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North American T-39 Saberliner: The Capable Military Edition of a Bougie Business Jet

Medium-sized private jets probably look like the most useless, mono-functional wastes of composite metal in the skies today. On the face of it, you may have a point.
North American Saberliner 10 photos
Photo: Wikimedia Commons ( Fair Use)
North American SaberlinerNorth American SaberlinerNorth American SaberlinerNorth American SaberlinerNorth American SaberlinerNorth American SaberlinerNorth American SaberlinerNorth American SaberlinerNorth American Saberliner
Meet the North American T-39, the militarized special edition of a medium-sized twin-engined passenger jet more suited to ferrying Jeff Bezos or Warren Buffett to their next $100,000 a seat banquet speech. In its cosey life as a private business jet, the twin-engined Saberliner garners its name from the uncanny silhouette resemblance to the glorious F-86 Saber jet fighter.

Small wonder, as they were made by the very same company, with an almost assuredly substantial overlap in personnel between them no less. Unlike most American military planes, the Saberliner was an in-house project derived from a need to diversify its aircraft portfolio using readily existing supplies of aerospace-grade aluminum and other composite metals used in manufacturing later variants of the Saber fighter like the F-86F and K, and the still relatively new F-100 Super Saber.

The Saberliner and its military VIP transport cousin both utilized revolutionary design features from a line of fighters stretching back to the days of the P-51. Chief among these still relatively novel trinkets included thin, swept-back wings forged into a near-perfect laminar flow shape famous for North American Aviation aircraft. Sure to cut through high subsonic air as cleanly as possible and remain perfectly stable while doing so. The airframe was offered in multiple cockpits and seating arrangements with extended fuselage options to accommodate them.

North American Saberliner
Photo: Wikimedia Commons (Fair Use)
Passenger-fairing jetliners produce a lot of drag. It's somewhat inherent in the design. No room for fancy office furniture or a conference room in a fuselage as thin as a pencil, of course. With the mentioned advancements in wing design, this twin-engined jet had a fighting chance. Not only was it a fast jet, but its fighter-derived aeronautic properties allowed it to be one of only a handful of business-jet class airframes to be certified to perform aerobatic maneuvers in private service. It's all thanks to fighter jet tech that trickled down into other sectors of aviation at a breakneck pace.

The first prototype Saberliner took to the air for the first time on September 16, 1958. Of the 800 airframes from this lineage, a mere 200 were military T-39s. A slew of different engine options permeated the range of different utilities that the Saberliner class flew in support of. But at least in active military service, the T-39 sported twin Pratt & Whitney JT12/J-60 non-afterburning turbojets flinging 3,000 pounds (13 kN) of thrust each. Along with service to the Air Force, the Naval variant carried into battle the same radar seen on the McDonnell F3H-1 Demon carrier fighter. There was even a variant made with the same radar hardware as the Republic F-105 Thunderchief.

One of the alternatives uses for the T-39 airframe was as a basic training airplane able to teach the operation of sea-faring aviation radar systems. Most famously, in training pilots for combat in the F-8 Crusader supersonic fighter-bomber and its APQ-94 radar system. While business jets have been modified to carry missiles and other offensive ordinance, most notably the Dassault Falcon, the T-39 likely did not have this ability.

But for the last 60 years, the U.S. Military has struggled to find a reason to retire the nimble jet. With such wonderful flight characteristics for its type, you can understand why. Pilots stretching from the very early Cold War through Vietnam, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq part I and II, and Afghanistan have sung the praises of the Saberliner, which itself was renamed the Rockwell Saberliner after Rockwell International acquired North American Aviation to spearhead its upcoming Space Shuttle Orbiter contract with NASA.

North American Saberliner
Photo: Wikimedia Commons (Fair Use)
Ironically, it's believed Osama Bin-Laden got his hands on a Civilanized T-39 converted to standard  Saberliner specs during the Mujihadeen's guerrilla campaign against the invading Soviet Union. In a hideously cruel stroke of irony, this jet was used to ferry his military commanders to Kenya, where they promptly engaged American forces in neighboring Somalia.

Its precise origins seem to originate from a sale from a California broker in 1992. The jet was most famous for overshooting the runway at Khartoum Airport in Sudan and promptly eating a faceful of desert sand, damaging it beyond repair. The circle of life, dear friends, right before our very eyes.

Stay tuned for more from Limited Edition Month here on autoevolution.
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