World's oldest flying jet over Audlem

What is now the world's oldest flying jet aircraft, the NA F-86 Sabre, was spotted flying over Audlem yesterday.

Our thanks to Peter Oxley for letting us know. He says: "Sadly I didn't actually take the excellent picture but I saw it pass overhead and recongised it right away! Must be en-route to an airshow."

The North American F-86 Sabre (sometimes called the Sabrejet) was a transonic jet fighter aircraft produced by North American Aviation. The Sabre is best known as America's first swept wing fighter which could counter the similarly winged Soviet MiG-15 in high-speed dogfights over the skies of the Korean War.

Considered one of the best and most important fighter aircraft in the Korean War, the F-86 is also rated highly in comparison with fighters of other eras. Although it was developed in the late 1940s and was outdated by the end of the 1950s, the Sabre proved versatile and adaptable, and continued as a front-line fighter in numerous air forces until the last active operational examples were retired by the Bolivian Air Force in 1994.

Its success led to an extended production run of more than 7,800 aircraft between 1949 and 1956, in the United States, Japan and Italy. Variants were built in Canada and Australia. The Canadair Sabre added another 1,815 airframes, and the significantly redesigned CAC Sabre (sometimes known as the Avon Sabre or CAC CA-27), had a production run of 112. It was by far the most-produced Western jet fighter, with total production of all variants at 9,860 units.

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