DOGSHIP: Why Have We Forgotten The Most Common Interceptor Of The Cold War?

The most numerous all-weather interceptor of the Cold War is not the Deuce. It isn't the Voodoo, Flagon, Fishpot, Foxbat or Scorpion. It most certainly isn't the Ultimate Interceptor. No, the anchor of North American Air Defence in the 1950s was the F-86D Sabre Dog.

2500 Dogships were built in the early 1950s. It was a lightning fast, rocket armed single seat fighter that set speed records and sold a lot of Plymouths in its day. A quarter of all F-86 Sabres were actually Dogs. It was the second most numerous variant of that famous fighter and yet today it is generally just a footnote in the story.

In this video I take a long look at the Sabre Dog, try to uncover at least some of its mysteries and tell the tragic story of its only kill.

I hope you enjoy this episode. It is probably the most requested subject on the channel to date and I've tried to do it justice. Any comments and further information about the Sabre Dog would be much appreciated. I've been surprised by how little is out there.

Notes:

First big point is that I've deliberately confined this video to the 'D' and 'L' models of Sabre in US service. I'll cover cannon-armed Sabres in another video at some point

Sources:

There's good content on the Sabre Dog in this old website. It replicates some of the content in Wings Of Fame, Volume 10, which is worth picking up if you get the chance. https://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_fight...

Amazing detail on the fire control system can be found here: http://www.nop-betty.dk/Flyvevaabnet/...

Information on the weight and size of the radar and fire control system in this forum discussion: https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/thre...

Interesting photos and content: https://www.militaryfactory.com/aircr...
Fabulous footage of F-86D - watch this!    • LT. Wilkes (1950s) Personal 8mm video...  

Source for the B-17 story: https://eu.nwfdailynews.com/story/new...

Also in this Wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accid...