13the June 1956 was the start of
Pakistan Air Forces love affair with the F-86 Sabre.
The Mk VI Sabre and its American couterpart
F-86 are by far the most popular aircrafts to have served with the
PAF and was part of its inventory for 24yrs from 1956 till exhausting
their airframe life in 1980. The Sabre was responsible for the first
kill of PAF when Flight Lieutenant M Yunis shot down an Indian Air Force (IAF)
Canberra, which intruded into Pakistani
territory on 10th Apr 1959. The F-86 performed brilliantly in the 1965 war in
which Squandron Leader MM Alam became an Ace during an epic
battle over PAF Sargodha.
Click on
images below to see larger images
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After the Pakistan-India war of
1965 and the resulting embargo on US Military aid forced Pakistan to look to
other sources for inducting new planes. This was done by purchasing the F-6
(Mig-19) from China and the Mirage III from France.
In 1966, PAF went on to further
increase its Sabre fleet by procuring 90 ex-Luftwaffe Orenda engined Mk
VI Sabres ( known as the F-86E in PAF service). They were delivered to
the PAF in a secret negotiation between Iran and Pakistan, where they went to
Iran for overhaul, but never went back to Germany. The Sabre went on to
reap further glory in the 1971 war when it was responsible for downing two
superior IAF Mig-21FL. The MK VI's were powered by the Orenda 14
engines and that could take the plane to well over 50,00 feet.
Regards,
Haroon
PS. Special thanks
to Adam and Mr Nakamoto at the Achtung Japan Hobby Shop and Ahson Aftab who
got me interested in PAF scale modelling.
Sources:
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