North American F-100 Super Sabre

what is it?

The North American F-100 Super Sabre is an American supersonic jet fighter aircraft designed and produced by the aircraft manufacturer North American Aviation. The first of the Century Series of American jet fighters, it was the first United States Air Force (USAF) fighter capable of supersonic speed in level flight. The F-100 was envisioned during the late 1940s as a higher-performance successor to the F-86 Sabre air-superiority fighter.

🔎How to recognise it: 1 jet engine · 11.8 m wingspan

base stats

• speed 1,487 km/htop speed
• range 3,210 kmwithout refuelling
• size 15.8 tmax take-off weight
• built 2,294made in total

Bars compare against all aircraft: 3,500 km/h, 20,000 km, 850 seats; size and number built on a log scale up to 640 t (An-225) and 45,000 built (Cessna 172).

fun facts

• 🎂First flew 73 years ago, in 1953.
• 🏎️Top speed is 11.4× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).
• 💥Faster than sound: up to Mach 1.2 (sea-level speed of sound ≈ 1,235 km/h).
• 🚗Wingspan of 11.8 m: about 3 cars parked nose to tail.
• 🐘Fully loaded it can weigh as much as 3 African elephants (~6 t each).
• 🌍Range of 3,210 km: 18× Amsterdam to Brussels.
• 🏔️Can fly 1.7× higher than Mount Everest (8,849 m).

jet: Gas turbine pushing air out the back (turbofan or turbojet): fast and high-flying.

spec sheet

first flight

1953-05-25

introduced

1954

retired

1979

status

retired

number built

2,294

role

fighter aircraft, fighter, fighter-bomber

origin

🇺🇸 United States

makers

North American Aviation

engines

1× Pratt & Whitney J57-P-21/21A / J57

crew

1

length

15.2 m

wingspan

11.8 m

height

5 m

max take-off weight

15.8 t

top speed

1,487 km/h

range

3,210 km

ceiling

15,240 m

Specs are for the version in the Wikipedia article's specification section. Blank means the sources don't say.