This brief film from 15 September 1948 shows Major Richard L. Johnson landing at the end of a record-setting flight of the then-new North American Aviation F-86A-1-NA Sabre, 47-611. Johnson set a Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) World Record Speed Over a 3 Kilometer Course, flying the sixth production North American Aviation F-86A-1-NA Sabre at Muroc Air Force Base, California (renamed Edwards AFB in 1949). Note the gun port doors on this early production aircraft. They opened in 1/20 second as the trigger was pressed. Proper adjustment was complex and they were soon eliminated.
The air temperature was 70° F. (21° C.) with very little wind. Making four consecutive passes at an altitude of 75–125 feet (23 to 38 meters), the Sabre averaged 1,079.84 kilometers per hour (670.98 miles per hour) — 0.889 Mach. The slowest pass was 669.830 miles per hour and the fastest was 672.762 miles per hour (1,077.987 and 1,082.705 kilometers per hour, respectively) — 0.8875–0.8914 Mach.
This was Major Lowe’s second attempt for the speed record. At the National Air Races in Cleveland, Ohio, on 5 September, official timers clocked the wrong airplane, and then on a repeat pass, a timing camera jammed. During that attempt, Major Johnson flew under a light airplane (possibly flying into the nearby Rancho Oro Verde Airport) which had wandered onto the course, missing it by about ten feet (3 meters).
Major Johnson was awarded the De la Vaulx Medal by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale.
North American Aviation claimed that any F-86 coming off the assembly line could beat this world record speed. This record stood until 1952 when it was broken by an F-86D Sabre.
47-611 was from the first production block of thirty-three F-86A-1-NA Sabres (originally designated P-86A) and was built at North American Aviation’s Inglewood, California, plant. Its NAA serial number was 151-38438. The airplane was withdrawn from service 16 November 1955 and assigned as a ground trainer for the California Air National Guard at Van Nuys, California.
The F-86A was a single-seat, single-engine, swept-wing day fighter, powered by a turbojet engine. The airplane’s design team was headed by Edgar Schmued, who was also responsible for North American’s legendary P-51 Mustang of World War II.
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