In fact, nearly half of the planes built met an untimely end due to accidents or enemy action.
The first two-seat F-100F Super Sabres arrived at Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base in November of 1965.
They flew their first successful Wild Weasel mission the following month.
A zero-length launch system was experimented with for the North American F-100D Super Sabre. Image: U.S. Air Force
Its a legitimate wonder any of them survived.
The war in Vietnam was transformational in its nature.
Much of the war in Korea was waged with WWII-era weapons and tactics.
The YF-100A, shown above, went on to become the F-100 Super Sabre — the first American fighter plane to pass Mach 1 in level flight. Image: U.S. Air Force
By the mid-1960s, however, high-performance jet aircraft and advanced electronics had come to dominate the battlespace.
Like all transformational military changes, however, these were rocky and painful.
Russian SA-2 Guideline air defense missiles changed the way jets flew and fought over the jungles of Southeast Asia.
This 1974 photograph shows a Soviet-made SA-2 surface-to-air missile and launcher. They were deadly and posed a substantial risk to American pilots in the Vietnam War.
It had been an SA-2 that brought down Gary Powers U-2 over the USSR in 1960.
This made the airspace above North Vietnam some of the most contested on the planet.
Pilots who flew against them described the 35-foot, 5,100-pound monsters as flying telephone poles.
Photograph of SA-2 site in North Vietnam taken by a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft in August 1965. Image: U.S. Air Force
They had a 440-lb.
high explosive fragmentation warhead and a 28-mile range.
The answer to this anti-aircraft scourge was the Wild Weasel.
A North American F-100D Super Sabre of the 352nd Tactical Fighter Squadron drops napalm on an enemy position near Bien Hoa, South Vietnam in 1967. Image: U.S. Air Force
Probably busy with more important things like saving my life.
That looks great on paper.
Thats more than a bit dicey in practice.
The cockpit of the F-100D Super Sabre was fairly spartan compared to the computerized instrumentation, RADAR and other systems you would see in more current fighters. Image: U.S. Air Force
However, they still took a heavy toll on North Vietnamese air defenses.
Origin Story
North American Aviation was one of Americas premiere producers of combat aircraft.
North American developed theB-25 Mitchell, theP-51 Mustang, theF-86 Sabreand the X-15 rocket plane.
An F-100D Super Sabre aircraft fires a salvo of 2.75″ rockets against an enemy position in South Vietnam. Image: NARA
They designed the F-100 as a speculative venture to replace the wildly successful Sabre Jet.
Through a series of mergers, North American eventually folded into what is Boeing today.
F-100 crews affectionately referred to the sleek, sexy plane the Hun.
A North American F-100D Super Sabre of the 90th Tactical Fighter Squadron leaves the target area after dropping napalm on a suspected Viet Cong target, March 1966. Image: U.S. Air Force
This was short for Hundred.
The F-100 first flew in 1953.
From the very beginning, however, the Hun was trouble.
A North American OV-10A Bronco in flight with two F-100C Super Sabres with the New York Air National Guard unit based at Tuy Hoa Air Base, Vietnam. Image: U.S. Air Force
The YF-100A reached Mach 1.04 on its very first flight.
Test pilots were giddy at the prospects.
Under certain circumstances, this would destabilize the aircraft so quickly the pilot would not have time to compensate.
The F-100 Super Sabre made its initial flight on May 25, 1953, and the first production aircraft was completed in October 1953. Image: U.S. Air Force
These capabilities also made the plane appealing as a strike fighter in Vietnam.
Scary Numbers
With the benefit of hindsight, the Hun was a deathtrap.
In the first six weeks of operational deployment, six F-100As were lost to in-flight accidents.
North American F-100A Super Sabre during flight testing at Edwards Air Force Base on the Rogers Dry Lakebed in a 1955 photograph. Image: NASA Photo
From 1953 1957, dozens of aircraft were lost to accidents.
In 1958 alone, we lost 116 planes and 47 pilots to mishaps.
Those early Huns were terribly unforgiving planes to fly.
The F-100A suffered from several stability issues. The NACA High-Speed Flight Station testing helped to pinpoint these issues and recommend changes in future supersonic aircraft. Image: NASA
By the time the F-100C was finally phased out in 1970, 85 C-models had been inadvertently destroyed.
The F-100D was the definitive version and arguably the safest to fly, though this was still quite relative.
The D-model wingspan was stretched by two feet and the vertical fin area expanded by 27%.
Airmen from the Iowa Air National Guard’s 185th Tactical Fighter Group work on one of their F-100 Super Sabers at Phu Cat Air Base, South Vietnam in 1968. Image: Senior Master Sgt. Vincent De Groot/DoD
However, the Air Force still lost dozens of F-100D airframes to accidents.
At the height of the types employment in Vietnam, we were losing about one Hun per week.
The F-100 was the first strike fighter used in Vietnam.
In January of 1967, Maj. Anthony Sheehan and Capt. James McNeil, race from an alert hut to their awaiting F-100 Super Sabre strike aircraft at Phan Rang Air Base, Republic of Vietnam. Image: NARA
It finally left the theater in 1971.
During the war, the F-100s flew 360,283 combat sorties.
A total of 242 Huns were lost in Vietnam, 186 of those to ground fire.
Marines watch as a North American F-100 Super Sabre drops bombs close to the Khe Sanh Combat Base on March 15, 1968. Image: Moore/U.S. Marine Corps
There were no F-100s shot down by North Vietnamese fighters.
889 aircraft were lost in accidents over the types service life.
Those accidents claimed the lives of 324 Air Force pilots.
Capt. James Risinger celebrates his 58th and final mission as others inspect bullet damage to his F-100F. He was part of the Misty FAC (forward air controller) mission. Image: U.S. Air Force
Thats out of a total production of 2,294 airframes.
It might have been safer to have been an electric chair tester than a Hun pilot.
The American people would never tolerate loss numbers like these today.
A U.S. Air Force North American F-100D Super Sabre drops napalm in Vietnam in 1968. Image: NARA
However, the tactics these young men pioneered shaped the way we fly and fight today.
Two F-100 aircraft being armed by 435th Munitions Maintenance personnel at Phan Rang AB, South Vietnam in February 1970. Image: Staff Sgt. Andy Sarakon/U.S. Air Force
In April 1964, a U.S. Air Force F-100F Super Sabre is prepared for take-off. The fighters were enroute to Iran to participate in Exercise Delawar, which were joint maneuvers with then-ally Iran. Image: NARA
