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Warpaint Series No. 40: Canadair and Commonwealth Sabre
 

Canadair and Commonwealth Sabre

Warpaint Series No. 40
By Steve Hazell
Hall Park Publications, ©2004
Softbound, 52 Pages

Reviewed by Chris Banyai-Riepl

The Warpaint Series continues with this title covering the Canadair and Commonwealth Sabre. The history of the Sabre is incredibly broad, spanning several decades and just about every continent on the planet, so it is wise of the Warpaint people to focus just on the Canadair and Commonwealth Sabres in this issue. Even with this limitation, the book covers a wide range of Sabre operations, mainly in Europe.

The Canadair Sabre story starts during the Korean War and initially was planned to be merely an assembly point for kits produced in the United States. By the end of the program, though, Canadair accounted for roughly 85% of the manufacture of their Sabres, and even sent some Canadair Sabres south of the border for use in the U.S. Air Force. Canadair Sabres also formed the backbone of European air forces, including Britain, Italy, Germany, Norway, and several others, guaranteeing the sight of a Sabre over the European countryside for decades.

Going to the other end of the world, the Commonwealth Sabre, based on the F-86F-1 Sabre, is often considered to be the ultimate Sabre design, with the powerful Avon engine and twin 30mm cannons. Serving for many years with the RAAF, the Avon Sabre also saw service with Indonesia and Malaysia. Because of the changes of the Avon engine, this final variant of the Sabre had a very different fuselage that is carefully outlined in the text.

Accompanying the text are plenty of photos that illustrate the many colors worn by this aircraft. The Sabre's excellent handling lent itself well to aerobatic teams, several of which are presented in photos, both black and white and color. Complementing the photos are several great color profiles drawn by Richard Caruana. These will get the modeler's interest going as there are several great color schemes presented, spanning everyone who operated the type.

This is a good effort by the Warpaint people and should meet the needs of modelers looking for a single reference on Canadair Sabres who do not want to take up bookshelf space with Larry Milberry's "The Canadair Sabre" book. I picked my copy up from Sandle Hobbies, who managed to turn the order around very quickly, even though they were across the ocean. Check out their website for this and other Warpaint titles.