It stands to symbolize committment of the facility and the City of Goldsboro, NC to each other.
Plaque below the aircraft reads:
"North American Aviation F-86H Sabre
Fighter-Bomber (Cold War Era)
Height-15' - Length-38'8" - Wingspan-29'1" - Max weight-21,852 LBS
Payload - 2,000 LBS of bombs. 8 each 5" rockets
Armament - 4 each T-160 20mm cannons
Max speed - 692 MPH
Engine - one General Electric J73-3E @ 9250 LBS thrust
Range - 1050 miles
Cost - $582,493 (in 1953)
The F-86H is on permenant loas to the City of Goldsboro by the U.S. Air Force Museum. Ordered in 1953, it entered active duty on May 4, 1955. After 15 years of with various Active and Air National Guard units, it was de-commisioned in August 1970 from the Maryland Air National Guard, The aircraft was then flown to Seymour Johnson AFB by Col. Jesse Mitchell, Commander of Maryland's 175th Tactical Fighter Group, to be de-militarized and transfered to the City of Goldsboro for display
Orginally place on display in Berkley Memorial Park in Goldsboro, it remained there until 1986. After a restoration in 1986, it was moved for display in front of the Police-Fire Complex in Downtown Goldsboro. In February 2014, it was moved to Seymour Johnson AFB for repair and restoration using materials provided by the City of Goldsboro. In October of 2015, it was placed on a pylon at this location.
This F-86H has been painted to duplicate the markings of the 83rd Fighter Day Wing (later to be the 4th Fighter-Day Wing) while stationed at Seymour Johnson AFB in late 1957. By early 1958, Seymour Johnson started phasing out the F-86H's and transitioned to the F-100C Super Saber.
The City of Goldsboro would like to offer a special thank you to the 4th Equipment Maintenance Squadron at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base for volunteering their time and talents to restore the aircraft and Pearson Pump Sales and Service for donating their time, personnel, and equipment for this project."
Further information on this venerable old warhorse is from a Wikipedia article entered below.
"The North American F-86 Sabre, sometimes called the Sabrejet, is a transonic jet fighter aircraft. Produced by North American Aviation, the Sabre is best known as the United States' first swept wing fighter that could counter the similarly-winged Soviet MIG-15 in high-speed dogfights in the skies of the Korean War (1950–1953), fighting some of the earliest jet-to-jet battles in history. Considered one of the best and most important fighter aircraft in that war, the F-86 is also rated highly in comparison with fighters of other eras. Although it was developed in the late 1940s and was outdated by the end of the 1950s, the Sabre proved versatile and adaptable and continued as a front-line fighter in numerous air forces until the last active operational examples were retired by the Bolivian Air Force in 1994.
Its success led to an extended production run of more than 7,800 aircraft between 1949 and 1956, in the United States, Japan, and Italy. Variants were built in Canada and Australia. The Canadair Sabre added another 1,815 airframes, and the significantly redesigned CAC Sabre (sometimes known as the Avon Sabre or CAC CA-27), had a production run of 112. The Sabre is by far the most produced Western jet fighter, with total production of all variants at 9,860 units."
Quoted from webpage: (
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Tail Number 31370