Subject: Number Eighty-Six in the Series--North American F-86 Sabre (5 of 22)

From: [email-masked]
Date: 11 Aug 93 16:13:30 GMT

>From [email-masked]

While the first production F-86s were under construction, North 
American's team was also working on a USAF requirement for a Sabre 
with larger landing gear tires.  This at first sight sounds like a 
fairly simple and straightforward thing to do--what could be easier, 
one might ask, than for the designers of the Sabre to increase the 
size of its landing gear tires?  However, as is often the case, this 
turned out to be one of those requirements which had far-reaching 
implications, needing many more changes than one might initially 
think--larger tires required larger wheelbays which in turn required a 
seven-inch wider fuselage in order to accommodate them.  Change one 
small thing and you end up having to redesign the entire airplane :-) 

These larger-wheeled aircraft ended up being so different from the 
production F-86A that they were designated F-86B.  However, the 
development of higher-pressure tire designs and better wheel brakes 
eliminated the need for larger tires, and North American recommended 
on December 1, 1946 that work on the F-86B be discontinued and that 
the contract for 190 F-86Bs be transferred to an order for 188 
F-86A-5-NAs and two F-86Cs.  This proposal was accepted by the USAF, 
and on December 16, 1948 the F-86B was officially cancelled.  

Sources:

  F-86 Sabre in Action, Larry Davis, Squadron/Signal Publications, 1992.

  The North American Sabre, Ray Wagner, MacDonald, 1963.

  The American Fighter, Enzo Angelucci and Peter Bowers, Orion, 1987.

Joe Baugher		AT&T Bell Laboratories   	
2000 North Naperville Road      Naperville, Illinois 60566-7033