Customer Reviews

F-86 Sabre

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was pleasantly surprised by the contents of this DVD - over 5 hours of viewing on two disks and much of it of very high quality. The disks cover a wide range of fascinating material from the early testing and flights of the Sabre jets to rare insights into life on the airfields at Kimpo and Taegu during the Korean Conflict. Commentary by retired Sabre pilots and footage/interviews with many of the famous jet aces (Connell, Fischer, Gabreski, Jabara, etc) in Korea provide a fascinating insight, together with a 30 minute documentary on the famous 51st Fighter Interceptor Wing. Footage of actual operational briefings as well as a discussion of tactics against MIG fighters add to the realism of it all. Although most of the footage is in black and white, the quality is generally good. Some colour footage of legendary pilot Bob Hoover performing aerobatics during the late 50s in a Sabre is excellent. An interesting Air Force training film has been added as well as an original piece of Air Force propaganda explaining the early warning systems in place to defeat communist bombers attacking America. Some rare footage of a captured MIG-15 jet including its evaluation and testing by Air Force pilots is an unexpected bonus. I would thoroughly recommend this DVD to anybody interested in aviation or early jets.

Incredible! The only DVD release anywhere that contains footage and
interviews of any of the Sabre Aces, such as McDonnell, Fernandez,
Jabara and a young Buzz Aldrin! It puts a face to an overlooked but
critical phase of Air Combat history, the real beginning of the
Cold War, and probably the only time that the US and Soviets came to
actual blows!

If the price was, say, $29.95 (+/-), I would rate it as "acceptable". Some of it is pretty good - some of it is garbage - the so-called "F-86L Walk-Around", for example - is crap stuff. Any pilot knows a "walk-around" comes with narration telling you, the viewer, just what you're supposed to be looking for & why. There's none of that - it's merely a short video piece of someone literally "walking around" the plane with a camera and NO narration at all. For instructional and/or historical purposes, this video is useless in this regard. A REAL "walk-around" ("Pre-flight walk-around") utilizing an F-86E, F model, or a Canadian CL-13B/Mk6 Sabre combined with narration would've just as easy to make as well as being a HECK of a lot more informative, as well. I guess my main gripe about this video "set" is that it's merely a hodge-podge of video clips "thrown together" - there's very little "cohesiveness" in telling the Sabre story, so-to-speak (ie, it wasn't edited very well) and while some of the pieces were interesting from a historical point of view; nevertheless, it came across a a "disjointed" hodge-podge of individual pieces; some being interesting; some being boring to the point of almost being useless to the viewer. I think a much better job could've been done had the producers wanted to spend just a little more $$$ - it would've made ALL the difference in the world. This video "set", by the way, can be had for around $30 (+/-) plus shipping from the original producers. Amazon's prices are WAY out of line, in my opinion. I paid around $29 (+/-) around 3 years ago and you can find these on eBay & Craig's List & other sources for MUCH less than the prices stated above.