Turbine Pilot

Flying the first Sabreliner

Let's travel back in time. It's April 1963. Mercury astronauts are national heroes. Gas is at 32 cents a gallon. Brand-new Corvette Stingrays. Kennedy's still alive, and so is the American dream. Out of this time came the first twin-engine American business jet - the North American Sabreliner. It was in that month that North American Aviation delivered its first Sabreliner 40 to Pet Milk Company. Two months later the first Lear Jet 23s would take to the skies. It was the dawn of a new era, and the beginning of a new industry. No longer would corporate air travel be associated with made-over B-26s and World War II-era transports. From then on, corporate jets and turboprops would be built from scratch, and designed for the speed and luxury that a swelling batch of corporate high-rollers demanded.

Friends, that first Sabre 40 - serial number 282-001 - lives on as N116SC, or Sabre One, as is proclaimed on its paint scheme. It's based at the St. Louis-Lambert International Airport and serves, fittingly, as Sabreliner Corporation's own corporate jet. It has racked up some 9,964 flight hours in its 36-year history, which makes it a low-time airplane compared to most of its contemporaries. Sabreliner bought the airplane from a Mexican company in 1996, then proceeded to fix it up from stem to stern, both inside and out. The airframe was given a life limit extension to 30,000 hours (Sabreliners came with 10,000-hour life limits); the cockpit sports a new AlliedSignal GNS-XLS flight management system; the cabin is fashionably redone in leather, teak, and gold trim; and there's a new Jet Glo paint job. If it weren't for the slightly pockmarked engine inlets (hail damage sustainedby a previous owner, and soon to be repaired) and unavoidable signs of age in that vintage cockpit - the art deco electrical subpanel, for example, or the odd nicks and wear caused by the friction of thousands of hands performing thousands of tasks - you'd think you were sitting in a younger airplane.

Much of this and every other Sabreliner's style and essence come from its military parentage. It all started way back in 1956, when the U.S. Air Force first let out a contract for a sturdy "combat readiness trainer and utility aircraft" that it dubbed Project UTX. North American Aviation, fresh from success with its F-86 Sabre Jet, a fighter that distinguished itself in the Korean War, and its follow-on design, the F-100 Super Sabre, won the contract. First flight of what soon came to be known as the T-39 came in September 1958, and orders soon rolled in for some 220 airplanes. They were durable, forgiving, and well-loved by generations of Air Force and Navy pilots.

After the success of the Lockheed JetStar, a four-engine turbojet that made the jump from military to civilian VIP transport in 1961, North American looked at the T-39 with new eyes. The T-39 was renamed - what else - the Sabreliner, and the Sabreliner Division was formed to pitch the idea to civilians. It worked. From 1963 to 1981, 440 Sabreliners of various types were sold to satisfied customers.

The Sabreliner's mil-spec aura and impression of substance were critical to its success in the marketplace. These airplanes are stout and serious, and many of their features and systems are direct derivatives of those used in the Sabre jets, such as the belly-mounted air brake, the narrow-track landing gear, the hydraulics, even the wing sweep and profile - which is very close to that of the F-86's. The greenhouse-style set of eyebrow windshields, the cockpit with a transport category look and feel, and the cabin that was large for its day - all these things made for an airplane that pleases pilots and passengers alike.

But don't take all the macho talk too seriously. "It's an old man's airplane," says Jim Bruce, Sabreliner Corporation's manager of flight operations, adding that "you'd have to work pretty hard to screw up in a Sabreliner. It's very straightforward and just doesn't have any of the bad traits you'd ordinarily find in a sweptwing airplane." That may be, but the Sabreliner's hot-rod aspects were on full display in the 1970s and 1980s, when airshow legend Bob Hoover was hired to pump up the Sabreliner's performance and handling capabilities. In a typical routine, Hoover would roll a Sabreliner right after takeoff, then segue into a series of loops, point rolls, and Cuban eights. No, he didn't shut the engines down, but he did fly the thing like it was a fighter. If it's that kind of an "old man's airplane," I thought, then my imminent flight in Sabre One could be a challenge.

After a familiarization ride in FlightSafety International's Sabre 60 simulator, I met Sabreliner's chief pilot, Scott Kesterson, for a trip in the real McCoy. The first thing anyone new to a Sabreliner will remember is that big step over the door sill at the top of the airstair door. Word has it that the Air Force wanted a high sill in case a T-39 had to ditch. It was thought that the high sill would help delay the cabin's filling with water.

Squeeze into the captain's seat and you're treated to a no-nonsense cockpit topped off with an elaborate overhead panel. That's where the electrical system master switch, AC and DC circuit breakers, light switches, and ice protection controls live. Two things catch my eye. One's a light switch labeled "Thunderstorm," with Bright and Dim positions. "Turn that on 'Bright,' and it's like being on the sun in here," Kesterson says. You use those lights in case you wind up in a storm cell and don't want to be blinded by lightning. The absence of any wing anti-ice switches also caught my eye. "Hardly any T-39s or Sabreliners have known-icing certification," Bruce told me. "I guess they figured you'd climb or descend through the ice so fast that it wouldn't matter," said Bruce, who has worked for Sabreliner for 33 years. "Those who've held in icing conditions," he said, "don't report any problem with handling. The slats come out automatically if airspeeds get too low, so that just leaves the issue of the weight penalty extracted by the ice buildups." The few Sabreliners with known-ice certification use inflatable boots on the airplane's leading edge slats - a crude (for a jet) but effective way of removing ice, but one that creates a 4- to 6-percent speed penalty in cruise flight. Ironically, the known-ice Sabres are used in a Navy flight training program that's based in sunny Pensacola.

Though I'd had a sampling of it in the simulator, coping with the Sabre's nosewheel steering still proved a learning experience. It's an electrically actuated, hydraulically powered system, and for the neophyte it's super-sensitive. To turn it on, you push the Nose Wheel Steer button switch at the top left corner of the Sabre's massive control yoke, which looks like it might be at home in a Boeing B-52. Then you tap the pedals lightly to wend your way to the active. It's hard not to overcontrol and zig-zag this way and that.

Sabre 40s and two other Sabreliner models - the Sabre 60s and 75s - use Pratt & Whitney JT-12A turbojet engines with 3,300-lb thrust ratings. Now scorned for their appetite for fuel and impolite takeoff racket, turbojets were the name of the game in the Sabreliner's day. Today, turbojets with Stage 1 or Stage 2 noise ratings are banned from all noise-sensitive airports, and a few others, to boot. So you have to be careful where you can and cannot land. Sabre 40s are Stage 2 airplanes, but the later-model Sabreliners (the models 65 and 75A) were given much quieter, more fuel-efficient turbofan engines.

Setting takeoff power in the turbojet Sabres involves calculating a takeoff EPR (engine pressure ratio, a measure of the pressure differential between the air entering and leaving the engine). EGT limits and compressor speed are used as crosschecks. Our target EPR came out to be 2.25, and after being cleared for takeoff from Lambert's Runway 30R, I ran the thrust levers up to that value while standing on the brakes for all I was worth. From the back of the plane came first a whistle, then a mild roar as the JT-12s spooled up to their full might.

With brake release Sabre One shot forward, Kesterson fine-tuned the power as speed built, and I began a dance on the rudder pedals, hoping mightily that my nosewheel steering technique would be better than my performance in the simulator. Anyway, it didn't matter for very long, because soon we were rolling past 80 knots. That's when you sneak your left thumb up the left side of the yoke and, using a combination of Braille and The Force, locate and punch off the hated Nose Wheel Steer button. Now you steer aerodynamically, using rudder.

V1 (114 kt) and VR (118 kt) sweep by, and we're off the ground and in a 4,500-fpm climb doing some 200 kt. As we climb, it's only by dialing back the EPR to a more tame 1.5 that we avoid busting the 250-kt-below-10,000-feet rule. But soon that issue was moot as we were cleared to FL310 and picked up a normal climb speed of 250 to 260 kt.

Once level at FL310, I wanted to get some numbers for a high cruise speed condition. As I had every reason to suspect, Sabre One was running like a bat out of hell. Here are the numbers: -22 degrees total air temperature (TAT); 92 percent compressor speed; 290 kt indicated; 457 kt true; 0.78 Mach; and - here's the kicker - 600 pph worth of fuel burn per engine. That works out to about 180 gallons of Jet-A per hour. The Sabre 40's tanks can hold as much as 1,063 gallons.

In spite of the 40's gas-guzzler status, Sabreliner says that the airplane will carry six passengers 1,650 nm and land with IFR fuel reserves. It's a safe bet that you won't realize that kind of range with a combat cruise power setting such as the one we used. The Garrett TFE 731 fanjet-equipped Sabre 65s (built from 1979 to 1981), however, are true coast-to-coast airplanes. They are the top of the line, have supercritical wing designs, 0.81 Mach speed, 1,317-gallon fuel tanks, and can range as far as 2,890 nautical miles.

A descent to 15,000 feet gave me a chance to sample the Sabre's exemplary slow-flight behavior. Slowing through 180 kt, the 10 interlocked leading edge slats begin to deploy. They do this simply and automatically, activated by forward movements of the wings' centers of pressure - sort of like a huge Socata Rallye (or, by another name, the PZL Koliber). By the time you reach 140 kt, the slats are fully extended. Slow even further, and the stick shaker will kick in. There is no stick pusher. "Wanna try a stall?" Kesterson asks. "It's more docile than your Bonanza's."

So I keep hauling back on that monster yoke and the Sabre bucks and nods as the stall arrives. No rolling off on a wing, no sudden break, nothing scary at all. Maybe it is an old man's airplane after all. "You can fly around at 90 kt like this if you want, no problem," Kesterson says. "But it will take a lot of power."

Landings were really quite uneventful, thanks in large part to the Sabre's good low-speed handling. On final the thrust levers can be set to a ballpark setting of 75 to 78 percent compressor speed with full flaps and gear down. This should yield an approximate airspeed of VREF plus 10 kt - the desired airspeed for final approach. That speed for our weight that day worked out to be 137 kt. Over the threshold power can be reduced to flight idle, and after nosewheel touchdown you can reach up, grab the thrust reverser paddles, and pull them back while braking. The only restriction is that you have to stow the thrust reversers before reaching 80 kt, or foreign objects could be ingested into the engines. Then it's a matter of punching on the nosewheel steering for the rest of the rollout, and taxiing on in.

Like a lot of other aging corporate iron, the Sabreliner's history has had its rough patches. North American kicked off the program, then partnered the Sabreliner Division program with Rockwell under the North American Rockwell name. Then Rockwell took over the line lock, stock, and barrel. In 1983, Rockwell sold the division to private investors, who renamed it the Sabreliner Corporation.

Sabreliner Corporation continues a strong tradition of product support and enhancements. The company's Midcoast Aviation subsidiary carries out modifications and maintenance at its facilities at Lambert, the St. Louis Downtown-Parks Airport, and Little Rock (Arkansas) Municipal Airport. Parts fabrication and aircraft completions are done at Sabreliner's Perryville and Neosho, Missouri, sites. As for work on those blowtorch Pratts and the other Sabreliner engines, Sabreliner's Premier Turbines can handle it at Perryville and Neosho, and at facilities in Cahokia, Illinois; Independence, Kansas; and San Diego, California.

Life limit extensions are available in 5,000-hour increments to those who buy into the Sabre 2000 maintenance plan. This involves a complete structural inspection and any repairs, if necessary, and comes with a five-year warranty against structural corrosion. Other upgrades include: speedbrake installations, reduced vertical separation minimums (RVSM) certification, Stage III hush kits for the Model 75A's General Electric CF700 turbofan engines, zero fuel weight increases for Sabre 40s and 60s, TCAS I and II installations, a windshield heat controller, and new primer and PPG surface seal treatments. To keep owners and operators advised of the latest maintenance and operational issues, Sabreliner holds an annual SOS (Sabreliner Operators' Symposium).

If some deride the turbojet Sabreliners as loud, anachronistic gas hogs, then what's the big attraction for those who buy them? "They're cheap, fast, have good range, and are an easy way to get into a jet," says Dave Potter, Sabreliner's director of aircraft sales, who sold eight Sabres last year. Currently, Vref (an aircraft valuation publication) says Sabre 40s sell in the $600,000 to $1.1 million range. Later models, such as the long-range Sabre 65, are the priciest and go for $3 million to $4 million. Potter, who's offering the last production Sabreliner - a 1981 Sabre 65 - for sale at $3.6 million (Sabre One isn't for sale), doesn't pay Vref or the Aircraft Bluebook-Price Digest much mind. "Bankers pay a lot of attention to them, but the value of an airplane can go up so quickly that the numbers in the Bluebook or Vref can lag behind," he said.

Buy a Sabreliner and you'll definitely get a whole lot of airplane for your money, let there be no doubt. However, acquisition costs aren't the only consideration. An older airplane can easily cost $500,000 a year in operational costs such as fuel, maintainenance, insurance, hangaring, and pilot and mechanic training.

Despite all this, Sabreliners still retain a cadre of devotees who look at the airplane with eyes wide open. For those who might be thinking of a turboprop, and can afford a Sabreliner's operating costs, then it's worth it to look at one of these classic business jets. I mean, what'll it be? A newer turboprop that's much slower, doesn't climb nearly as fast, has less range, and can't come close to the Sabreliners' 45,000-foot maximum operating altitude? Or a real jet from the days when we didn't have to apologize for burning gas and arriving in style?

Links to all Web sites referenced in this issue can be found on AOPA Online ( www.aopa.org/pilot/links/links9906.shtml). For additional photos of the Sabreliner, visit AOPA's Online Gallery at: www.aopa.org/online_gallery/. E-mail the author at [email protected].