Completed at North American’s Inglewood plant on 8 August 1947, it was trucked to Muroc in mid-September. It was reassembled, everything was checked out, and after a few taxi tests, company test pilot George S. Welch took off for a initial familiarization flight. Chief Test Pilot Bob Chilton flew chase in an XP-82 Twin Mustang with a company photographer on board. The duration of the first flight was 1 hour, 18 minutes.
During this first flight, George Welch climbed to 35,000 feet (10,668 meters):
“In a little more than ten minutes he had reached 35,000 feet. Leveling out, the test pilot smiled as he watched the indicated airspeed accelerate to 320 knots. He estimated that should be 0.90 Mach number. . . Rolling into a 40 degree dive, he turned west. . . The airspeed indicator seemed to be stuck at about 350 knots. The Sabre was behaving just fine. Then at 29,000 feet, there was a little wing roll. Correcting the roll, George pushed into a steeper dive. The airspeed indicator suddenly jumped to 410 knots and continued to rise. At 25,000 feet, he pulled the Sabre into level flight and reduced power. The wing rocked again and the airspeed jumped back to 390.”
—Aces Wild: The Race for Mach 1, by Al Blackburn, Scholarly Resources Inc., Wilmington, Delaware, 1998, at Chapter 5, Pages 144–145.
George Welch was the first to report instrument readings that would be referred to as “Mach jump.” It has been argued that George Welch flew the XP-86 beyond Mach 1 during this flight, breaking the “sound barrier” two weeks before Chuck Yeager did with the Bell X-1 rocketplane. During flight testing, it was firmly established that the XP-86 could reach Mach 1.02–1.04 in a dive, so it is certainly possible that he did so on the Sabre’s first flight.
The XP-86 was unlike any airplane before it. It was the first airplane with a swept wing. After analyzing test data from the Messerschmitt Me 262, North American’s engineers designed a wing with a 35° degree sweepback to its leading edge. The wing tapered toward the tips, and its thickness also decreased from the root to the tip. In order to create a very strong but very thin wing, it was built with a two-layered aluminum skin, instead of ribs and spars, with each layer separated by “hat” sections. The wing sweep allowed high speed shock waves to form without stalling the entire wing.
The wing also incorporated leading edge “slats” which were airfoil sections that automatically extended below 290 knots, smoothing the air flow over the wing’s upper surface and creating more lift at slow speeds. Above that speed, aerodynamic forces closed the slats, decreasing drag and allowing for higher speeds. Effectively, the wing could change its shape in flight.
The XP-86 prototypes were 37 feet, 6½ inches (11.443 meters) long with a wingspan of 37 feet, 1–7/16 inches (11.314 meters) and overall height of 14 feet, 9 inches (4.496 meters). The empty weight was 9,730 pounds (4,413.5 kilograms), gross weight, 13,395 pounds (6,075.9 kilograms) and maximum takeoff weight was 16,438 pounds (7,456.2 kilograms).
The XP-86 was initially powered by a General Electric-designed, Chevrolet-built J35-C-3 turbojet which produced 4,000 pounds of thrust. This was soon changed to an Allison J35-A-5. Performance testing was conducted with the Allison engine installed. The J35 was a single-spool, axial-flow turbojet engine with an 11-stage compressor and single-stage turbine. The J35-A-5 was rated at 4,000 pounds of thrust (17.79 kilonewtons) at 7,700 r.p.m. (static thrust, Sea Level). The engine was 14 feet, 0.0 inches (4.267 meters) long, 3 feet, 4.0 inches (1.016 meters) in diameter and weighed 2,400 pounds (1,089 kilograms).
The maximum speed of the XP-86 at Sea Level was 0.787 Mach (599 miles per hour, 964 kilometers per hour), 0.854 Mach (618 miles per hour, 995 kilometers per hour) at 14,000 feet (4,267 meters) and 575 miles per hour (925 kilometers per hour) at 35,000 feet (10,668 meters)—0.875 Mach.
The prototype fighter was able to take off at 125 miles per hour (201 kilometers per hour) in just 3,020 feet (920.5 meters) of runway. It could climb to 30,000 feet (9,144 meters) in 12.1 minutes and had a service ceiling of 41,300 feet (12,588 meters).
XP-86 45-59597 was expended as a target during nuclear weapons tests. On 25 May 1953, it was 1,850 feet from ground zero of Upshot Knothole Grable. The only part still intact was the engine, which was thrown 500 feet.
George Welch was born George Lewis Schwartz, in Wilmington, Delaware, 10 May 1918. His parents changed his surname to Welch, his mother’s maiden name, so that he would not be effected by the anti-German prejudice that was widespread in America following World War I. He studied mechanical engineering at Purdue, and enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1939.
George S. Welch is best remembered as one of the heroes of Pearl Harbor. He was one of only two fighter pilots to get airborne during the Japanese surprise attack on Hawaii, 7 December 1941. Flying a Curtiss P-40B Warhawk, he shot down three Aichi D3A “Val” dive bombers and one Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero fighter. For this action, Lieutenant General H.H. “Hap” Arnold recommended the Medal of Honor, but because Lieutenant Welch had taken off without orders, an officer in his chain of command refused to endorse the nomination. He received the Distinguished Service Cross.
During World War II, George Welch flew the Bell P-39 Airacobra and Lockheed P-38 Lightning on 348 combat missions. He had 16 confirmed aerial victories over Japanese airplanes and rose to the rank of Major.
Suffering from malaria, George Welch was out of combat, and when North American Aviation approached him to test the new P-51H Mustang, General Arnold authorized his resignation. Welch test flew the P-51, FJ-1 Fury, F-86 Sabre and F-100 Super Sabre. He was killed 12 October 1954 when his F-100A Super Sabre came apart in a 7 G pull up from a Mach 1.5 dive.
After testing, the North American Aviation XP-86 was approved for production as the F-86A. It became operational in 1949. The first squadron to fly the F-86 held a naming contest and from 78 suggestions, the name “Sabre” was chosen. The F-86 Sabre was in production until 1955 at North American’s Inglewood, California, and Columbus, Ohio, plants. It was also built under license by Canadair, Ltd., Sain-Laurent, Quebec, Canada; the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation, Port Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries at Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan. A total of 9,860 Sabres were built. They served with the United States Air Force until 1970.
XP-86 45-59597 was expended in nuclear weapons tests, Operation Snapper Easy and Snapper Fox, at the Nevada Test Site, Frenchman’s Flat, Nevada, in May 1952. The second and third prototypes, 45-59598 and 45-59599, met similar fates.
© 2017, Bryan R. Swopes
XP-86 45-59597 should have saved and then been given an honored place in the USAF museum in Dayton. What a waste of history. They saved the XP-80…
It probably wasn’t saved because it would have brought too much attention to the fact that it was the first aircraft to go past the sound barrier (and survive).
“Aces Wild” is a great book which documents this period in aviation history from the other side of the X-1. The X-1 was a great research tool but in my book, it’s the world’s second supersonic aircraft.
Excellent posting Mr Swopes!
Thank you, Thomas.
Hello Sir-
Enjoy your website immensely! Please consider an entry for the Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow, rolled out to the public 62 years ago on 4 October 1957. This event was unfortunately overshadowed by the launch on the same day of the U.S.S.R.’s Sputnik I.
More info here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Canada_CF-105_Arrow
Thanks!
Alan Green
I believe the North American plant in Ohio was in Columbus not Cleveland. I look forward to reading TDiA ever day. Carl
Thank you, Carl. I’ll fix it. 🙂
A wide assortment of aircraft were made at the Columbus plant. During WW Two the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver , many models of NA aircraft and finally parts for the Rockwell B1B. It is now used for office space. Carl
I note that “an officer in Welch’s chain of command” refused to endorse Gen Arnold’s recommendation for the MOH, because he took off without orders. That officer should have been recommended for early retirement, with a reprimand for lack of spine. If Welch had waited for orders, his aircraft would most likely have been destroyed on the ground, as were many US aircraft on the Day of Infamy.
Loved the f-86. Not many of us Sabre drivers left.
It was the first model airplane I built, some time in the late 1960s, and ever since I’ve thought it the best looking fighter ever made, rivaled only by the P-51 and F-16. The proportions and visual balance of the F-86 are just right.
Is the 290 kt slat extension speed correct? It seems extremely high.
Good question, but that’s the info that I found. Later models had teh “6-3” wing, which replaced the slats with an extended leading edge.
The AF Museum has not been very good at retaining prototypes. The once white B-1 prototype is now elsewhere. The YB-36, XB-52, YB-52 all once displayed at the NMUSAF, were all scrapped.
“The XP-86 was unlike any airplane before it. It was the first airplane with a swept wing.”
Seems questionable statement. Surely that label belongs to the Me262 which 1st flew in 1941?
The leading edges of the Me 262 wings were swept aft 18.5°, this was done to keep the wing aerodynamic center in correct relation to the airplane’s center of gravity, as was the wing of the Douglas DC-3. The XP-86 wings were swept 35° specifically to increase the wings’ critical Mach number. This was proposed in 1945 by a NACA aerodynamicist, Robert T. Jones. Tthe German test results were not known in the U.S. at the time.
Several other airplanes had swept wings prior to the F-86, such as the Dunne biplanes. But, as you reply, the sweep was used to rectify CG and stability and control issues, not for high-speed flight.
Perhaps your statement would be more correct to say “The XP-86 was unlike any airplane before it. It was the first airplane to incorporate a swept wing specifically for high-speed flight.”
True. The Douglas DC-3 had about the same leading edge sweep as the Messerschmitt Me-262, and for the same reason. To keep teh center of lift close to the center of gravity.