Shrike F-86 Sabre - Airshow Aerobatic Display with a new Favorite - Microsoft Flight Simulator

Today we’re taking the new F-86 Sabre by Shrike up for an "Airshow" display at Duxford. As the title states it's a new favorite, that is not 100% accurate, the Milviz (now Blackbird & parent company of Shrike) F-86 was one of my absolute favorite aircraft in FSX. And I'm super happy to have it back, probably better than it ever was.

I must be honest, when I saw the announcement that the F-86 would be released via Shrike I was a bit worried. I didn't really like the screenshots, with what seemed very visible raised rivets (A F-86 has flush rivets), an extremely weathered cockpit, inaccurate paintschemes and the visual effects also looked very game like. I was also worried that the Systems and Flight Model would be tuned down to make it more accessible to a beginner sim pilot. In short, I thought that the study level aircraft we had in FSX would be ruined and published as a new game-like version of the F-86.

I'm very happy that I'm 100 % wrong! In short, the aircraft is awesome! The rivets look very good in the sim, and the raised portion is only visible if you zoom in closer than you would ever do in a normal flight. The weathering in the cockpit looks quite good in the sim. The wrong fonds of the paintschemes in the preview pictures got fixed (a couple will be fixed in an upcoming update) and look fantastic. And also, the visual effects look much better in the sim itself, I love the iconic Sabre smoke trail and the flames if you look into the turbine.

When it comes to the Systems, pretty much everything is clickable with only very few inop switches and levers and even the circuit brakers are modeled and work.

The flight model is fantastic. Everybody who flies the F-86 in real life only speaks of it in the highest tones. Eric Brown, the famous British test pilot who held the record of most flown aircraft types (487 aircraft types, without counting subversions) named it as one of his favorite aircraft. Steve Hinton the famous warbird pilot, who has flown pretty much every vintage aircraft there is, has named the F-86 his favorite plane. Shrike did a fantastic job, showing of the flying qualities of the Sabre. It flies like a dream. It is quite agile for a jet, for the most part quite easy to fly and yet an absolute hoot. I think it might be one of the best handling aircraft in MSFS.

The soundset is also fantastic. For 20$ the F-86 is an absolute steal and in my opinion a must have! And I'm super happy to have one of my favorite aircraft back, better than ever.

Now to the video, I sadly got a bit carried away with aerobatics and was a bit shocked when I stopped the recording at around 30 minutes. It definitely didn't feel that long. I'm sorry for the length, as always, I've included time stamps so you can skip ahead to the parts you want to see. There are also a few more stutter issues than I would have liked, especially in the ground view sections. I hope it's still watchable and you can excuse the stutters. Hopefully the next videos will be better again.

Apart from the stutters, the "spectator"/ground view is also a bit more chopped up than I would have liked. That is sadly a MSFS drone camera limitation, it'll only display the aircraft at relatively close range. You can get away with that with slower aircraft or even some of the warbirds, but with fast aircraft like the F-86 that's sadly not possible. I left in one loop with the aircraft disappearing at the top to demonstrate that issue.

You'll also notice during the external replays of the takeoff and landing there are weird banging noises as soon as the wheels touch the ground. I think that is sadly an issue with the replay app as I hadn't noticed that before in a "live" flight. The app sometimes has issues replaying shock absorbers or moving parts in general.

One "technical" note, I think the F-86 is one of very few aircraft that actually look better with drop tanks fitted. You'll notice on the G-meter, that the F-86 is limited to -3/+7 G's and that there is a white and red line at 5 G's. It symbolizes that max G-load with ordinance fitted...like the droptanks. I took the liberty for this video to ignore this limit and fly it within the regular limits. The display is flown entirely positive between ~ 0,5 - 6,5 G's. Which would be ok if the drop tanks weren't fitted.

I hope you'll enjoy the video! Thanks for watching =)


The F-86 Sabre is available here (It will also be available without weapons in the MSFS Marketplace in a few weeks):
https://shrikesims.com/ac.php?id=f86

The awesome Duxford freeware scenry by ChicoMick is available here:
https://flightsim.to/file/28581/egsu-...


00:00 Intro
00:37 Startup
02:25 Working Circuit Brakers
02:56 Taxi
04:58 Takeoff
06:02 External Takeoff View
06:54 Climbing
08:50 Aerobatic Display
26:20 Landing
27:19 External Landing View
28:04 Taxi
30:20 Shutdown
31:07 Spectator View Takeoff
31:55 Spectator View Display
37:42 Spectator View Landing