The NAA F-86, America’s first swept-wing jet, made her maiden flight – in the guise of the XP-86 prototype – on October 1, 1947, and the production model of the plane officially entered into U.S. Air Force operational service in 1949.
nationalinterest.org

F-86 Sabre: One of the Best Fighter Jets Ever?
“Necessity is the mother of invention,” as the saying goes, and the invention of the F-86 proves the proverb. The first year of the Korean War,1950, ushered in the age of jet vs. jet fighter combat, and whilst the U.S. Air Force’s P-80/F-80 Shooting Star may have won the first such matchup, and...
