F-100 Super Sabre In Action

The North American Aviation F-100 Super Sabre, often nicknamed The Hun' (for Hundred), was the first production aircraft to exceed the speed of sound in level flight. North American's F-86 Sabre and some other early jet aircraft easily broke the sound barrier in a dive. The rocket-powered Bell X-l series also broke the sound barrier, but they could not take off under their own power. The 'Hun' could break the barrier at any time and it was a true air­craft, breathing air to make power and able to take off and land under its own power. Based as an evolution of the F-86 design series, the F-100 was truly a 'Super Sabre.' Following on the success of the F-86 Sabre program. North American Aviation (NAA) began an in-house program to increase the Sabre design's total performance on 3 February 1949. This design would make the Sabre capable of flying at Mach 1 speed and beyond in level flight. The F-86 Sabre design was limited to approximately 0.95 Mach in level flight. Several proposals were put forth, including installation of a much larger engine and a complete redesign of the airframe including the wing sweep angle, to decrease the drag co-efficient of the basic design. All of these proposals would require a total redesign of the airframe, not simply bolting in one of the new, higher thrust engines or a simple change in the wing.

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