Outside the entrance to the Municipal Airport in Iowa City, Iowa is this F-86 Sabre jet fighter. I took a few photos of it the day I got my first Nikon DSLR camera. Now with a newer Nikon camera and five years later its time to return to the venerable monument to examine what it is telling us.
This summer a painter gave a new coat of red white, blue and black to various areas of the airframe.
While not many people take the time to inspect the underbelly of the fighter it was important to check that the plane's integrity is being maintained.
The business end of a once powerful jet. Sabres vs. MiGs over North Korea back in the 1950s defined modern jet aerial combat.
A plaque on a small granite boulder below the plane reads,
This F-86 Sabre Jet
Re-dedicated by Johnson County Veterans
July 4, 1980
To the Memory of
American Veterans of all Wars
Who Have For More Than 200 Years Served
And Sacrificed in the Cause of Freedom
"They Shall Not Be Forgotten."
You and your blog followers might find the history of this aircraft to be interesting (I couldn't find any unit history prior to 1958, and if anyone has information about that, I'd appreciate hearing from them):
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