Canadair Sabre

The Canadair Sabre is a jet fighter built by Canadair under licence from North American Aviation, a variant of the North American F-86 Sabre produced until 1958 and used mainly by the Royal Canadian Air Force until the Canadair CF-104 replaced it in 1962. The Canadian government decided in 1948 to re-equip the RCAF with the F-86 and contracted Canadair to build it in Montreal; the Korean War turned a tool-verification batch of 10 into a production order of 100, and Canadair gave the project the number CL-13. It built six versions: the Mk 1 matched the F-86A, the Mk 2 and Mk 4 kept the General Electric J47, the sole Mk 3 tested the Avro Canada Orenda engine, and the Mk 5 and Mk 6 used larger Orendas of 6,500 and 7,440 lbf thrust. The Mk 3 was the aircraft Jacqueline Cochran flew in 1953 to set speed records, becoming the first woman to break the sound barrier. From 1950 to 1958, 1,815 were built at the Montreal plant, and Pakistan flew its Mk 6 aircraft in the 1971 war and into 1980.