F-86A

[Wardog]

20 hours ago, Bert_Foster said:

But it doesnt exist in real life in the J8 attitude indicator system. From the F86A Flight manual.

Same in the AF Manual 51-38 Theory of Instrument Flying Chapter 15 that describes the J8 attitude indicator system in detail.

I don't disagree, I haven't seen a J-8 with the second line, either. I'd be interested to know how they arrived at it.

[Bert_Foster]

I can only get -1.2 units nose down elevator trim. Is this right ? Scale goes to -5

From the F86A Flight Manual:

Edited August 30 by Bert_Foster

[Valis]

'+' means nose down (confusingly)

In-game there's actually +1.5 nose-down (so we get an extra .5) and -10 nose-up.

Edited August 30 by Valis

[Stonehouse]

On 8/29/2026 at 7:13 AM, Bert_Foster said:

But it doesnt exist in real life in the J8 attitude indicator system. From the F86A Flight manual.

Same in the AF Manual 51-38 Theory of Instrument Flying Chapter 15 that describes the J8 attitude indicator system in detail.

Interesting. I find the below in my copies of the F-86A 1951 (revised Feb 1952) pilot notes. I have a later version of the same manual from 30 July 1952 that states the same information. Based on this and that I know the last F86A was delivered in December 1950 and accepted by the USAF in Feb 1951, I would expect to find an A-1 attitude gyro in our F86.

I do also have a copy of the 1957 F86A pilot notes, and this version does state that the aircraft uses a J-8 attitude indicator. However, this is after the Korean war has ended.

In any case I have reported the incorrect instrument being present in our game version in the beta forum so hopefully it gets updated at some point.

 

[Valis]

The Sabre has no exhaust trail when online.

Offline it's there.

Edited September 2 by Valis

[Bert_Foster]

Interesting. Its not the J3 that was kind of unique and also used on X1 and X3. The J3 worked conventionally in roll but inverted so to speak in pitch. In that for instance if you are increasing pitch attitude the sphere rotates AWAY  from you (opposite to most modern AI's)  showing more of its lower surface the pitch attitude markings showing degrees. So the Sky portion is on the bottom of the sphere and ground on the top.

Close up of an J3

 

[Valis]

The trim light should extinguish when rudder is in neutral trim; currently it is always on.

 

[=FB=VikS]

30.08.2026 в 10:45, Stonehouse сказал:

Interesting. I find the below in my copies of the F-86A 1951 (revised Feb 1952) pilot notes. I have a later version of the same manual from 30 July 1952 that states the same information. Based on this and that I know the last F86A was delivered in December 1950 and accepted by the USAF in Feb 1951, I would expect to find an A-1 attitude gyro in our F86.

I do also have a copy of the 1957 F86A pilot notes, and this version does state that the aircraft uses a J-8 attitude indicator. However, this is after the Korean war has ended.

In any case I have reported the incorrect instrument being present in our game version in the beta forum so hopefully it gets updated at some point.

 

yup - we have A-1 attitude gyro on our version.

PS: its actual designation - is "type A-1 vertical gyro" and it fits to airplane tech descr dated 5 Dec (page revision is 30 June) 1950, so it fits to F-86A 1951 (revised Feb 1952) pilot notes with a note about "late airplanes" which we actually have (49-1146+) 

 

Edited August 31 by =FB=VikS

[Bert_Foster]

Ok thanks Viks so the A-1 it is. The phantom floating line is still incorrect and shouldn't be there. And my comments ref Controlled precession in the armament and equipment forum though refrencing the J8 apply equally to the A-1.

Edited August 31 by Bert_Foster

[Stonehouse]

4 hours ago, Bert_Foster said:

The phantom floating line is still incorrect and shouldn't be there

Agree - based on the 1951/52 pilot note pictures there should only be a single horizon line not two.  

As shown below there is only a single horizon line with two little "legs" to indicate the ground direction so that the instrument gives correct information even when inverted.

Edited September 1 by Stonehouse

[Bert_Foster]

Engine Limits. Cockpit displays RPM in % but in game flight Manual uses actual RPM. Would be better if the Flight manual also used %RPM.

[ComputerJones]

To that end if it would, for the F-86, reference speeds in knots indicated instead of miles per hour indicated 🙂

[Panthercules]

56 minutes ago, ComputerJones said:

To that end if it would, for the F-86, reference speeds in knots indicated instead of miles per hour indicated 🙂

Anybody know why the USAF would have used knots (a nautical term) instead of MPH for the Saber, especially since (as far as I know) there wasn't a naval version of the Saber predating the air force version?

[ComputerJones]

knots became a defacto aviation standard regardless of naval origins because the unit referenced matches better with degrees in a global coordinate system than statute miles

granted that was much later than the korean war, but the impetus existed long before ICAO

[TotenDead]

4 часа назад, ComputerJones сказал:

knots became a defacto aviation standard regardless of naval origins because the unit referenced matches better with degrees in a global coordinate system than statute miles

Western aviation standart* of the time. And I'm not sure that the fact that the unit matches better with degrees had (and has) any practical usage irl

[Stonehouse]

52 minutes ago, TotenDead said:

Western aviation standart* of the time. And I'm not sure that the fact that the unit matches better with degrees had (and has) any practical usage irl

1 knot = 1 nautical mile per hour. 60 nautical miles = 1 degree of latitude. 1 nautical mile = 1 minute of arc or 1/60 of a degree. So knowing the difference in degrees you know the distance and if you know the continuous speed you can maintain you know your travel time. Also connects back to being able to determine your position using the difference in local time to a reference time. 

Edited September 3 by Stonehouse

[TotenDead]

22 часа назад, Stonehouse сказал:

1 knot = 1 nautical mile per hour. 60 nautical miles = 1 degree of latitude. 1 nautical mile = 1 minute of arc or 1/60 of a degree. So knowing the difference in degrees you know the distance and if you know the continuous speed you can maintain you know your travel time

In a world where every tiny island is on the map no one uses degrees of latitude to determine distance of flight or ones coordinates in the air so that's kind of a useless feature for an aircraft

Edited September 3 by TotenDead

[Vulture]

Knots are the de facto unit of speed because nautical miles became the de facto unit of distance in aviation - because they can be measured directly on a chart by using the closest Longitude scale and dividers or a plotter.

And if using nautical miles, the MPH makes navigation a pain! 420 Knots equals 7 NM/minute, for example, but WTF does 420 MPH equal in NMs?

This is NOT trivial in highspeed fighters.

As much as it pains me to say this, the Navy was right about this!

And don't even get me started on the abomination that is metric units in aviation!

Vulture

Old USAF Navigator and F-4 WSO

Edited September 7 by Vulture
clarity

[Valis]

24 minutes ago, Vulture said:

As much as it pains me to say this, the Navy was right about this!

😄

[TotenDead]

4 часа назад, Vulture сказал:

because they can be measured directly on a chart by using the closest Longitude scale and dividers or a plotter.

Just out of curiosity, when was the last time you did that?:)

[Bert_Foster]

The F86A Cabin pressure selector lever (I guess not yet implemented) is always in the OFF position.

Edited September 9 by Bert_Foster

[JendaJND]

On 7/13/2026 at 8:42 PM, Gavrick said:

 

I've been following the discussion.
We tuned the roll rates based on the data we had available (both from flight recorder graphs and from maximum roll rate diagrams).
There might be a discrepancy in the data — in which case we'll need to look into it more closely. It's also possible that something has drifted in the aerodynamics (which should be checked).
In any case, I will make a note of this (not necessarily in the very near future, but still). Likewise for the slats. The aileron drop and possible wing drop will also be revisited. And a few other points as well.
I can't promise that all of this will be done "by August" — rushing isn't the best approach for this kind of work.
But none of this will be left unattended.

Hi, are there any news about roll rate and max achievable speed FM issues? 

[Bert_Foster]

F86 FUEL TRANSFER SEQUENCE

Observing the tech menu you can watch the transfer sequence in real time. In the F86 with external tanks the fuel is feeding simultaneously from the drop tanks and the wing tanks. Looking at the fuel gauge it drops to 300gall stays there for a while until the drop tanks are empty together with the wing tanks then starts dropping. By my reading of the Flight manual this is not correct.

External  fuel under pressure feeds the top cell of the forward tank. This feed starts after 5 gall is used from the fuselage tank. So the fuselage tank will be kept full whilst fuel is being fed from the drop tanks. The wing tanks feed under gravity to the lower cell of the fuselage tanks. This wing fuel cannot gravity feed if the upper tank is kept full by the drop tanks. In this circumstance the head pressure of the upper fuselage cell will be greater than the head pressure from the wing tanks. 
 

what i believe you should see is:

Fuselage tank drops by 5 gall. Drop tank fuel will then keep the fuselage tank at this level. Internal fuel gauge will remain at this (full-5) value until the drop tanks are empty. Once drop tanks are empty the gauge  will start reducing as internal fuel is now reducing.  Wing tanks will feed when their head pressure exceeds that of the upper cell.

Pg 1-17 of the F86A flight manual says:

"The fuel quantity gauge will not indicate a decrease in fuel supply until the drop tank fuel has been consumed and engine begins to consume internal fuel"

 

[Vulture]

On 9/7/2026 at 5:11 PM, TotenDead said:

Just out of curiosity, when was the last time you did that?:)

Actually, it was real common when flight planning in the pre-GPS era. For me, probably late 80s? Somewhere I still have my planning bag with a pair of dividers that were used specifically for that reason - the needle tips on both arms still stuck in an eraser.

[Valis]

Request to remove the automatic Gunsight Mode alerts from techno-chat.

With the A-1CM installed you're constantly spammed with these messages.