F-86 Flight Manual Pdf
Steven
Looks and flies great, but I did find it odd that I was able to go supersonic in level flight at 20k with roughly 98% power. From my understanding it could only go supersonic in a dive but I was able to get up to M1.3+ at higher altitudes.
A question - how is everybody handling flaps? Via LVARs? Or just drop full flaps on final as though it was a Spitfire? Interested to hear about the options. Flap control seems to be the one point of complexity (or hardcore authenticity, if you prefer) in an otherwise pretty accessible product.
according to the manual, if you throw the flaps lever to open, the flaps will begin to deploy. you can then push it to hold and the flaps will hold in whatever position they were in during deployment. to simplify things, blackbird made it so that your flap axis control will move the flaps through their entire range just by leaving the lever in the hold position
Designed to a 1944 US Army requirement for an escort fighter, the original proposal was quickly re-designed at the end of the war to incorporate newly available German data on swept wings. First flown as the P-86A in 1947, several versions were developed as all-weather/night fighters (F-86D & F-86K) and fighter/bombers (F-86H). Licence production was undertaken in Canada, Australia, Italy and Japan.
We offer five titles covering many variants of the F-86 including foreign manufactured versions. Each title is US$9.95. Each file has been scanned from the original flight manuals and retains any colour pages.
On April 14th, McConnell was attacked by a MiG-15 piloted by Soviet ace Semyon Fedorets, McConnell's F-86 was severely damaged but McConnell was able to reverse the fight and shoot down Fedorets. (watching Fedorets eject from his destroyed Mig-15) Too damaged to land, (barely flying), fortunately, he was able to reach the Yellow Sea and managed to eject from his stricken fighter, and a rescue helicopter plucked him from the water and brought him home. (both Fedorets and McConnell were credited with victories for the action)
McConnell was immediately ordered home to the USA, (Gen. Barcus, head of Far East Air Force, didn't want to risk his top ace to any further combat, and is reported to have said, "I want that man on his way back home to the U.S.A. before you hear the period at the end of this sentence.") His F-86 was quickly repainted to remove the Russian Mig symbols he was using for victory markers in exchange for N Korean/Chinese red stars and a very famous, obviously staged, photo was taken of him and his crew chief for publication, they even re-spelled his aircraft's nickname to how the public affairs section thought it should be spelled... (shooting Russian MiG's down over Red China was still a military secret at the time)
On arrival home, he served with the Sabre-equipped 445th FS at George AFB in California. Shortly afterwards, he was assigned as a test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base to evaluate the then new F-86H variant. While conducting a test flight in the 5th production example, F-86H-1-NA, sn.52-1981, on August 25th, 1954, the aircraft experienced a horizontal control surface failure at low altitude and crashed. McConnell tried to ride it out and land the plane, (dead-stick landings were a specialty of his in Korea) but a gust of wind off the desert floor lifted a wing as he was settling to the ground, too close to recover... He ejected from the aircraft, but it was too late, He was found next to his seat, his unopened parachute separated and came to rest a half mile away....
This is the real test can a good polished BMF be done... We are going to find out.... (I believe for a high flying aircraft the only way to describe the finish is chameleon like, it changes with the surroundings)
Yep it's why the Airforce created the Test Pilots School at Muroc in the early '50's they found that there were two types of pilots the Jimmy Doolittle type seat of the pants flyer, and the Orville Wright types who needed to understand everything in a methodical engineering approach to flying.... Both could make good test pilots if they have what Yeager called the "gift".... Sometimes like in the case of McConnell, the pilot could do everything right and still get killed.... (McConnell's loss was directly attributable to bad maintenance procedures and sloppy manufacturing quality control and several AF heads rolled cause of it) Yeager was actually given the task of replicating the fault that caused McConnell's loss, but he did it at 32,000 feet.... (and had to eject from the aircraft when it occurred)
There are several hundred Aces that became test pilots, most had uneventful careers as test pilots... But there are a few that just stick into your memory... Dick Bong & Donald Umphres testing the P-80 Shooting Star, Jack Bade testing the F-105, George Welch, (yes, THAT George Welch) testing the F-100 Super Sabre....
Great pilots all.... Of course when most are asked who they consider the greatest test pilot many will answer Chuck Yeager, and I can't fault them for that.. But when Chuck is asked that question, his answer is Neil Armstrong... Neil was from the engineering school of test pilots, Chuck was from the Doolittle school of test piloting.... That says a lot...
Yeah Airframe silver is as close to true BMF you can get with a spray paint I feel... Very Very close... We are gonna see here if it CAN be done.... the results of my testing so far have me very optimistic for a good result...
The Kit accurately represents an F-86F-30-NA right down the the instrument panel.. (correct instrument layout for a -1 to a -30 model) so you can model pretty much any late Korean War F-86F with non-slatted "6/3" wings installed... (wing configuration is an issue with this kit as there were several variations of wings employed on Sabre's and to model a specific aircraft requires a little education in Sabre version history) Not applicable here cause I'm directly modeling a sabre in this configuration, F-86F-1-NA #51-2910.
I think it's a very presentable kit, it does have some challenges, (don't they all, chuckle) some modification surgery is going to be needed, to present it in a real world situation... Thankfully there is aftermarket to correct the relatively minor issues.... I will present those additions as I come to them.... Wish me luck my friend..
Thank you Yves, I'm going the full tilt route with this one, accuracy is a priority so I will be taking my time trying my best... At least everyone knows what the kit actually is, and that's a good thing...
The upper left corner shows the two kit options, A decal sandwiched between clear plastic panels, or a raised plastic panel... they are close to the actual instrument panel layout as shown from the flight manual page but not exact... The next option on the lower left is the Aires cockpit set for this model the instrument panel is a lot more accurate compared to the picture but not quite perfect... the last option on the right is the eduard set of which I only have the instrument panel portion... It is perfectly laid out matching the flight manual image... of course with all the switched levers and buttons you need a microscope to see much less install... the Aires set gives you seatbelts and harnesses that need to be assembled as well where the eduard set gives you simpler ones much easier to install... (the eduard set also gives you a brass panel to replace the kits decal with, you can see the detail differences between the kits representation and the eduard representation clearly there)
The last image is a Palmdale (North American Aviation) built Sabre Mk 5 that is still in it's wartime configuration... This illustrates the black cockpit better than anything I could describe... Postwar, the Airforce decided that they were going to the aircraft grey cockpit with black panels (November '53) and all aircraft were to be switched to the new scheme upon the first IRAN (Inspect and Repair As Needed) so you will be very hard pressed to find any sabre aircraft with a black cockpit today, all of the currently flying refurbished/restored aircraft have a grey/black cockpit...
I'm probably going to do the Eduard instrument panel and pick out the rest of what kit details there are and call it good... There is just, in my humble opinion, no point to hacking and slashing a cockpit that no one can appreciate..., the eduard set has the most accurate IP and I'll leave it at that, I may dip into the Aires set and update the cockpit aft panel and canopy frame as the detail on those parts is better than the kit and it will be seen so that is a plus....
Looking good. I'm with you on the efforts on unseeable AM details. Most everything in the cockpit was that gray. Bezels were black, as were the canopy frames/rails. At our Southwestern bases, such as Nellis and Luke, the rails got hot as heck in the sun, so we needed to keep sleeves down and don flight gloves. Touching could lead to burns. Nowadays, they have shelters to protect the newer jets from the Sun. And good cockpit air conditioning. The F-4 had a good heater, but cooling was a joke. The Eagle A/C was vastly better.
No Kidding, can you imagine sitting in a black tub in the Korean summer sun, under glass for four to five hours at a time? Sweltering... An oven on slow cook... It was reported that occasionally a pilot would pass out from dehydration once they climbed out of the cockpit...
Well I can, EG. Did some fast FAC missions in Laos/Cambodia. We'd take off with 2 frozen water bottles and by the 3rd refueling, about 3 hours, they were gone. Got somewhat parched in the last hour or so. Cheap drunk that night. Good thing we had multiple flight suits, too. The salt stains were pretty bad, too. The hootch lady we had , scrubbed the suits with a tough bristle brush and after a few months, you could almost read thru the Nomex. What a way to fight a war.
the parts look really good....I'm sure that if you went into the history of the kit further, you may find that the molds may have fathered more. of course, this would account for the kits that seem less than perfect, depicting the positioning of the wings additional molds were created to make the parts for other variants. you may have trouble seeing the hues your outlining, if you photograph in a room or such. one suggestion would be to give the model a sort of 'green screen' as a back drop. the ambient lighting in a room will reflect hues and colors as light bounces off whatever is in the room. to get a better view of what the finish will reflect, would be to literally take the model outside, and chose a place to display for pictures. asphalt, concrete, wood would be better represented in natural lighting....and you may even get the benefit of blue sky. there were very few of these birds that were camouflaged, so you have a pretty good representative of the finish you want to achieve
c80f0f1006