Sabre dance

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the uncontrollable upward movement of the F-86 Sabre. For the Khachaturian music, see Sabre Dance.

Sabre Dance is the name given to pitch-up, a particularly dangerous behaviour of swept wings, which became apparent in the USAF with the introduction of the F-86 Sabre. When a swept wing starts to stall the outermost portions tend to stall first. Since these portions are behind the center of gravity, the overall lift force moves forward, pitching the nose of the aircraft upwards. This leads to a higher angle of attack and causes more of the wing to stall, making the problem worse. A large number of aircraft were lost to this problem on landing, leaving the plane tumbling down the runway.

The most notorious incident was the loss of F-100C-20-NA Super Sabre 54-1907 during an attempted emergency landing at Edwards AFB, California on January 10, 1956 which was caught by film cameras set up for an unrelated test. The pilot fought to retain control as he rode the edge of the flight envelope, but fell off on one wing, hit the ground, and exploded with fatal results.