Uploaded May 2026 | Updated September 2026, 4 days ago
The F-100 Super Sabre was America's first operational supersonic fighter — a Mach 1.3 day fighter rushed into service in 1954, plagued by the deadly "Sabre Dance" approach stall, and ultimately flown in combat from Vietnam to the Taiwan Strait. This episode covers the full history of the Hun: its development out of the F-86 lineage, the engineering compromises that defined it, its operational career across three decades, and the variants from the YF-100A through the F-100D and two-seat F-100F.
We also dig into one of the most contested stories in the aircraft's history. The F-100's lead test pilot, George Welch, may have broken the sound barrier in the XP-86 prototype on October 1, 1947 — two weeks before Chuck Yeager's official Mach 1 flight in the Bell X-1. The Air Force never acknowledged it. Seven years later, Welch was killed when his YF-100A disintegrated during a supersonic dive over Edwards on October 12, 1954, testing the very aircraft that would carry his unofficial legacy forward.
Brought to you by Authentic Media (https://www.authenticmedia.io)
The F-100 Super Sabre was America's first operational supersonic fighter — a Mach 1.3 day fighter rushed into service in 1954, plagued by the deadly "Sabre Dance" approach stall, and ultimately flown in combat from Vietnam to the Taiwan Strait. This episode covers the full history of the Hun: its development out of the F-86 lineage, the engineering compromises that defined it, its operational career across three decades, and the variants from the YF-100A through the F-100D and two-seat F-100F.
We also dig into one of the most contested stories in the aircraft's history. The F-100's lead test pilot, George Welch, may have broken the sound barrier in the XP-86 prototype on October 1, 1947 — two weeks before Chuck Yeager's official Mach 1 flight in the Bell X-1. The Air Force never acknowledged it. Seven years later, Welch was killed when his YF-100A disintegrated during a supersonic dive over Edwards on October 12, 1954, testing the very aircraft that would carry his unofficial legacy forward.
Brought to you by Authentic Media (https://www.authenticmedia.io)
