The Perfect Dogfight Weapon the US Ever Built

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For a brief, harrowing moment during the Korean War, MiG Alley was considered the most lethal place on earth. This narrow strip of airspace where the Yalu River meets the Yellow Sea in northwest North Korea became the arena for the most brutal dogfights since World War 2. Here, American and Soviet pilots, engaged in the first jet-to-jet encounters in history, were pushed to their absolute limits daily.

These were not just any pilots. Battle-hardened soviet aces from World War 2, posing as Korean or Chinese pilots, joined the fray, transforming the skies into a chaotic and volatile battlefield. In this high-stakes arena, the influential US F-86 Sabres clashed fiercely with the powerful MiG-15s.
One of the American rising stars who dared enter this treacherous airspace was Cecil G. Foster, a World War 2 veteran with the pinnacle of his career yet to come. On September 26, 1952, Foster, his wingman, and their flight leader, Captain Bart, spotted two MiGs flying below them. Instantly, the American pilots dropped their tanks and dove aggressively.

Foster locked onto the MiG flight leader, who was making a hard left turn. The jets entered a scissors maneuver, slicing across each other’s paths.
Foster squeezed the trigger for a one-second burst from the Sabre’s six .50 caliber machine guns. His tracer bullets seemed to fly in slow motion, narrowly missing the lead warplane but striking the wingman behind it. Then, in a shocking turn of events, the lead MiG exploded violently into a bright and black ball of fire. Foster, incredulous, yelled over the radio: (QUOTE) “The MiG exploded!”
He had no idea how it happened.

The MiG wingman’s plane was burning. Foster, intoxicated by adrenaline, climbed almost vertically to finish it off. He fired, only to realize the MiG was spiraling out of control and on a direct collision course with him. It was too late. Foster had miraculously downed two MiGs with one burst and was now about to meet his end.

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All content on Dark Skies is researched, produced, and presented in historical context for educational purposes. We are history enthusiasts and are not always experts in some areas, so please don't hesitate to reach out to us with corrections, additional information, or new ideas.

[DarkDocsSkies]

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[charlesblithfield]

The footage of these MIG Sabre battles is amazing. These guys had extraordinary guts and skills and should be remembered.

[jimwind]

I spoke to a test pilot in the late 80s who told me the F86 Sabre was the best plane he ever flew. He was dying and he flew ww2 and other post war planes. It always stuck w me.

[kenner]

Years ago, I remember talking to a Sabre pilot who felt his was the better plane. His argument was that the 86 was a very accurate gun platform and that the MiG didn't have the same control authority.

[martinjrgensen]

The F86 just looks right. Beautiful lines.

[roysheaks]

14 people can fit into the intake of the F86. My aircraft mechanic school had one, and one day we students tried to find out, and to test our susceptibility to claustrophobia. All went well, until somebody passed gas…

[deltavee]

The Sabres had an advantage that was not immediately obvious, better cockpit heat.
Because of this when the Sabres could entice a Mig to dive after them from high altitude, as soon as both aircraft hit the warmer more humid air at lower altitude the Mig's cockpit glass would quickly frost over on the inside while the Sabre's heaters kept their glass clear. Blind Mig equals ded Mig. The Mig pilots figured it out of course and the Sabres had a way to dive out of a tangle and re-join later.

[calvinmasters]

The analog "computer" for targeting was some clever engineering.
Using valves/tubes in a pre-transistor era, it could to summing, differential and logarithmic calculations so that the pilot didn't have to guess the lead arc.

[MRptwrench]

Omg the Sabre was my favorite fighter jet as a kid. I fell asleep under my Testors' F-86 and MiG 17 locked in eternal dogfight in the hallowed airspace above my bed. (psst. Dad helped me add the destructive effects of the Sabre's guns on the MiG by burning holes with his soldering pen in the MiG's tail and wing.)

[aheminge]

Cecil Foster was my uncle, my mother's brother. Though he was in the U.S. Army Air Force during WWII, he was not a pilot then, and did not fly as a fighter pilot then. He later became a fighter pilot, and his first action as a fighter pilot was in Korea. So, though we certainly benefited in Korea from the experience of our WWII fighter pilots, my uncle Cecil was not an example of that. He was, however a great fighter pilot.

[ronsteiner]

The USAF tactics against superior MiGs reminds one of the Thach Weave maneuver used by Wildcat pilots against the Zeros during WW2…

[michaeldavid]

Newsflash: It's not "The Plane Who Downed Two Jets with One Burst". That would be "The Pilot Who Downed Two Jets with One Burst".
And Chuck Yeager downed two enemy aircraft with NO burst. On 10/12 44, as he moved into firing position on a ME-109, the pilot broke hard to port before he opened fire and collided with his wingman. Both pilots bailed out of their aircraft, and Yeager got credit for two of his five kills that day.

[crtune]

The North American Sabre with the "nose" (a radar dome) is called "Sabre model D". It's considered a different model. The regular F86 Sabre is all air intake in the front, where the Super Sabre has both radome and air intake.

[gunsaway]

The F 86 was a beautiful airplane. Still is today

[michaelw]

The stats show that Russian WW2 aces vs USAF WW2 aces was a very close match in these jets.
Once the Russians were rotated out and replaced by newer and novice Chinese and N Korean pilots, the odds were heavily in favour of the US pilots. The later Sabres were better but the difference in pilot qualities was key.

[ChrisChandler-yg]

An often overlooked flaw of the Mig was it's inferior centrifugal flow engine vs. the Sabre's axial flow turbine

[robertodeleon-gonzalez]

The MiG 15 also had a disadvantage in that its controls were not hydraulically actuated, but rather by cable and pulley. This required much strength on the part of the pilot.

[Revolutionary-Independent]

On a side note the Mig-15 had a British Rolls Royce engine.

It was the Rolls Royce Neimen Engine an engine the British government sidelined and sold to the Soviet Union (Which they reversed engineered and put it into the Mig-15.)

[patrickshaw]

Be advised that a LOT of either F-86D or F-86K's are shown here. None of them were ever in Korea.

[davidknight]

The F-86A models were the first to fight the Mig-15 in the Korean war. This video clearly shows photos of the F-86D Sabre Dog in this report. The Sabre Dog did not get into Korea until after the Korean war. I don't know about this channel.