With its distinctive wail the F-86 is remembered from the 1950s for its air superiority in the Korean War where it tangled with Russias MiG-15 in the first jet vs jet combats.

It was the first experience of high-speed jet flight for the NATO air forces and it closed the gap with the previously superior Soviet jet fighters. The design borrowed heavily from WWII German high speed flight research but was truly a pilots aeroplane.