su9設(shè)計(jì)的比較早，1944就開(kāi)始設(shè)計(jì)，1946年首飛，平直下單翼為單翼梁，小上反角為4°20'。外部是分裂襟翼，可以用作減速板。Su-9是第一架使用液壓驅(qū)動(dòng)控制裝置的蘇聯(lián)飛機(jī)。蘇聯(lián)仿制的容克Jumo 004B渦輪噴氣式發(fā)動(dòng)機(jī)被稱為RD-10，懸掛在每個(gè)機(jī)翼下方的流線型發(fā)動(dòng)機(jī)艙里。發(fā)動(dòng)機(jī)進(jìn)口，三角翼，尾翼，經(jīng)常能與米格21搞混。

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"Every man a tiger": the RF-86A Sabre in tactical reconnaissance operations during the Korean War, 1952-1953.

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The work of a reconnaissance pilot lacks much of the personal glamour that is attached to the fighter pilot. His enthusiasm must be maintained by the knowledge that the information he obtains is not only of great value but is also being put to full use.

--CONAC Aircrew Training Handbook

The surprise North Korean invasion of South Korea, on June 25, 1950, caught the United States Air Force off guard and woefully unprepared to fight a conventional air war. Although World War II clearly illustrated the value of aerial reconnaissance in successfully executing an air campaign, the inevitable draw down and financial cuts after that war severely hindered the development of aerial reconnaissance weapons systems in the new jet age. However, tactical reconnaissance, the oldest and most basic mission of military aviation, would prove to be even more vital to the United Nations Command (UNC) forces in the Korean War than in any previous conflict.

In an attempt to improve the photographic results of daylight tactical reconnaissance combat operations and increase the survivability of its aircraft, the 15th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron (15th TRS) in Korea devised a series of field modifications to the legendary North American F-86 Sabrejet fighter to create a tactical reconnaissance version of the aircraft--the RF-86. This article will evaluate the effectiveness of the RF-86A Sabre in tactical reconnaissance combat operations during the Korean War, 1952-1953. Although conversions to RF-86A configuration in the Korean War never numbered more than seven aircraft, the incredible survivability of the aircraft allowed the 15th TRS to operate it with disproportionately greater success than any other type of USAF reconnaissance aircraft in Korea. The RF-86A provided the UN forces valuable photographic and visual intelligence at extremely low cost to the 15th TRS.

The tactical reconnaissance mission originated early in World War I, when unarmed aircraft of both sides ranged over the battlefields of Europe performing a variety of seemingly simple tasks, including visual observation of the front lines and artillery and naval gunfire adjustment. Throughout World War I, the interwar years, and World War II, more sophisticated forms of tactical aerial reconnaissance, such as photographic, weather, electronic, and contact reconnaissance, evolved from, but did not replace, these basic missions. (1) During the Korean War, photographic reconnaissance "provide[d] the bulk of the intelligence on which day to day operations [were] planned;" (2) it is as a collector of intelligence, "in a potentially high threat environment," (3) that tactical reconnaissance, especially photographic, becomes useful to a theater commander. The scarcity of highly skilled Air Force photo interpreters in Korea constituted the largest single post-flight hindrance to providing "near or real time" (4) and relevant intelligence to requesting agencies, usually units of the U.S. Eighth Army. However, the tactical intelligence gleaned by photo interpreters could provide great insight into enemy intentions, enemy status and activity at designated targets, threats (such as, targets of opportunity, topography, movements of troops and supplies, and construction efforts), and targeting and bomb damage assessment (BDA). (5) Such intelligence permitted the Eighth Army and the Fifth Air Force to remain at least one step ahead of the Communist ground and air forces in Korea, which greatly outnumbered the UN forces. In the interim, however, obtaining good photographic results and returning home with valuable photographic cargo remained a problem for the understrength and underequipped USAF tactical reconnaissance units in Korea.

In the summer of 1950, the Far East Air Forces (FEAF)--of which the Fifth Air Force was the largest subordinate unit--possessed only one daylight tactical reconnaissance squadron, the 8th TRS, based at Yokota Air Base, Japan, and flying Lockheed RF-80As, the unarmed camera-equipped version of the Shooting Star fighter. By July 9, 1950, the 8th TRS had relocated to Itazuke Air Base, in southern Japan, where its RF-80As had the range to fly photographic reconnaissance missions for Fifth Air Force and the Eighth Army. However, the photographic negatives of the 8th TRS had to be ferried back to Yakota and the photo interpreters of the 548th Reconnaissance Technical Squadron, a process that in bad weather might take a week to accomplish. (6) For the requesting UN units facing the relentless North Korean advance, this was unacceptable. Fifth Air Force required a dedicated tactical reconnaissance wing for photographic reconnaissance to be effective organizationally, comprising day and night visual and photographic reconnaissance squadrons and its own local reconnaissance technical squadron for timely photo interpretation and reproduction.

On February 25, 1951, Lt. Gen. George E. Stratemeyer, commander of FEAF, activated the 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing (67th TRW), under the command of Colonel Karl F. "Pop" Polifka. During World War II, Colonel Polifka had pioneered new aerial reconnaissance tactics, such as dicing--low level photography with forward-facing oblique cameras--which would become even more vital in the Korean War when reconnaissance aircraft of the 67th TRW needed to photograph Chinese airfields across the Yalu River in Manchuria without entering Chinese airspace. In the 67th TRW, the 8th TRS was renamed the 15th TRS, PJ(Photo Jet), nicknamed the "Cottonpickers." The squadron's strength at this time was twenty-seven RF-80As. In mid-1951, the wing moved to Kimpo Air Base, South Korea, bringing together FEAF's tactical reconnaissance and reconnaissance technical squadrons for the first time.

Since FEAF had easily gained and maintained air superiority over Korea early in the war, the RF-80As, manufactured in 1945, initially proved more than adequate in the photographic reconnaissance role. To convert the Shooting Star from an interceptor to a reconnaissance aircraft, technicians removed all six .50 caliber machine guns from the nose and enlarged the nose so that cameras and film magazines could be fitted. The RF-80A enjoyed great versatility, since its nose camera bay could accommodate thirty-nine different camera installations, but the standard installation was one K-38, 24" or 36" focal length, vertical camera, and one K-22, 12" focal length camera, employed either for vertical, side oblique, or dicing photography. (7) It could outperform every type of Communist piston-engine fighter with ease during the first six months of the war, and set a high standard for aerial photographic quality.

However, the advent of the Soviet Union's MiG-15 jet fighter into the Communist air forces and the rapid Communist buildup of anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) in the spring of 1951 painfully illustrated the shortcomings of the aging RF-80A. According to volume 1 of FEAF's Report on the Korean War:

The Korean War indicated the reconnaissance aircraft and its associated equipment has lagged in development behind the bomber and fighter.... The development of reconnaissance aircraft and high quality recording equipment must keep pace with other weapons systems if we are to employ airpower effectively. (8)

The swept-wing MiG-15 had a 200-mile per hour speed advantage over the straight-wing RF-80A. To overcome the limitations of camera equipment designed for the speeds of conventional piston-engine aircraft, RF-80A pilots had to maintain a constant and relatively slow airspeed, heading, and altitude on the photography run to the target. Although survival depended upon possessing greater speed, maneuverability, and altitude than enemy interceptors, the RF-80A did not possess altitude and speed advantages over the MiG, (9) and so "photography was accomplished in upper MiG country [the area of North Korean north and west of Sinanju to the Yalu River, known as "MiG Alley"] only under heavy F-86 escort." (10) When a MiG-15 attacked a single reconnaissance aircraft, the American pilots could generally use their higher skill and proficiency and the superior maneuverability of the RF-80A to break into the attack, turn inside the MiG to avoid its field of fire, and return to Kimpo on the deck over the sea where the MiG's fuel consumption was too high and where there was no flak. (11)

Throughout the second half of 1951 and early 1952, MiGs appeared in increasing numbers over North Korea and generally showed great aggressiveness in attacking FEAF tactical reconnaissance aircraft. The Communists suffered heavy losses to the Sabre escorts, but unescorted RF-80A losses mounted as well. Although the MiGs shot down only one RF-80A under escort, escorted reconnaissance missions diverted large numbers of F-86s (twelve to eighteen to escort one RF-80A (12)) from fighter sweeps or bomber escort missions.

What the 15th TRS urgently needed in mid-1951 was a tactical reconnaissance aircraft able to meet or exceed the performance of the MiG-15 and fly combat missions without escort. The USAF intended to reequip the squadron as soon as possible with the Republic RF-84F Thunderstreak, a new swept-wing version of the F-84 Thunderjet fighter and designed from the ground up as a tactical reconnaissance platform. The RF-84F possessed the speed and altitude capability to hold its own against the MiG-15, but for various reasons, including production delays, and despite repeated promises to the 67th TRW, the USAF was unable to deliver any RF-84Fs to the 15th TRS during the Korean War. (13)

At Kimpo, three reconnaissance pilots of the 15th TRS, Maj. Bruce B. Fish, Maj. Ruffin W. Gray, and Capt. Joe Daley sought to obtain from FEAF a camera-equipped version of the F-86. In hundreds of air combats, USAF pilots had proved that the modern F-86 could outfight the MiG-15 in virtually all scenarios. Fish, Gray, and Daley thus conceived the RF-86 as a higher-performance daylight tactical reconnaissance fighter to serve as a stopgap in the Korean War until the dedicated reconnaissance aircraft--the RF-84F--could reach the 15th TRS. The airmen's primary consideration for pursuing such a project was the superior penetration ability of the F-86 over the RF-80A into MiG Alley. FEAF, however, did not initially grant the three officers their wish.

To demonstrate an improvised camera installation on the F-86 to FEAF, Fish, Gray, and Daley visited the 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing (4th FIW), equipped with F-86Es, based on the other side of the airfield at Kimpo. They obtained the nose section of an abandoned F-86A, in which they mounted a small focal length, high-speed K-25 camera, mounted horizontally and shooting through a forty-five degree angled mirror down through an optical glass camera port. There was considerably less space in the RF-86 nose bay than in that of the RF-80A, so this installation necessitated the removal of the two lower 0.50 caliber machine guns on the right side of the fuselage. (14)

In October 1951, Col. Edwin S. "Chick" Chickering, the new commander of the 67th TRW, persuaded Far East Materiel Command (FEAMCOM) to modify two war-weary F-86As at Tachikawa Air Base, Japan, to the specifications of Fish, Gray, and Daley. Known as Project Honeybucket, the two newly-designated RF-86As immediately began operations with the 15th TRS. Captain Daley flew the first RF-86A combat photographic mission on December 8, 1951 against Namsi and Taechon airfields at 6,000 feet AGL, the altitude for the proper photography scale of the K-25 camera. Although aircraft vibration blurred the photographic results of the K-25, the RF-86A pilots soon established the precedent of flying combat missions in formation with regular 4th FIW Sabres on fighter sweeps and parking their aircraft--which were painted in the colors of the 4th FIW--across the airfield with the fighter squadron, to conceal their true nature from the Communists. (15) A Honeybucket aircraft would serve as one of the flight leads, drop out of the formation to make its photography run, and "hightail it" back to Kimpo, while the 4th FIW's fighters hunted MiGs. (16)

When Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg, USAF Chief of Staff, took personal interest in Project Honey-bucket, FEAMCOM, Air Materiel Command (AMC), and North American Aviation Co. collaborated to take the RF-86A field modification to a new level. Project Ashtray numbered six aircraft, each fitted with an enlarged and constant temperature air-conditioned camera compartment enclosing a forward-facing oblique twenty-four-inch K-22 camera for dicing photography and two twenty-inch K-24 split vertical cameras. Each Ashtray aircraft differed as to armament. Some retained either two or four .50 caliber machine guns (sans gunsight, making them fairly useless in aerial combat), while the others had all six guns removed and the gun ports sealed over. (17) The Cottonpickers, however, painted false gun ports on their aircraft to further the deception that these were ordinary Sabres. AMC and North American also upgraded the two Honeybucket aircraft to Ashtray configurations, which could be distinguished from 4th FIW Sabres by a bulged fairing on the underside of the fuselage, accommodating the enlarged camera installation.

Obtaining photographic quality comparable to that of the RF-80A with the RF-86A was a tall order. The 15th TRS had no choice but to rely on its operational experience with the Sabre to determine its effectiveness as a tactical reconnaissance platform. The dicing camera on the Ashtray RF-86As yielded excellent results during high-speed low-altitude photographic passes, due to the K-22's high shutter and film recycling speeds, and especially when the 15th TRS later fitted the K-22 with a thirty-six-inch lens cone. The vertical installation proved unsatisfactory because the limited space in the RF-86A's nose bay necessitated horizontal mounting of the cameras, and so all photographs were taken through mirrors. Since mirror image photography is worthless to photo interpreters, the film had to be turned over during development and printing, resulting in a loss of quality which, coupled with the Communists' mastery of camouflage, could potentially cripple the intelligence effort. (18) Additionally, the vibration of the aircraft in flight caused the image to blur between the mirror and the camera, "since each [was] mounted on different members of the aircraft ... [and] vibrating to a different degree." (19) Based on the input of the RF-86A pilots and the 67th TRW's photo interpreters, AMC and North American sent personnel to Kimpo who subsequently modified five of the six Ashtray aircraft by replacing the split vertical K-24s with one thirty-six-inch K-22 and mounting the mirror directly to the camera.

The operational record of the RF-86A illustrates not only the aircraft's ability to penetrate the defenses in MiG Alley (its paramount function), take photographs, and avoid MiG-15s at will, but also the overarching limitations and dangers of the air war in Korea. While anxiously awaiting delivery of the RF-84F, the 15th TRS ruefully reported that the "entire [Ashtray] project is a matter of expediency. It is felt that the final result can be considered only a temporary and partial solution of the problem." (20) The vertical camera installation never achieved photographic results up to RF-80A standards, even after the direct mounting of the mirror to the camera, because the shutter speed was too slow to compensate for the RF-86A's ground speed. It was not until the arrival of the RF-86F (known as Project Haymaker), which was factory-equipped with a pair of vertically mounted K-22s, in the spring of 1953 (very near the end of the war), that satisfactory vertical photographic results could be achieved.

For pilots used to flying the relatively slow RF-80A, flying the unfamiliar and much faster RF-86A into combat for the first time was a clash between survival and obtaining good photographic results. On his first mission in the RF-86A, on June 27, 1952, Lt. Co. Jack P. Williams, commander of the 15th TRS, was shot down and killed by North Korean small arms fire during a dicing run on the Chosen hydroelectric plant. According to Colonel Williams' wingman, Capt. Clyde K. Voss, Williams had not taken advantage of the RF-86A's speed:

Entering the mission area I repeatedly had to tell him to increase his speed over the target area. He then took the lead in a single low level pass [approximately 500 feet AGL] over the dam. But he was still too slow and accurate North Korean ground fire set his aircraft afire. (12)

The RF-86A did allow for the relatively easy penetration of MiG Alley, and beyond, to 15th TRS pilots whose only previous experience in that area of Korea, with the RF-80A, was extreme frustration at being outclassed by the MiG-15--although at low altitudes, flak remained a serious threat.

For some reason, USAF determined that, for dicing photography, "there is only a small requirement ... only amount[ing] to approximately three percent of our assigned missions." (22) However, the USAF underestimated the high speed and range of the RF-86A and its ability to project another long arm of FEAF air power. Dicing missions were the primary way to pinpoint Communist targets on both sides of the Yalu, such as Namei, Taechon, Antung, and Uiju. Dicing provided UN intelligence with

a wealth of information about the number and movement of aircraft, revetted areas, runway lengths, etc. One set of dicing photographs showed a flight of MiGs from the beginning of take off roll to its completion, and provided positive answers to the long debated question of the amount of runway required for take off. (23)

RF-86As did not always remain on the Korean side of the Yalu to take dicing photographs. Sometimes it became necessary for the Cottonpickers to cross the river into Chinese airspace. One day in the summer of 1952 at Kimpo, a returning 4th FIW pilot reported Soviet IL-28 bombers on the airfield at Antung, which could mean "only one thing--an offensive strike at the airfields in South Korea, possibly followed by a ground offensive. The whole wing, and probably the rest of South Korea, was immediately put on alert and contingency plans made." According to Captain Bill Coffey:

In the meantime Captain [Richard E.] Chandler launched in one of the RF-86s for a looksee at Antung. As I recall we sat on that hot runway for a long time waiting to hear from him. Anyway, Chandler crossed the Yalu on the deck, flew to Antung, and went straight down the runway shooting dicing pictures all the way. The pictures were great! MiG-15s lined up tip-to-tip, with very surprised communist ground crews in, on, and around the MiGs--all looking at this lone American Sabre coming straight down the main runway!

The 4th FIW pilot had mistaken the MiG-15s for IL-28s, and after determining that the Communists were not planning another offensive, the uproar gradually died down. (24)

Although Colonel Williams was the only combat loss among the Cottonpickers, several other RF-86A aircraft suffered moderate to heavy battle damage from ground fire, usually on dicing missions. As a result, the 15th TRS could only claim to have one or two operational RF-86As at any given time, since most Sabre units sent their damaged aircraft to FEAMCOM in Japan for repairs. Three other RF-86As, piloted by 1st Lts. Mirt D. Humphreys, William C. Aney, and Sidney W. Jones, crashed at Kimpo, due to fuel exhaustion, engine failure, and hydraulic pump failure, respectively. None of these accidents, which all occurred in 1952, were fatal to the pilot (although one crash in 1953 of an RF-86F killed its pilot and several bystanders at Kimpo), and none of the circumstances that resulted in RF-86A accidents were unique to that particular type of aircraft. (25)

The legacy of the RF-86A Sabre is one of innovation, trial and error, and the eventual realization of great tactical potential. When the RF-84F finally entered service in 1954, the three RF-86As still in USAF service went to Air National Guard units. One later crashed, and the other two were scrapped at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, in 1958. However, "the few RF-86As available in mid-1952 in effect weathered the Korean conflict without the help of the production-delayed RF-84," (26) and provided a serious morale boost to the overworked and underappreciated Cottonpickers. RF-86Fs of the 15th TRS went on to conduct "several dozen" photographic reconnaissance missions over the Soviet Union and China from 1954 to 1957 on the direct orders of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. (27) Perhaps the greatest legacy of the Cottonpickers' experience in Korea was their contribution to the eventual success of the RF-84F and every subsequent tactical reconnaissance aircraft, by revealing that this force "must, because of the nature of the mission, be technologically superior to perhaps any other mission performed in a fighter-type aircraft." (28)

NOTES

(1.) 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing, Photo Reconnaissance Conference, April 15-16, 1953, "Categories of Tactical Air Reconnaissance" (Kimpo, South Korea: 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing, 1953).

(2.) Fifth Air Force, "Photo Reconnaissance as a Collector of Intelligence," Intelligence Summary: 1-15 June 1952 (Taegu, South Korea:. Fifth Air Force, June 20, 1952), p. 59.

(3.) Jerre L. Kauffman, Tactical Reconnaissance at Decision Time (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air War College, 1983), pp. 4-5.

(4.) Ibid., p. 1.

(5.) Ibid., pp. 2-3, and Headquarters, 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing, The Employment of Jet Reconnaissance in the Korean Conflict: February 1951-May 1952 (Kimpo, South Korea: 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing, 1952), p. 2.

(6.) Robert F. Futrell, The United States Air Force in Korea, 1950-1953 (Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, Reprint Ed., 2000), pp. 545-46.

(7.) Hq, 67th TRW, The Employment of Jet Reconnaissance in the Korean Conflict, p. 16.

(8.) Far East Air Forces, "Conclusions and Recommendations," Report on the Korean War, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Far East Air Forces, 1954), p. 7.

(9.) Hq, 67th TRW, The Employment of Jet Reconnaissance in the Korean Conflict, p. 11.

(10.) 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Group, History of the 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Group, 1 October 1951-31 October 1951 (Kimpo, South Korea: 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Group, 1951), p. 1.

(11.) Hq, 67th TRW, The Employment of Jet Reconnaissance in the Korean Conflict, p. 11.

(12.) 15th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron (PJ), Tactical Doctrine (Kimpo, South Korea: 15th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, 1952), p. 7.

(13.) Futrell, The United States Air Force in Korea, p. 548.

(14.) Robert F. Dorr, "Sabres Over Russia: RF-86 Cold War Missions," Combat Aircraft 3 (Mar-Apr 2001): pp. 272-73.

(15.) Duncan Curtis, "A Short History of the Recce Sabres," (14 March 2002); available from http://f-86. tripod.com/ rfsabres.html; accessed April 2, 2002.

(16.) Larry Davis, "Project Ashtray;" available from http://www.geocities.com/~whiskey_w/classics/v32ashtray.htm; accessed June 6, 2001.

(17.) Dorr, "Sabres Over Russia," p. 274.

(18.) 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing, "Project Ashtray," Special Projects, vol. 1 (Kimpo, South Korea:. 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing, 1952), p. 2.

(19.) 15th TRS, Historical Data, May 1952 (Kimpo, South Korea: 15th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, 1952), p. 1.

(20.) 67th TRG, History of the 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Group, 1 October 1951-31 October 1951, p. 1.

(21.) Davis, "Project Ashtray."

(22.) 67th TRW, "Project Ashtray," pp. 3-5.

(23.) Headquarters, 67th TRW, The Employment of Jet Reconnaissance in the Korean Conflict, p. 6.

(24.) Davis, "Project Ashtray."

(25.) Hq 67th TRW, Reports of AF Aircraft Accidents for 1st Lts. Mirt D. Humphreys (14 March 1952), William C. Aney (5 September 1952), and Sidney W. Jones (21 November 1952) (Kimpo, South Korea: 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing, 1952).

(26.) Marcelle Size Knaack, Post-World War II Fighters: 1945-1973 (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1986), p. 56.

(27.) Dorr, "Sabres Over Russia," p. 277.

(28.) Kauffman, Tactical Reconnaissance at Decision Time, p. 26.

Second Lt. John H. Mahan is a U.S. Air Force navigator, stationed at Randolph AFB, Texas. Lieutenant Mahan is a 2002 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, where he majored in military history. This article began as a senior cadet paper in History 369, "Limited War in the Twentieth Century: A Study of the Korean and Vietnam Wars." In February 2004, Lieutenant Mahan will enter Undergraduate Pilot Training at Laughlin AFB, Texas.

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Author: Mahan, John H.

Publication: Air Power History

Geographic Code: 1USA

Date: Dec 22, 2003

Words: 3865

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