last F-100D was withdrawn from Guard service in 1979. Abroad, Danish and Turkish F-100s soldiered on until 1982. Many retired aircraft were converted into remote-controlled target drones, designated QF-100, under the Air Force's Full Scale Aerial Target program. A few airframes passed into civilian hands, working with defense contractors that supported flight-test activity at Edwards Air Force Base. Others survive in museums: the Smithsonian displays its F-100D at the Udvar-Hazy Center as it appeared during the Tet Offensive of 1968, and Planes of Fame preserves one of the QF-100D drone conversions.