The plane saw service until 1980.
Here's What You Need to Know: America’s first supersonic jet did not excel as a fighter and had beastly accident rate.
On October 14, 1947, an orange-painted Bell X-1 piloted by Chuck Yeager became the first aircraft to break the sound barrier in level flight. Though the rocket-powered X-1 was an experimental design, it followed that improving jet engine technology would make a supersonic fighter possible as well.
On its own initiative, the North American firm took a crack at evolving the F-86 Sabre, the top U.S. fighter of the Korean War, into a supersonic design. The Sabre had wings swept back 35 degrees for better high-speed performance and a large intake in its nose. The F-100 ‘Super’ Sabre’s wings were swept even further to 45 degrees, and its nose-intake distinctively tapered into a flattened elliptical shape. The first of the ‘Century Series’ of advanced 50’s-era fighters, the F-100 was nicknamed the ‘Hun’ as an abbreviation for 100.