This little story is directed at those of our group who did not have the opportunity to fly the Mk 6 Sabre. I post it here as a tribute to a thoroughbred and with the hope that the statute of limitations has run out.
Sometime in the late '50s I was tasked to do an acceptance test flight on a nearly-new un-tanked Sabre 6 that had just come out of its storage cocoon. The machine had just enough hours on it to do the pre-ferry flight testing and make the trip to France. What a beauty: no twists from over-stressing, no boot marks up and down the wings and a canopy that was crystal clear! To cap it all off, it was a one-in-a-million day for Grostenquin: CAFB (CAVU for the politically correct).
The test card took very little time and I ended up at angels 40 with a bit of fuel left. I happened to see a con reasonably close and gave chase. It turned out to be a Hun (F-100) dressed in aerobatic team livery all by himself, probably doing a test hop too. I was able to close on him until he noticed me and plugged in the burner and started to climb. I was able to follow quite easily as my machine was now getting pretty light and would climb at .95 mach at a good rate of up. The Hun pilot was getting a bit antsy as we passed through angels 50 and he still had this "model T" on his tail. He would come out of burner and I would close up easily, so he'd plug in the burner again. This went on 'til we passed through angels 54 and still going up at a good rate! I remember it clear as yesterday, I had .96 and still had 1000 feet/min up. I think he was getting a bit low on fuel with all the burner pumping he had to do so had resumed flying in normal power. This allowed me to pull abreast of him an give a waggle. He shook his head and stared as I broke away, momentarily touching 4 "G" albeit killing all speed in the process.
At this point I had 200 pounds of fuel on board. GT was right under the nose so a power off vertical descent and quick circuit got me onto the ground with enough juice to taxi in with.
Tex Gehman - 430 Sqn