title: No Man's Sky

text: A third update, titled "Atlas Rises", was released in August 2017. It includes significant contributions to the game's story mode, added an estimated 30 hours of narrative, and added procedurally generated missions. The player can use portals to quickly transport across the game's galaxy. A limited online cooperative mode, called "Joint Exploration", allows for up to 16 players to explore the same planet and use voice chat and text commands to communicate to others in close proximity, seeing each other as glowing spheres, but otherwise they cannot directly interact with each other; Hello Games called it an "important first step into the world of synchronous co-op". The update was preceded by several weeks of a "Waking Titan" alternate reality game.


title: No Man's Sky

text: The fourth major update, "No Man's Sky Next", was released for Windows and PlayStation 4 on 24 July 2018; this coincided with "No Man's Sky" release on Xbox One which included all updates including "Next". Additionally, the "Next" update included support for Tencent's WeGame distribution platform in China, which Hello Games says hosts a significant number of "No Man's Sky" players.


title: No Man's Sky

text: "No Man's Sky Next" was a significant update that Hello Games considered to be more representative of the game they wanted to release in 2016. The update included a full multiplayer experience, allowing up to four players to create and customize their in-game avatar and to join as allies to explore planets and star systems and build bases together, or as opponents to fight against each other. Bases are no longer limited to specific spots on a planet and now can be built nearly anywhere, including underwater, and such bases are visible to all other players of the game (on their respective platform). Players are able to assemble fleets of starships (called "frigates") to be used to send out on various missions.


title: No Man's Sky

text: The game's engine received a significant overhaul in how planets were procedurally generated as well as how they were rendered to the player. With the expanded multiplayer features, "Next" required players on consoles to have a PlayStation Plus or Xbox Live Gold service subscription to use the multiplayer elements. At launch, the GOG.com version of "No Man's Sky Next" lacked the multiplayer component, with GOG offering refunds within a limited window for anyone that had bought the game regardless of when that purchase was made.


title: No Man's Sky

text: Following "Next", Hello Games stated their plans to be more interactive with the community and provide more frequent updates, including weekly content with special events with community-driven goals that would provide all players with in-game currency to purchase in-game items, but otherwise free to all players and without microtransactions. The first such event was launched in late August 2018. Additionally, Hello Games launched the Galactic Atlas, a website that players can upload information about interesting discoveries they found in-game for other players to explore themselves.


title: No Man's Sky

text: Subsequent content updates to the game continued after the release of "Next". "The Abyss", added in October 2018, greatly expanded the game's features in aquatic biomes, with more creatures, resources, base-building features, additional story content, and a new personal submarine vehicle to help explore underwater areas. The next major update "Visions", released in November 2018, expanded the number of biomes available, incorporated more abnormal flora and fauna on certain worlds, and included the opportunity to collect resources and trophies from the crash sites of freighters, alien bases, and fossilized creatures. An April 2019 update to the Windows version provided a complete overhaul of the graphics API replacing OpenGL with Vulkan. This brought performance improvements, particularly players with AMD GPUs. The update includes improved loading times, HDR support and more graphic settings.


title: No Man's Sky

text: Another major update, "Beyond", was released on 14 August 2019. "Beyond" features three major components. One component, called "Online", expands upon the game's multiplayer features, which Murray compared to the multiplayer features of "Destiny". The game now features a larger number of players on the same server, with up to 32 players on personal computers. If players are in the same general area, they will see other players nearby, while alternatively, players are able to travel to the Nexus, where they can meet other players directly and group up, shop, upgrade equipment, and take on missions. A second component is virtual reality support for Windows-compatible headsets (Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and Valve Index) as well as PlayStation VR on the PlayStation 4 version. Multiple different control schemes are available to players depending on what activity they are in to use with compatible VR controllers. The third part of the update features a number of general improvements across the breadth of the game to add more features. Bases have more customization features, featuring electrical grids and programmable elements, in addition to industrial automation features as to create small automated factories. The programmable options allow players to create custom interactions with the game; Hello Games developers had used the new system to create a version of "Rocket League" within "No Man's Sky", for example. Players can domesticate alien creatures, raising them as livestock and use them as mounts in the game. This added a recipe system that can use various resources to create beneficial items.


title: No Man's Sky

text: Another update after Beyond, called "Synthesis", released in November 2019, adding changes to the game's inventory system, the ability to upgrade one's starship without having to purchase a new one, and around 300 quality of life improvements and bug fixes. The "Living Ship" update in February 2020 introduced sentient organic ships called Void, along with additional story content related to their origins; further, with the "Living Ship" update, Hello Games stated they will still plan these major updates but may introduce feature sets of these in the weeks ahead during regular patches and content updates, as players had seen ahead of the "Living Ship" update. An "Exo Mech" update in April 2020 added mechanized suits that can withstand environmental hazards on planets and aid in quick traversal and mining of resources.


title: No Man's Sky

text: A June 2020 patch added cross-platform play support between all platform, computer, and storefront versions, with other additional features. "Desolation", released in July 2020, introduced abandoned starships with interiors, generated procedurally, containing alien-infested rooms that players can fight through to find resources.


title: No Man's Sky

text: "Origins" is a major update released in September 2020 that effectively doubled the variation in flora and fauna and added new planetary features like binary and ternary star systems, volcanoes, and localized weather patterns and effects. Murray described the "Origins" update as a means to freshen up the game for long-time players as, while previous patches had added numerous new features, they had not really addressed the issues around lack of variety in planetary aspects, which "Origins" set out to address.


title: No Man's Sky

text: "Next Generation" is an update released in November 2020, adding support for the next generation of consoles, the PlayStation 5 (including PlayStation VR) and Xbox Series X and Series S. The update improved the game's visuals on those platforms as well as on the Windows platform to make planets appear fuller, as well as allowing for more extensive base-building sizes. This update also assured that the new console versions were save-game-compatible with the previous ones in the family and supported cross-platform play among all platform versions. "Companions", added in February 2021, allowed players to tame certain alien creatures as domesticated companions on their travels.


title: No Man's Sky

text: The "Expeditions" update in March 2021 added a new Expedition play mode, featuring seasonal challenges that start players at a curated point in the game's universe with pre-allocated equipment, and challenge them to complete various milestones over the course of the season, to earn unique customization options. For example, one such reward during the second seasonal expedition was the ability to unlock a version of the "Normandy", the spacecraft from the "Mass Effect" series from BioWare, coinciding with the release of "Mass Effect Legendary Edition".


title: No Man's Sky

text: The VR version of "No Man's Sky" was one of the first titles to support NVidia's Deep learning super sampling (DLSS) technology for VR games with a patch in May 2021. The June 2021 "Prisms" update improved several of the visual effects across the game and introduced support for NVidia DLSS on compatible graphics cards for the personal computer version of the game.


title: No Man's Sky

text: Following an announcement of the update on the game's fifth anniversary, "Frontiers" was released in September 2021. This added procedurally generated alien settlements, as well as the ability for players to manage and expand a single settlement. The update improved base building further, adding hundreds of new base parts and an overhaul of the base building UI; it also enhanced visual effects for different animations. The fourth Expedition "Emergence", released in October 2021 just ahead of both Halloween and the release of the theatrical "Dune" adaptation, included a number of updates related to the game's giant worms. The "Sentinel" update released in February 2022 improved the game's combat systems, giving the player more weapon capabilities while expanding the difficulty of the planetary defense systems. With the release of "Sentinel", Murray said that Hello Games considers "No Man's Sky" nowhere near finished, as "the team are always coming up with new things that they want to do with the game: new content and features and areas for improvement." "Outlaws", released in April 2022, improved starship combat and allowed the player to take on the role of a rogue pilot. A seventh expedition named "Leviathan", released in May 2022, introduced "space whale" organic frigates, which can be recruited into a player's frigate fleet. The "Endurance" update in July 2022 improved base-building features including most customization of one's freighters.


title: No Man's Sky

text: A port for the Nintendo Switch was released 7 October 2022. The Switch version had been at work at Hello Games for a few years, according to the studio, and had several technical challenges they overcame but were able to make the version work on the lower-power hardware. The Switch version includes all updates through "Endurance". However, the game will not initially support multiplayer features, though Hello Games plans to add this in sometime after launch. In addition to the Switch release, the game was updated with the "Waypoint" release across all platforms, which improves core gameplay elements for new players while expanding goals for experienced ones, and brings a new "relaxed" game play mode that still presents potential player character death but at a far lower risk compared to the standard game loop


title: No Man's Sky

text: Hello Games announced development of a PlayStation VR2-optimized port of the game in June 2022. Apple announced that they have worked with Hello Games to bring the title to macOS and iPadOS, which will utilize the Metal framework with the MetalFX enhanced that Apple unveiled at the 2022 WWDC.


title: No Man's Sky

text: The Traveller (the player character) wakes up on a remote planet with amnesia, and must locate their crashed starship. After finding their starship, its computer guides the Traveller to make the necessary repairs, and to collect the resources needed to fuel a hyperspace jump to another planetary system. En route, the Traveller encounters individual members of three alien species, the Gek, the Korvax and the Vy'keen, that inhabit the galaxy. During their voyage, the Traveller is compelled by an unknown force to reach the centre of the galaxy.


title: No Man's Sky

text: Along the way to the centre, the Traveller is alerted to a presence of a space anomaly in a nearby system. Travelling there, they find a special space station ("space anomaly") where many strange aliens reside. Two of the aliens, Priest Entity Nada and Specialist Polo, have knowledge beyond what other aliens in the galaxy appear to possess, including being able to speak to the Traveller without translation. They tell of a strange being, found at the centre of the galaxy. They are able to guide the Traveller towards meeting it, by directing them to a nearby black hole that can quickly take the Traveller closer to the centre of the galaxy.


title: No Man's Sky

text: As the Traveller continues on their journey, they receive a message from an alien entity named Artemis. Artemis says that they are also a Traveller and wished to meet others of their kind, but got trapped on a sunless world after stepping through a strange, ancient portal. After triangulating Artemis's position and talking with the local alien species, the Traveller discovers that Artemis's location does not exist. After telling Artemis the news, the transmission ends mysteriously and the Traveller learns of yet another Traveller named Apollo.


title: No Man's Sky

text: The Traveller then contacts Apollo, telling them about Artemis's predicament. The Traveller is told to uncover the connection between the portals and the Sentinels, the robotic beings protecting each planet. After a skirmish with the Sentinels, the Traveller passes through a portal and is taken aboard a large, unknown vessel in space, where they come face to face with the cosmic being Nada spoke about, named the Atlas. The Traveller is then sent to an unknown planet where they find the grave of Artemis, revealing Artemis has been dead the entire time. While trying to contact Apollo, the Traveller accidentally contacts a new entity named -null-, who tells the Traveller that Artemis can be saved using a "Mind Arc". After constructing the Mind Arc, the Traveller must choose whether to upload Artemis's soul into a machine aboard the Anomaly or to let them die. Regardless of the choice, the Traveller is directed by a distress beacon to another portal where they learn that the Atlas is dying.


title: No Man's Sky

text: The Traveller becomes aware that they, like Nada and Polo, are different from the other sentient beings in the galaxy, having some sense of the universe's construction and nature. It is revealed that the galaxy itself exists as a computer simulation managed by the Atlas, and the Travellers, or the fourth race, are entities that were created by the Atlas to explore the simulation. It is also revealed how Nada and Polo met, and how they are "errors" that had become self-aware of being in a simulation and isolated themselves in the anomaly to help others.


title: No Man's Sky

text: The Traveller investigates more Interfaces and finds themselves once again in direct communication with the Atlas. The Atlas informs the Traveller that it does not want to die. In order to save itself, it directs the Traveller to continue to explore and collect information all while moving towards the centre, where the entity appears to be. The Atlas judges the Traveller's progress, and grants them the blueprint for a different Atlas Seed if it deems the Traveller worthy. The Traveller must continue on this journey, receiving help from Nada, Polo and Atlas Seeds from other Interfaces.


title: No Man's Sky

text: Ultimately, the Traveller reaches the galaxy's centre, finding yet another Atlas Interface. The Traveller must choose to either restart the simulation, saving The Atlas, or reject the offer.


title: No Man's Sky

text: If the Traveller chooses to reject The Atlas's offer, the main storyline ends and the Traveller is allowed to explore the galaxy as they wish. Otherwise, if the Traveller chooses to restart the simulation, The Atlas resets, upon which it creates a new galaxy, as well as creating a new Traveller entity to restart the exploration. It is then revealed that this has happened many times before, each time shortening the life of The Atlas. The Atlas tries to observe the future, past its death, but sees nothing, besides the hand of its creator on its glass casing. The Traveller is teleported to the new galaxy, effectively restarting the game.


title: No Man's Sky

text: "No Man's Sky" represented Hello Games' vision of a broad, attention-getting game that they wanted to pursue while they secured their financial well-being through the "Joe Danger" series of games. The game's original prototype was worked on by Hello Games' Sean Murray, who wanted to create a game about the spirit of exploration inspired by the optimistic science fiction of Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Robert Heinlein, and the cover artwork of these works in the 1970s and 1980s. Murray wanted to re-create the feelings of space exploration seen in older procedurally generated games, including the galaxies of "Star Control II", "Elite" and "". Development expanded into a small four-person team prior to its first teaser in December 2013. About a dozen developers worked on the game in the three years leading up to its release, with Sony Interactive Entertainment providing promotional and marketing support. Sony formally announced the title during their press conference at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2014, the first independently developed game to be presented at the Expo's centrepiece events.


title: No Man's Sky

text: The game's engine employs several deterministic algorithms such as parameterised mathematical equations that can mimic a wide range of geometry and structure found in nature. Art elements created by human artists are used and altered as well. The game's audio, including ambient sounds and its underlying soundtrack, also uses procedural generation methods from base samples created by audio designer Paul Weir and the British musical group 65daysofstatic.


title: No Man's Sky

text: "No Man's Sky" was revealed at the VGX Awards in December 2013, and subsequently gained significant attention from the gaming press. Hello Games sought help from a publisher and got the interest of Sony Interactive Entertainment (then Sony Computer Entertainment). Sony offered to provide development funding but Hello Games only requested financial assistance for promotion and publication. Sony presented the game at their media event during Electronic Entertainment Expo 2014 (E3); until that point, no independently developed game has been demonstrated during these centre-stage events.


title: No Man's Sky

text: Rumors circulated in the lead-up to the 2015 Paris Games Week in October 2015 that "No Man's Sky" would be released alongside Sony's press conference, but Murray and Sony denied these rumours. Instead, Sony used their press conference to announce the game's expected release in June 2016 for the PlayStation 4.


title: No Man's Sky

text: The game's scheduled release during the week of 21 June 2016 was announced in March 2016, along with the onset of pre-orders for both PlayStation 4 and Windows versions. Hello Games also announced that the PlayStation 4 version would also be available in both a standard and "Limited Edition" retail release, published by Sony, alongside the digital version. About a month before this planned release, Sony and Hello Games announced that the game would be delayed until August 2016, with Murray opting to use the few extra weeks as "some key moments needed extra polish to bring them up to our standards". Hello Games opted not to present at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2016 in June 2016 so as to devote more time to polishing the game, with Murray noting that due to the structure of the game, "we get one shot to make this game and we can't mess it up." The game had gone gold on 7 July 2016, and was released on 9 August 2016.


title: No Man's Sky

text: The release date in the United Kingdom, originally slated for 12 August and two days after the rest of Europe, was later pushed up to 10 August due in part to a new deal Sony arranged with retailers to allow for simultaneous release in both regions. Two weeks before release, the worldwide Windows version release was pushed out a few days, to 12 August 2016. Murray stated through Twitter that they felt the best experience for players would be a simultaneous worldwide release on the Windows platform, something they could not control with the retail aspects that were associated with the regional PlayStation 4 market, and thus opted to hold back the Windows release to make this possible. They used the few extra days to finish additional technical features that they wanted to include at the Windows launch, such as multiple monitor widescreen support.


title: No Man's Sky

text: The limited edition retail version includes an art book and a comic written by Dave Gibbons, James Swallow and Angus McKie; Sony previously expressed interest in companion fiction for the game's release, and Murray had engaged with Gibbons on developing such a work. Swallow helped with some of the in-game narrative. A limited-run "Explorer's Edition" for the Windows version, published by iam8bit, included a miniature replica of one of the game's spacecraft alongside other materials. Sony released a limited edition bundle with "No Man's Sky" and a custom face plate for the PlayStation 4 in Europe.


title: No Man's Sky

text: "The New Yorker" featured "No Man's Sky" in their 2015 The New Yorker Festival as part of their inaugural Tech@Fest event, highlighting topics on the intersection of culture and technology. On 2 October 2015, Murray made an appearance and gave a demonstration of the game on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert", an American television late-night talk show.


title: No Man's Sky

text: In the weeks leading up to the game's release, Sony released a set of four videos, each focused on the principal activities of the game: exploring, fighting, trading, and surviving. Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe also released a television advertisement for the game featuring comedian Bill Bailey.


title: No Man's Sky

text: Hello Games had been in legal negotiations with Sky Group (formerly Sky plc) over the trademark on the word "Sky" used for "No Man's Sky", a trademark Sky had previously defended against Microsoft's choice of "Skydrive". The issue was ultimately settled in June 2016, allowing Hello Games to continue to use the name.


title: No Man's Sky

text: A few weeks before the game's launch, "No Man's Sky" was claimed to be using the superformula based on work done by Dr. Johan Gielis in 2003 and subsequently patented by Gielis under the Dutch company Genicap which Gielis founded and serves as Chief Research Officer. Murray had mentioned the superformula while describing the procedural generation aspects of the game in an interview with "The New Yorker" during development. Genicap anticipates developing a software tool using the superformula for their own product that they can see being used in video game development, which Hello Games would be infringing on if they had used the superformula in the game. The company states they have attempted to reach out to Hello Games to ask them about its use for "No Man's Sky" but have not received anything back. Genicap said they did not want to stop the launch of "No Man's Sky", considered the game to be "very impressive", and that they would like to talk more with Hello Games to exchange knowledge with them, but "if the formula is used we'll need to have a talk". Murray replied that "No Man's Sky" does not use the superformula, and was working to arrange a meeting with Genicap to discuss the situation and their respective mathematics.


title: No Man's Sky

text: Two weeks before release, a Reddit user was able to purchase a leaked copy of the game for the PlayStation 4 from eBay for roughly $1,250, and started posting various videos of their experiences in the game. Other users claimed to have leaked copies, and began sharing their own gameplay videos. Some of these reports included negative elements about the game, including frequent crashes and a much-shorter time to "complete" the game by reaching the centre of the virtual galaxy than Hello Games had claimed, leading many fans to express concern and frustration that the game might not be as good as they anticipated. In response, Murray asked people waiting for the game to avoid these spoilers, stating "We've spent years filling "No Man's Sky" with surprises. You've spent years waiting. Please don't spoil it for yourself."


title: No Man's Sky

text: Some retailers broke the street date, as several players, including journalists at "Kotaku" and "Polygon", streamed their starting playthroughs of the game starting from 5 August 2016. "Polygon" noted that Sony had not issued any review embargoes for the game at this point. Hello Games reset the servers for the game just prior to 9 August 2016 so as to give all players a clean slate. Prior to release, Sony requested sites to take down videos from early copies, citing that due to the nature of the game, they considered that Hello Games' vision of the game would only be met once a day-one patch was made available at release. Some of these video takedowns had accidentally included users discussing the game but without using these pre-release footage videos, a situation that Murray and Sony worked to resolve.


title: No Man's Sky

text: The day-one patch, which Hello Games had been at work at since the game went gold in July, altered several aspects of how the procedurally generated universe was created, such that existing saves from previous copies would no longer work. This patch removed an exploit that was observed by pre-release players that allowed them to complete the game much faster than anticipated. Commentators noted that the patch would substantially change the aspects of the game previously critiqued by aforementioned early players, and believed some of the changes were made specifically to address these concerns.


title: No Man's Sky

text: Concern was raised by the fan community when OpenCritic, a review aggregator platform, stated that there were going to be no review copies of the game prior to the public release and a review embargo that would end on the date of release. The lack of review copies is a general sign within the industry that there are concerns by the developers or publishers that a game may not live up to expectations and thus indicates that they want to minimise any impact reviews may have prior to release. However, both OpenCritic and Sony later affirmed there would be pre-release review copies and that they were waiting on a pre-release patch before sending these out to journalists. "Eurogamer" noted that they had expected to have review copies by 5 August, but these were pushed until 8 August so as to get the day-one patch in place, a situation they attributed to the certification process required by Sony for any games on their service. Because of the late arrival of the review copies, and the size of the game, critics presented their reviews "in progress" over several days, omitting a final review score until they had completed enough of the game to their satisfaction.


title: No Man's Sky

text: At launch, a number of software bugs affected both the PlayStation 4 and Windows versions. A game-breaking bug occurred with an in-game pre-order bonus spaceship players could collect that would potentially strand them on a planet, and a resource duplication exploit could significantly reduce the time needed to reach the game's endings. The Windows version garnered several reports of poor graphics rendering, framerates, and the inability to even start the game. Within a day, Hello Games had identified several of the common issues and issued patches while working to provide better technical support and resolve other issues. Murray stated that their initial patches for both systems would be "focused on customer support" before moving onto adding in new features.


title: No Man's Sky

text: Murray offered the potential to extend the game through downloadable content that, because of the procedural generation systems used, would likely be in the form of added features rather than new content. Hello Games pointed to base building and the ability to purchase freighters as planned additions to the game. Murray anticipated that all updates would be freely available. Former Sony executive Shahid Ahmad, who led Sony's efforts to get "No Man's Sky", stated that Hello Games had a planned schedule of updates for the game as early as 2013.


title: No Man's Sky

text: The game's first major content patch, called the "Foundation Update", was released in November 2016 and added the ability for planet-side base-building, interstellar freighter purchases with similar base-building customisation, as well as an open Creative mode. It includes a Survival mode, which reduces the availability of resources and makes encounters with hostiles more difficult, and makes various other improvements.


title: No Man's Sky

text: Murray did suggest the possibility of releasing modding tools for Windows players to alter the game, though noted that they would be limited, and would not allow players to create new planets in the game, for example. About a week after the Windows release players had already started to examine the game's files and create unofficial mods, with at least one mod-sharing website offering these for distribution. Hello Games have since provided patches that help to support these user mods.


title: No Man's Sky

text: Murray stated in an interview with "IGN" prior to release that virtual reality "would be a really good fit" for "No Man's Sky", as the immersive experience could create "really intense moments within a game"; virtual reality support was subsequently announced as part of the free "Beyond" update in mid-2019. Murray also commented on the potential for a remastering of "No Man's Sky" for a system with more hardware capabilities, suggesting that they would be able to both increase the texture resolution and the degree of complexity of the flora and fauna on the planets.


title: No Man's Sky

text: The first introduction of "No Man's Sky" at the 2013 VGX awards was considered to be the best aspect of the awards presentation. Its expanded coverage at E3 2014 was also met with similar praise, with several critics considering it to have "stolen the show". The title won the show's "Best Original Game" and "Best Independent Game" by a panel of game critics, as well as receiving the "Special Commendation for Innovation" title.


title: No Man's Sky

text: Upon release, "No Man's Sky" received "mixed or average" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic, with the later release on Xbox One receiving "generally favorable reviews". While many praised the technical achievement of "No Man's Sky" procedurally generated universe, several found that the nature of the game can become repetitive and monotonous, with the survival gameplay elements being lacklustre and tedious. As summarised by Jake Swearingen in "New York", "You can procedurally generate 18.6 quintillion unique planets, but you can't procedurally generate 18.6 quintillion unique things to do."


title: No Man's Sky

text: Some of the game's criticism stemmed from the limitations of what procedural generation can bring to a game. While the engine can produce a vast array of different planets, it is built atop a finite number of predetermined assets, such as basic creature shapes or planetary biomes, and one quickly exhausts these core assets even with the variations allowed by procedural generation. An evaluation of the game's code showed that Hello Games had the foresight to enable new predetermined assets to be added into the game through updates, which "Gamasutra" Alissa McAloon suggested that with more artists to provide more content, Hello Games or third-parties could exponentially expand the perceived uniqueness of each planet. Kate Compton, who worked on the procedural generation elements of "Spore", called this issue "procedural oatmeal", in that while it is possible to pour a near infinite number of bowls of oatmeal with various differences, the result still will look like a bowl of oatmeal. Compton noted that "No Man's Sky" lacks a quality of perceptual uniqueness, a problem that other game researchers are looking to try to solve to provide a more crafted but still procedurally generated experience to the player, placing less emphasis on the vastness of potential outcomes as "No Man's Sky" marketing relied on.


title: No Man's Sky

text: "Polygon" Ben Kuchera hypothesised that "No Man's Sky" could follow the same route as "Destiny", a 2014 game that, at release, received lukewarm reviews as it lacked much of the potential that its developers and publishers had claimed in marketing, but became highly praised after several major updates. Kuchera referred to Hello Games' statements regarding new features, downloadable content, and tracking what players are interested in as evidence that "No Man's Sky" would evolve over time.


title: No Man's Sky

text: Reviewing the Switch version of the game, Shaun Musgrave of "TouchArcade" indicated that it would be one of the best games of the year for Nintendo's console. Reilly from "Nintendo Life" was surprised at how successful the game was in porting to the Switch, although there was some sacrifice in visual quality, and rated it excellent. Just pointed out as a negative factor the absence of multiplayer mode, something that is expected in future updates.


title: No Man's Sky

text: The game's soundtrack, "No Man's Sky: Music for an Infinite Universe" by 65daysofstatic, was released on 5 August 2016, and received positive reviews from music critics. Andrew Webster of "The Verge" described the soundtrack as an extension of past 65daysofstatic albums, particularly from "Wild Light", but with a greater science-fiction vibe to it, considering the track "Asimov" to be like "taking flight into a Chris Foss painting". Sam Walker-Smart for "Clash" rated the album 8 out of 10, considered the album one of 65daysofstatic's best, and that it was "apocalyptic, transcendental and drenched in a sense of pure epic-ness".


title: No Man's Sky

text: Within a day of the game's launch, Hello Games reported that more than 10 million distinct species were registered by players, exceeding the estimated 8.7 million species identified to date on Earth. On the first day of the Windows release, "No Man's Sky" saw more than 212,000 concurrent players on Steam, exceeding the largest number of concurrent players for most other games, including other 2016 releases such as "XCOM 2" and "Dark Souls III". Chart-Track reported that sales of the physical release of "No Man's Sky" in the United Kingdom during the first week was the second-largest PlayStation 4 launch title published by Sony, following "Uncharted 4", and the fifth highest across all publishers and Sony formats. However, a week later, these numbers had dropped significantly; the concurrent player count on Steam fell under 23,000, and United Kingdom sales fell by 81% in the second week. The number of concurrent players on Steam fell to around 2,100 by the end of September 2016. While player dropoff after release is common in games, the dropoff rate for "No Man's Sky" was considered unusually high. Steam Spy reported that "No Man's Sky" had the third-highest "hype factor", a statistical measure of concurrent player dropoff from publicly available reports, of all games released on Steam from the start of 2016 to August of that year.


title: No Man's Sky

text: The game was the top downloaded title from the PlayStation Store in the month of August 2016. Physical sales of "No Man's Sky" across both PlayStation 4 and Windows in August 2016 made it the second-highest selling game in North America by revenue that month, according to NPD Group. SuperData Research stated that for the month of August 2016, "No Man's Sky" was the second highest-grossing game in digital sales across all consoles, and sixth-highest for PC. Steam developer Valve reported that "No Man's Sky" was one of the top twelve highest-grossing revenue games available on the platform during 2016, while Steam Spy estimated that more than 823,000 copies were sold in 2016 for a total gross revenue of more than $43 million. With the release of "Next" and the Xbox One version of the title in July 2018, SuperData reported "No Man's Sky" was the sixth top-selling console game globally for the month, bringing in around across all platforms. At the 2019 Game Developers Conference, Murray stated that sales figures for "No Man's Sky" "Next" were comparable to what would satisfy a large AAA publisher at launch. After the game was added to the Xbox Game Pass service in June 2020, Hello Games reported a month later that "No Man's Sky" had seen more than one million new players.


title: No Man's Sky

text: "No Man's Sky" won the Innovation Award and was nominated for the Best Technology Award for the 2017 Game Developers Choice Awards. Murray and other members of Hello Games had attended the Game Developers Conference, but had not expected to win anything given the game's reputation by that point, and opted to go elsewhere for dinner when they were named the winners of the Innovation Award. The game was nominated for the Excellence in Technical Achievement for the 2017 SXSW Gaming Awards. The title was also named for the British Game award for the 13th British Academy Games Awards. "PC Gamer" named "No Man's Sky" its Best Ongoing Game award in 2017, and Shacknews considered it the Best Comeback in 2017, both praising the updates added in the year since its launch that had improved how one interacted with the game. The game was nominated for "Best Co-operative Game" and "Xbox Game of the Year" with "No Man's Sky Next" at the 2018 Golden Joystick Awards, and for "Best Ongoing Game" at The Game Awards 2018 and again in 2020 and won the award for "Most Evolved Game" at the 2019 SXSW Gaming Awards. At the Italian Video Game Awards, it was nominated for "Best Evolving Game". "Beyond VR" was nominated for "Best Game Expansion" and "Best VR/AR Game" at the 2019 Golden Joystick Awards, for the latter category at The Game Awards 2019, and for "Evolving Game" at the 16th British Academy Games Awards, won the award for "XR Game of the Year" at the 2020 SXSW Gaming Awards, and won "Best Ongoing Game" at The Game Awards 2020. At the 18th British Academy Games Awards Games Awards (BAFTA) 2022, it won "Evolving Game" award.


title: No Man's Sky

text: Due to the open-ended nature of the game, players have worked in-game and through online communities to create an in-game system of planets with bases and other features called the Galactic Hub as early as 2016, working to overcome the initial lack of multiplayer features in the game. The players in the Hub have worked to catalog planets and their features within its local area, thus allowing players to use this information to plan resource gathering and trade routes, and once multiplayer features were added, creating interconnected colonies using the game's base-building tools. The Hub has its own form of governance called the Galactic Council to guide how the Hub should expand, particularly after major game patches that render changes to planets, as well as an in-game cryptocurrency called Hubcoin, which is operated by the experimental testnet of Ethereum and has no true monetary value but can be traded in for in-game resources, and intended to be used to pay players for custom bases and other such features.


title: No Man's Sky

text: Since its reveal at the 2013 VGX show and over the course of its development, the potential of "No Man's Sky" had been widely promoted across the video game industry and created a great deal of hype. Matt Kamen of "Wired UK" called "No Man's Sky" "perhaps one of, if not the, most hyped indie titles in the history of gaming". Much of the attention has been drawn to the massive scope realised by the procedural generation of the game, and the relatively small size of the Hello Games' team behind it. "No Man's Sky" was seen as a potential industry-changing title, challenging the status quo of triple-A game development, which, according to Peckham, had become "rich and complacent". The game had been considered to have similar potential to affect the game industry as "Minecraft", though in contrast, "The Atlantic" David Sims opined that "Minecraft" relevance took several years to develop, while "No Man's Sky" was burdened with expectations from the start. "No Man's Sky" has been considered by Nathan Lawrence of IGN as a mainstream-friendly space flight simulator game, providing controls that were "simple to learn and fascinating to plumb" compared to "" and "Star Citizen" while still offering engaging gameplay.


title: No Man's Sky

text: The concepts behind "No Man's Sky", allowing for a "grail-like feedback loop" around the exploration of near-infinite space according to "Time" Matt Peckham, created a great amount of anticipation for the game from gamers, as such lofty goals were often seen as a dare for them to challenge. In a specific example, Hello Games had first claimed their system would achieve 4.3 billion planets (2) through the use of a 32-bit key; when players expressed doubt that this scope could be done, Hello Games altered their approach to use a 64-bit number as to create 18 quintillion planets to prove otherwise. Many commentators compared "No Man's Sky" to 2008's "Spore" by Maxis, which had promised similar ambitions to use procedural generation to construct new creatures and worlds. However, by "Spore"s release, the extent of the use of procedural generation was scaled back during the course of production, and the resulting game was not as well-received as anticipated. Murray was aware that some critics were applying caution to their view of "No Man's Sky" due to their previous experiences with "Spore".


title: No Man's Sky

text: Kris Graft for "Gamasutra" commented that many players and journalists had both high expectations for the game as well as wide expectations, with some believing that it would be, among other aspects, the "best space sim", the "best multiplayer action shooter", and the "best pure exploration game". "Ars Technica" Kyle Orland found that unlike with the developers of "Spore" or "Fable", games promoted with "saturation PR campaigns that promised revolutionary and industry-changing gameplay features" which failed to appear in final releases, Hello Games's statements about "No Man's Sky" were "relatively restrained and realistic about what they were promising". Orland surmises that many players and journalists "layer[ed] their own expectations onto the game's gaps" from what Hello Games actually claimed. Vlambeer's founder Rami Ismail considered the strength of the marketing campaign by Hello Games and Sony to generate interest in the game, calling the pitch using the concept of magnitudes and scale rather than absolutes as "a little masterclass in explaining an abstract concept to the largest possible audience"; "Polygon" Ben Kuchera agreed on this point, but considered that the marketing may have gotten away from Sony and Hello Games since players did not have a concrete understanding of the game's limitations prior to launch. Murray himself was aware of the "unrealistic, intangible level of excitement" that fans had of the game and given that they had been waiting three years to play it, would be expecting it to be perfect. He countered that he felt he and Hello Games tried to be "reasonably open and honest about what the game is" all throughout the marketing cycle to set expectations. On the day before the official release, Murray cautioned players that "No Man's Sky" may not have been "the game you imagined from those trailers" and instead that the title was meant as a "very very chill game", giving players a universe-sized sandbox that makes you feel as if you "stepped into a sci-fi book cover"; Murray believed the game would have a "super divisive" response from players due to some of these expectations.


title: No Man's Sky

text: "No Man's Sky" developed a dedicated fan-base before its release, with many congregating in a subreddit to track and share information published about the game. Sam Zucchi writing for "Kill Screen" proposed that the players anxiously awaiting "No Man's Sky" were a kind of religion, putting faith in Hello Games to be able deliver an experience that has otherwise never been offered by video games before, the ability to explore a near-infinite universe.


title: No Man's Sky

text: Following the news of the game's delay from June to August 2016, Murray, along with "Kotaku" writer Jason Schreier, who first reported on the rumour of the delay, received a number of death threats in response, which Murray publicly responded to in good humor. The situation was seen by other journalists as a growing issue between the pre-release hype created by marketing for video games, and the excited nature of the fans of these games even before their release. "New Statesman" Phil Hartup considered that when marketing for a game drives a need for any type of news by those anxious to play the game, disappointing news such as delays could readily lead to online fans reacting in a paranoid manner against marketing expectations. Phil Owen writing for "TheWrap" blamed such issues on the video game marketers, as the field had become less about selling a game and more about creating a cult-like following for the game and "weaponizing fandom".


title: No Man's Sky

text: In addition to its mixed response from critics, player reaction to the release version of "No Man's Sky" was generally negative in response to several issues at the game's launch, buoyed by early reactions from those that had played the game before its official release. Users expressed concern with the apparent lack of features and other issues associated with the PlayStation 4 launch, while many players on the Windows version via Steam and GOG.com gave the game negative reviews due to the poor graphics capabilities or inability to launch the game. Players were also disappointed at the apparent lack of features that Hello Games and Sony had stated in earlier announcements and interviews would be included in the game; a list initially compiled by members of the "No Man's Sky" subreddit consisting of all such features appeared around a week after launch. By October 2016, the game had one of the worst user-based ratings on Steam, with an aggregate "mostly negative" average from more than 70,000 users. At the 2017 Game Developers Conference, Murray admitted they have far underestimated the number of players that would initially get the game; using estimates from "Inside" and "", both released just before "No Man's Sky", the studio had expected about 10,000 concurrent players at launch, but in actuality saw over 500,000 players across both PlayStation 4 and Windows, with about half coming from the Windows side. This overwhelmed their expected server capacity and overloaded their support team with bug reports and technical help, leading to the noted problems with communications within the release window. At the same event, Hello Games announced that they had started their own support programme, known as "Hello Labs", which will help fund and support the developers of games using procedural generation, or otherwise experimental gameplay. Murray stated they anticipate funding one or two games at a time, and that one title was already part of the programme at the time of announcement.


title: No Man's Sky

text: One of the more significant features that appeared to be absent from the release version of "No Man's Sky" was its multiplayer capabilities. Hello Games had stated during development that "No Man's Sky" would include multiplayer elements, though the implementation would be far from traditional methods as one would see in a massively multiplayer online game, to the point where Murray has told players to not think of "No Man's Sky" as a multiplayer game. Because of the size of the game's universe, Sean Murray estimated that more than 99.9% of the planets would never be explored by players, and that the chance of meeting other players through chance encounters would be "incredibly slim". Murray had stated in a 2014 interview that "No Man's Sky" would include a matchmaking system that is similar to that used for "Journey" when such encounters do occur; each online player would have an "open lobby" that any players in their in-universe proximity would enter and leave. This approach was envisioned to provide "cool moments" for players as they encounter each other, but not meant to support gameplay like player versus environment or fully cooperative modes. According to Murray in 2018, Hello Games had worked to try to keep this light multiplayer element in the game through the final part of their development cycle, but found that it was very difficult to include, and opted to remove it for the game's release, believing that with the size of the game's universe, only a few players would end up experiencing it.


title: No Man's Sky

text: Questions regarding the multiplayer aspects of "No Man's Sky" were raised a day following the official release on the PlayStation 4. Two players attempted to meet at a location in the game's virtual universe after one player recognised the other upon seeing their username attached to a planetary discovery. Despite confirming they had been at the same spot on the same planet outside of the game through their respective Twitch streams, they could not see each other. Furthering this was the discovery that European copies of the limited edition packaging used a sticker to cover the PEGI online play icon. Journalists noted a number of potential reasons why the players may not have encountered each other, including the users being on separate instances or server problems reported by Hello Games at launch, though some opined that this may have been a feature removed before launch. Hello Games noted that they have had "far more" players than they expected at launch and are bringing on more people to help support the game along with patching the critical issues at the game's launch, but they have not made a direct statement on the multiplayer situation .


title: No Man's Sky

text: Outside of patch notes, Hello Games had effectively gone silent on social media right after the game's release up until the announcement of the Foundation update in late November 2016. Murray, who used the Hello Games' Twitter account with some frequency before release, had not been visible online for the first two months following the game's release. In the announcement of this update, Hello Games admitted to being "quiet" but have been paying attention to the various criticisms levelled at the game. Schreier from "Kotaku" and Ben Kuchera of "Polygon" commented that some of the negative player reaction was due to a lack of clarification on these apparently missing features from either Hello Games or Sony in the weeks just after release, with Kuchera further stating that with the silence from either company, "the loudest, most negative voices are shouting unopposed" and leading to a strong negative perception of the game. Kuchera later wrote that many of the issues in the lead-up and follow-up to "No Man's Sky" release, whether by choice or happenstance, provide many lessons on the importance of proper public relations. Kuchera specifically pointed to the decision to withhold review copies and an apparent lack of public relations (PR) to manage statements relating to what features would be in the game. Kuchera also noted that many people had taken the hype generated by the press only to be disappointed by the final game, and that consumers did have ways to evaluate the game following its release before they purchased the title. Sony president Shuhei Yoshida admitted that Hello Games did not have "a great PR strategy" for "No Man's Sky", in part for lacking a dedicated PR staff to manage expectations, but still support the developers as they continue to patch and update the game. Jesse Signal, writing for the "Boston Globe" noted that some of the hype for "No Man's Sky" may be attributed to game journalists themselves for getting too excited about the game, positing "Had journalists asked certain questions at certain times, perhaps it would have been more difficult for Hello Games to make promises it couldn't deliver on." Murray himself stated in a 2019 interview that prior to the game's release, much of their contact was with journalists who Hello Games believed understood the nature of video game development, and thus expected their statements about what "No Man's Sky" would be tempered to reflect the reality of Hello Games being a small team with limited time. Instead, Murray found that the press took their words for granted, and created expectations for players that they could not have met at launch. As a result, Hello Games has since shifted toward communication directly with the community rather than the press and keeping only to patch updates or near-release features to keep expectations in check.


title: No Man's Sky

text: The lack of features in the release version of the game became a point of contention, with many players using the Steam and GOG.com review pages, along with Metacritic reviews, to give it poor ratings. Sean Murray received a great deal of online criticism from players, including accusations of lying. A Reddit user temporarily took down the documented list of removed features after he received messages that congratulated him on "really sticking it to these 'dirtbag' devs", which was not his intention in publishing the list; he wanted no part of the anger towards Hello Games. The subreddit forum had become hostile due to a lack of updates from Hello Games or Sony, leading one moderator to shutting down the subreddit due to the toxicity of the comments, later undoing that action on further review.


title: No Man's Sky

text: In an interview in July 2018, Murray stated that the period following "No Man's Sky" release was difficult for him and the studio due to the backlash that included numerous death and bomb threats during that period that forced the studio to be in constant contact with Scotland Yard. Murray stated of that period, "I find it really personal, and I don't have any advice for dealing with it." The Hello Games' Twitter account had been hacked into in October 2016 and used to post the message "No Man's Sky was a mistake" among other tweets before the companies regained control of it, leading to confusion and additional drama within the community. Users sought refunds for the game via both Sony and Valve outside of the normal time allowance for claiming such refunds by their policies, citing the numerous bugs within the game and/or the lack of features, and while some players claim to have received such refunds, both companies have reemphasised their refund policies in response to the volume of refund requests.


title: No Man's Sky

text: Game journalist Geoff Keighley, who had been in discussions with Murray and Hello Games throughout the development, had expressed concern to Murray in the year leading up to release, according to Keighley in September 2016. He said he was "internally conflicted" about the state of the game near its release, recognising that many of the features that Murray had been talking about were not going to make it, and compared Murray to Peter Molyneux who had overpromised on a vision for his games that ultimately fell short. Keighley had expressed to Murray his concern that the $60 price tag was a bit steep for the current state of the game and recommended that they take an early access approach instead. According to Keighley, Murray said he didn't want to be around Keighley any more as he was "a little too negative about the game and [Keighley]'s assessment of where the team was at". Keighley felt that Murray could not "rip off that band-aid" and explain exactly what had made it and had to be cut for the game prior to release, and in the end appeared to "disrespect his audience". As such, Keighley sympathised with those that felt they were misled by the marketing. Keighley rekindled the relationship with Murray since launch, and anticipated discussing more of what happened near release with him. Sony chairman Shawn Layden, in November 2016, stated that Hello Games had an "incredible vision" and a "very huge ambition" for "No Man's Sky", and that the developers are still working to update the game to bring it to what they wanted, adding that "sometimes you just don't get all the way there at the first go". Layden further expressed that from Sony's side, they recognised that they "don't want to stifle ambition" and force a specific style of play onto their games.


title: No Man's Sky

text: In September 2016, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) of the United Kingdom, following on "several complaints", began an investigation into the promotion of "No Man's Sky". The ASA has authority to require publishers to remove offending advertising materials if they are found in violation of ASA standards. In the "No Man's Sky" complaints directed at Hello Games and Valve, the ASA specifically evaluated materials used on the Steam store page to promote the game that demonstrate features that do not appear to be a part of the final game, but has also reviewed other official promotional outlets including the game's official YouTube channel. Several game industry lawyers, speaking to "PC Gamer", noted that while the ASA has successfully taken action in previous cases of false advertising, demonstrating such for a procedurally generated game of "No Man's Sky" scope may be difficult since it is impossible to play the entire game to prove something does not exist. The lawyers also noted that most of what Murray and other Hello Games members said outside of any official promotional channels, such as interviews or through social media, cannot be taken as part of the game's advertising, further limiting the claims that the ASA can act on. The ASA ruled in November 2016 that the Steam storepage advertising of "No Man's Sky" was not in breach of their standards, attributing the used footage and screenshots to be reasonable representative of the average player's experience with a procedurally generated game, and dismissed the submitted complaints; the ASA further ruled that as Valve has no control over what Hello Games included on the store page, they were not liable for the material either.


title: No Man's Sky

text: On 25 November 2016, Hello Games announced it was planning on bringing a large update, known as the "Foundation" Update, to the game, stating that "We have been quiet, but we are listening and focusing on improving the game that our team loves and feels so passionately about." Hello Games had not mentioned a release window, and many journalists were surprised when the update was released just two days later. The update was generally well received by journalists, that while not fully satisfying all the features that seemed to have been promised for the game, helped to push the game into the right direction in anticipation of future major patches. The update had drawn back some players that had previously turned their back on the game and created a better reception from some players, while others still remained disappointed by the game's initial release problems. The second major update, "Path Finder", was released in March 2017. By the time of the third major update, "Atlas Rises", a year after initial release, many felt the game was now much better and approaching what they had expected. "Wired" Julie Muncy said that the ability of the updates to "No Man's Sky" demonstrates the game can be more organic, adding significant new features that can dramatically change the feel of the game.


title: No Man's Sky

text: In retrospect following the patch, journalists generally commended Hello Games for staying quiet about the exact details of the update until just prior to its release to avoid the same situation that the game fell into upon its initial release. Murray himself has avoided commenting directly on any of the updates for "No Man's Sky" and staying out of the "hype cycle" until they are at the shipping point, to not repeat any of the mistakes from the game's launch. Nearly all subsequent major updates were only predicated by Murray tweeting an emoji that hinted at the contents of the update two or three days before the update was released, allowing the game's community to get hyped up without drawing out their anticipation. "Gamasutra" named Hello Games one of its top ten developers for 2016 not only for the technical achievements within "No Man's Sky", but also for not collapsing amid the anger directed at the company and instead continuing to make improvements to the game. The continued free improvements to "No Man's Sky" have been considered a redemption for Hello Games and the game's launch by several outlets. By the time of its five-year anniversary, "No Man's Sky" user reviews on Steam had swung to "mostly positive" after initially starting at "overwhelming negative" at the time of its release.


title: No Man's Sky

text: The discrepancy between "No Man's Sky"'s expectations and its initially released product are considered a milestone in video game promotion, with many sources considering how to properly promote a game in a "post "No Man's Sky" world". The situation around the game's promotion using screenshots and videos that were not from its final state, a practice known as "bullshotting", led to discussion among developers, publishers, and journalists of how to best showcase upcoming games without being deceptive to the audience. Keighley, who felt some responsibility for the "No Man's Sky" situation, announced that all games that would be shown at The Game Awards 2016 would be more focused on gameplay of near-completed games using a Let's Play-type format rather than allowing for scripted or pre-rendered videos. Several journalists attribute a change in Valve's Steam storefront policies in November 2016, requiring all game screenshots and videos to be from the final product, as a response to "No Man's Sky".


title: No Man's Sky

text: The failure of "No Man's Sky" promotional aspects has affected other space simulation and open world games that are based on the premise of providing a vast ranging sandbox for players, as players have become wary of the broad claims that these games might make. Novaquark, the developers of the upcoming open-world "Dual Universe", found themselves struggling to complete their Kickstarter funding in the months immediately after "No Man's Sky" release, but have recognised the need to be open and transparent to potential funders on what the game will and will not have. Fenix Fire, the developers of the space exploration game "", used the various question-and-answers that Sean Murray had to handle during the pre-release period to gauge what players were looking for in such games and guide development of their own game. According to a report from "Kotaku", BioWare had envisioned that "" would use procedural generation for creating a universe to explore prior to "No Man's Sky" announcement, and further pushed for this following the excitement for "No Man's Sky" once it was announced, but could not get the procedural generation to work well with the Frostbite 3 game engine, and had to scrap these plans by 2015.


title: No Man's Sky

text: "Eurogamer" Wesley Yin-Poole observed that following "No Man's Sky" problematic release, developers appear to be "keeping their cards close to their chests for fear of failing to deliver on a promise that never should have slipped out in the first place"; as an example, he stated that Rare's "Sea of Thieves", whereas having only been promoted through obscure videos that left too many questions to potential players in its earlier stages, has started an "Insider" programme in December 2016 to provide limited alpha-testing access and more concrete gameplay videos. Similarly, Compulsion Games, who premiered their game "We Happy Few" at PAX East 2015 to similar hype as "No Man's Sky", worked to backtrack on perceived expectations of their game after seeing what had happened to "No Man's Sky" at its launch. Specifically, Compulsion, a small developer, found that many were treating their game as a AAA release, and wanted to be clear what the game was to be, deciding to use the early access approach to provide transparency.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: The North American F-86 Sabre, sometimes called the Sabrejet, is a transonic jet fighter aircraft. Produced by North American Aviation, the Sabre is best known as the United States' first swept-wing fighter that could counter the swept-wing Soviet MiG-15 in high-speed dogfights in the skies of the Korean War (1950–1953), fighting some of the earliest jet-to-jet battles in history. Considered one of the best and most important fighter aircraft in that war, the F-86 is also rated highly in comparison with fighters of other eras. Although it was developed in the late 1940s and was outdated by the end of the 1950s, the Sabre proved versatile and adaptable and continued as a front-line fighter in numerous air forces.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: Its success led to an extended production run of more than 7,800 aircraft between 1949 and 1956, in the United States, Japan, and Italy. In addition, 738 carrier-modified versions were purchased by the US Navy as FJ-2s and -3s. Variants were built in Canada and Australia. The Canadair Sabre added another 1,815 aircraft and the significantly redesigned CAC Sabre (sometimes known as the Avon Sabre or CAC CA-27), had a production run of 112. The Sabre is by far the most-produced Western jet fighter, with a total production of all variants at 9,860 units.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: North American Aviation had produced the propeller-powered P-51 Mustang in World War II, which saw combat against some of the first operational jet fighters. By late 1944, North American proposed its first jet fighter to the U.S. Navy, which became the FJ-1 Fury. It was an unexceptional transitional jet fighter that had a straight wing derived from the P-51. Initial proposals to meet a United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) requirement for a medium-range, single-seat, high-altitude, jet-powered day escort fighter/fighter bomber were drafted in mid-1944. In early 1945, North American Aviation submitted four designs. The USAAF selected one design over the others and granted North American a contract to build three examples of the XP-86 ("experimental pursuit"). Deleting specific requirements from the FJ-1 Fury, coupled with other modifications, allowed the XP-86 to be lighter and considerably faster than the Fury, with an estimated top speed of , versus the Fury's . Despite the gain in speed, early studies revealed the XP-86 would have the same performance as its rivals, the XP-80 and XP-84. Because these rival designs were more advanced in their development stages, it was feared that the XP-86 would be cancelled.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: Crucially, the XP-86 was not able to meet the required top speed of ; North American had to quickly devise a radical change that could leapfrog its rivals. The North American F-86 Sabre was the first American aircraft to take advantage of flight research data seized from the German aerodynamicists at the end of World War II. These data showed that a thin, swept wing could greatly reduce drag and delay compressibility problems that had bedeviled fighters such as the Lockheed P-38 Lightning when approaching the speed of sound. By 1944, German engineers and designers had established the benefits of swept wings based on experimental designs dating back to 1940. A study of the data showed that a swept wing would solve their speed problem, while a slat on the wing's leading edge that extended at low speeds would enhance low-speed stability.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: Because development of the XP-86 had reached an advanced stage, the idea of changing the sweep of the wing was met with resistance from some senior North American staff. Despite stiff opposition, after good results were obtained in wind tunnel tests, the swept-wing concept was eventually adopted. Performance requirements were met by incorporating a 35° swept-back wing, using modified NACA four-digit airfoils, NACA 0009.5–64 at the root and NACA 0008.5–64 at the tip, with an automatic slat design based on that of the Messerschmitt Me 262 and an electrically adjustable stabilizer, another feature of the Me 262A. Many Sabres had the "6–3 wing" (a fixed leading edge with a 6-inch extended chord at the root and a 3-inch extended chord at the tip) retrofitted after combat experience was gained in Korea. This modification changed the wing airfoils to the NACA 0009-64 modified configuration at the root and the NACA 0008.1–64 mod at the tip.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: The XP-86 prototype, which led to the F-86 Sabre, was rolled out on 8 August 1947. The first flight occurred on 1 October 1947 with George Welch at the controls, flying from Muroc Dry Lake (now Edwards AFB), California.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: The United States Air Force's Strategic Air Command had F-86 Sabres in service from 1949 through 1950. The F-86s were assigned to the 22nd Bomb Wing, the 1st Fighter Wing, and the 1st Fighter Interceptor Wing. The F-86 was the primary U.S. air combat fighter during the Korean War, with significant numbers of the first three production models seeing combat.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: The F-86 Sabre was also produced under license by Canadair, Ltd, as the Canadair Sabre. The final variant of the Canadian Sabre, the Mark 6, is generally rated as having the highest capabilities of any Sabre version.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: The F-86A set its first official world speed record of on September 15, 1948, at Muroc Dry Lake, flown by Major Richard L. Johnson, USAF. Five years later, on 18 May 1953, Jacqueline Cochran became the first woman to break the sound barrier, flying a "one-off" Canadian-built F-86 Sabre Mk 3, alongside Chuck Yeager. Col. K. K. Compton won the 1951 Bendix air race in an F-86A with an average speed of 553.76 mph (891.19 km/h).


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: On 2 February 1958, a team of Pakistan Air Force F-86 Sabres called "Falcons" set a world record at PAF Base Masroor by performing a loop while in a 16 aircraft diamond formation. The team was led by then Wing Commander Zafar Masud.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: The F-86 was produced as both a fighter-interceptor and fighter-bomber. Several variants were introduced over its production life, with improvements and different armament implemented (see below). The XP-86 was fitted with a General Electric J35-C-3 jet engine that produced of thrust. This engine was built by GM's Chevrolet division until production was turned over to Allison. The General Electric J47-GE-7 engine was used in the F-86A-1 producing a thrust of , while the General Electric J73-GE-3 engine of the F-86H produced of thrust.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: The fighter-bomber version (F-86H) could carry up to of bombs, including an external fuel-type tank that could carry napalm. Unguided rockets were used on some fighters on training missions, but rockets were later carried on combat operations. The F-86 could also be fitted with a pair of external jettisonable jet fuel tanks (four on the F-86F beginning in 1953) that extended the range of the aircraft. Both the interceptor and fighter-bomber versions carried six M3 Browning machine guns with electrically-boosted feed in the nose (later versions of the F-86H carried four cannon instead of machine guns). Firing at a rate of 1,200 rounds per minute, the 0.50-inch guns were harmonized to converge at in front of the aircraft, using armor-piercing (AP) and armor-piercing incendiary (API) rounds, with one armor-piercing incendiary tracer (APIT) for every five AP or API rounds. The API rounds used during the Korean War contained magnesium, which were designed to ignite upon impact, but burned poorly above as oxygen levels were insufficient to sustain combustion at that height. Initial planes were fitted with the Mark 18 manual-ranging computing gun sight. The last 24 F-86A-5-Nas and F-86Es were equipped with the A-1CM gunsight-AN/APG-30 radar, which used radar to automatically compute a target's range, which later proved to be advantageous against MiG opponents over Korea.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: The Sabre's swept wings and jet engine produced a flying experience that was very different from the propeller-driven fighters of the time. The transition from props to jets was not without accidents and incidents even for experienced fighter pilots. Early on in the jet age, some US manufacturers instituted safety and transition programs where experienced test and production pilots toured operational fighter squadrons to provide instruction and demonstrations designed to lower the accident rate.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: Additionally, the ongoing technical development and long production history of the F-86 resulted in some significant differences in the handling and flying characteristics between the various F-86 models. Some of the important changes to the design included the switch from an elevator/stabilizer to an all-flying tail, the discontinuation of leading edge slats for a solid leading edge with increased internal fuel capacity, increased engine power, and an internal missile bay (F-86D). Each of these design changes impacted the handling and flying characteristics of the F-86, not necessarily for the better. In the case of the solid leading edge and increased internal fuel capacity, the design change produced increased combat performance but exacerbated a dangerous and often fatal handling characteristic upon take-off if the nose were raised prematurely from the runway. This 'over-rotation' danger is now a major area of instruction and concern for current F-86 pilots. The 1972 Sacramento Canadair Sabre accident resulting in 22 fatalities and 28 other casualties was a result of over-rotation on take-off.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: The F-86 entered service with the USAF in 1949, joining the 1st Fighter Wing's 94th Fighter Squadron and became the primary air-to-air jet fighter used by the Americans in the Korean War. While earlier straight-winged jets such as the P-80 and F-84 initially achieved air victories, when the swept-wing Soviet MiG-15 was introduced in November 1950, it outperformed all UN-based aircraft. In response, three squadrons of F-86s were rushed to the Far East in December. Early variants of the F-86 could not out-turn MiG-15s, but they could out-dive them. The MiG-15 was superior to early F-86 models in ceiling, acceleration, rate of climb, and zoom. With the introduction of the F-86F in 1953, however, the two aircraft were more closely matched, with many combat-experienced pilots claiming a marginal superiority for the F-86F. The heavier firepower of the MiG (and many other contemporary fighters) was addressed by “Project Gun-Val” which saw the combat testing of seven F-86Fs each armed with four 20 mm T-160 cannons (such F-86s were designated as F-86F-2s). Despite being able to fire only two of the four 20 mm cannon at a time, the experiment was considered a success and signaled the end of the decades-long use of the Browning .50 caliber in the air-to-air role. The MiGs flown from bases in Manchuria by Chinese, North Korean, and Soviet VVS pilots were pitted against two squadrons of the 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing forward-based at K-14, Kimpo, Korea. In October 1951, the Soviets managed to recover a downed Sabre, and in their investigation of the type they concluded that the Sabre's advantage in combat was due to the APG-30 gun-sight that facilitated accurate fire at longer ranges.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: Many of the American pilots were experienced World War II veterans, while the North Koreans and the Chinese lacked combat experience, thus accounting for much of the F-86's success. However, United Nations pilots suspected many of the MiG-15s were being flown by experienced Soviet pilots who also had combat experience in World War II. Former Communist sources now acknowledge Soviet pilots initially flew the majority of MiG-15s that fought in Korea, and dispute that more MiG-15s than F-86s were shot down in air combat. Later in the war, North Korean and Chinese pilots increased their participation as combat flyers. The North Koreans and their allies periodically contested air superiority in MiG Alley, an area near the mouth of the Yalu River (the boundary between Korea and China) over which the most intense air-to-air combat took place. Although the F-86A could be safely flown through Mach 1, the F-86E's all-moving tailplane greatly improved maneuverability at high speeds. The MiG-15 could not safely exceed Mach 0.92, an important disadvantage in near-sonic air combat. Far greater emphasis had been given to the training, aggressiveness, and experience of the F-86 pilots. American Sabre pilots were trained at Nellis, where the casualty rate of their training was so high, they were told, "If you ever see the flag at full staff, take a picture." Despite rules of engagement to the contrary, F-86 units frequently initiated combat over MiG bases in the Manchurian "sanctuary".


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: The needs of combat operations balanced against the need to maintain an adequate force structure in Western Europe led to the conversion of the 51st Fighter-Interceptor Wing from the F-80 to the F-86 in December 1951. Two fighter-bomber wings, the 8th and 18th, converted to the F-86F in the spring of 1953. No. 2 Squadron, South African Air Force (SAAF) also distinguished itself flying F-86s in Korea as part of the 18 FBW.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: On 17 June 1951, at 01:30 hours, Suwon Air Base was bombed by two Polikarpov Po-2 biplanes. Each Po-2 dropped a pair of fragmentation bombs: one scored a hit on the 802nd Engineer Aviation Battalion's motor pool, damaging some equipment. Two bombs burst on the flightline of the 335th Fighter Interceptor Squadron. One F-86A Sabre (FU-334 / 49-1334) was struck on the wing and began burning. The fire took hold, gutting the aircraft. Prompt action by personnel who moved aircraft away from the burning Sabre prevented further loss. Eight other Sabres were damaged in the brief attack, four seriously. One F-86 pilot was among the wounded. The North Koreans subsequently credited Lt. La Woon Yung with this damaging attack.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: By the end of hostilities, F-86 pilots were credited with shooting down 792 MiGs for a loss of only 78 Sabres in air-to-air combat, a victory ratio of 10:1. Of the 41 American pilots who earned the designation of ace during the Korean War, all but one flew the F-86 Sabre, the exception being a Navy Vought F4U Corsair night fighter pilot. However, after the war, the USAF reviewed its figures in an investigation code-named "Sabre Measure Charlie" and downgraded the kill ratio of the North American F-86 Sabre against the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 by half. Internally, the USAF accepted that its pilots in fact downed ~ 200 MiGs


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: According to Soviet data, the Soviets lost 335 MiG-15s in Korea to all causes, including accidents, antiaircraft fire, and ground attacks. Chinese claims of their losses amount to 224 MiG-15s in Korea. North Korean losses are not known, but according to North Korean defectors, their air force lost around 100 MiG-15s during the war. Thus, 659 MiG-15s are admitted as being lost, many of these to F-86 Sabres The Soviets claimed to have downed over 600 Sabres, together with the Chinese claims (211 F-86s shot-down), although these cannot be reconciled with the number of Sabres recorded as lost by the US.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: The status of many claimed air-to-air victories in the Korean War has been increasingly debated as more data becomes available, showing that instances of over-claiming abounded on both sides. The research by Dorr, Lake and Thompson claimed an F-86 kill ratio closer to 2:1. A recent RAND report made reference to "recent scholarship" of F-86 v MiG-15 combat over Korea and concluded that the actual kill:loss ratio for the F-86 was 1.8:1 overall, and likely closer to 1.3:1 against MiGs flown by Soviet pilots. However, this ratio did not count the number of aircraft of other types (including the B-29, A-26, F-80, F-82, F-84 and Gloster Meteor) shot down by MiG-15 pilots.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: Data-matching with Soviet records suggests that US pilots routinely attributed their own combat losses to "landing accidents" and "other causes". According to official US data ("USAF Statistical Digest FY1953"), the USAF lost 250 F-86 fighters in Korea. Of these, 184 were lost in combat (78 in air-to-air combat, 19 by anti-aircraft guns, 26 were "unknown causes" and 61 were "other losses") and 66 in incidents. South African Air Force lost 6 F-86s in the war. This gives 256 confirmed F-86 losses during the Korean War.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: The Republic of China Air Force of Taiwan was an early recipient of surplus USAF Sabres. From December 1954 to June 1956, the ROC Air Force received 160 ex-USAF F-86F-1-NA through F-86F-30-NA fighters. By June 1958, the Nationalist Chinese had built up an impressive fighter force, with 320 F-86Fs and seven RF-86Fs having been delivered.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: Sabres and MiGs were shortly to battle each other in the skies of Asia once again in the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis. In August 1958, the Chinese Communists of the People's Republic of China attempted to force the Nationalists off of the islands of Quemoy and Matsu by shelling and blockade. Nationalist F-86Fs flying combat air patrol over the islands found themselves confronted by Communist MiG-15s and MiG-17s, and numerous dogfights resulted.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: During these battles, the Nationalist Sabres introduced a new element into aerial warfare. Under a secret effort designated Operation Black Magic, the U.S. Navy had provided the ROC with the AIM-9 Sidewinder, its first infrared-homing air-to-air missile, which was just entering service with the United States. A small team from VMF-323, a Marine FJ-4 Fury squadron with later assistance from China Lake and North American Aviation, initially modified 20 of the F-86 Sabres to carry a pair of Sidewinders on underwing launch rails and instructed the ROC pilots in their use flying profiles with USAF F-100s simulating the MiG-17. The MiGs enjoyed an altitude advantage over the Sabres, as they had in Korea, and Communist Chinese MiGs routinely cruised over the Nationalist Sabres, only engaging when they had a favorable position. The Sidewinder took away that advantage and proved to be devastatingly effective against the MiGs.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: In 1954, Pakistan started receiving the first of a total of 102 F-86F Sabres under the Mutual Defense Assistance Program. Many of these aircraft were F-86F-35s from USAF stocks, but some were from the later F-86F-40-NA production block (made specifically for export). Many of the F−35s were brought up to F−40 standards before they were delivered to Pakistan, but a few remained F−35s. The F-86 was operated by nine Pakistan Air Force (PAF) squadrons at various times: Nos. 5, 11, 14,15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 26 Squadrons.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: Moreover in April 1959, a PAF F-86F flown by Flight Lieutenant Yunis of the No. 15 Squadron "Cobras" shot down an Indian Canberra Spy Plane over Rawalpindi marking the first aerial kill for the Pakistan Air Force.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: In 1966, Pakistan accquired 90 Ex-Luftwaffe CL-13 Mk.6s via Iran due to postwar US sanctions. They were known as the F-86E in the PAF. (Not to be confused with the North American F-86E variants)


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: The last of the Sabres were withdrawn from PAF service in 1980 & were replaced with the Shenyang F-6 fighters. In total Pakistani pilots flew 320,185 hours in the Sabres out of which about 4,500 hours were flown in wartime operations.They are now on display at PAF Museum and various cities around Pakistan.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: In late 1960, regular and irreguar Afghan forces invaded the Bajaur area of North West Frontier Province in an attempt to anex the region. In response, PAF F-86s were sent into the area to provide Close Air Support for Pakistani Forces and local Pakistani Pashtun tribesmen who were fighting the Afghan infiltrators. The Sabres also executed bombing runs on Royal Afghan Army positions in Kunar which were attacking Frontier Corps border posts.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: The Sabre was no longer a world-class fighter (due to availability of supersonic jets). However, various sources state the F-86 gave the PAF a technological advantage in 1965.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: In the air-to-air combat of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, the PAF Sabres claimed to have shot down 15 Indian Air Force (IAF) aircraft, comprising nine Hunters, four Vampires, and two Gnats. India, however, admitted a loss of 14 combat aircraft to the PAF's F-86s. The F-86s of the PAF had the advantage of being armed with AIM-9B/GAR-8 Sidewinder missiles, whereas none of its Indian adversaries had this capability. Despite this, the Indian Air Force claimed that seven F-86 Sabres were shot down by Folland Gnats and six F-86 Sabres were shot down by Hawker Hunters.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: The F-86F remained a potent aircraft for use against ground targets. On the morning of 6 September 1965, six F-86s of No. 19 Squadron struck advancing columns of the Indian army using 5-in (127-mm) rockets along with their six .50-in (12.7-mm) M3 Browning machine guns. On the same day, eight F-86 fighters of the same squadron executed airstrikes on the IAF Pathankot.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: In East Pakistan, F-86s from the No. 14 Squadron struck the Indian airbases of Kalaikunda, Bagdogra, Barrackpore & Agartala which resulted in the destruction of more than 20 Indian aircraft. The airstrikes on kalaikunda in particular were highly successful after which the No. 14 Squadron was nicknamed "Tail Choppers".


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: In total, Pakistani B-57 Canberras and F-86s destroyed around 39 Indian warplanes on the ground at various IAF airbases. However, India claims of losing 22 aircraft on the ground.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: The CL-13B Mk.6 Sabres (known as the F-86E in PAF) were the mainstay of the PAF's day-fighter operations during the 1971 War, and had the challenge of dealing with the threat from IAF Folland Gnats, Hawker Hunters, Sukhoi Su-7s and Mig-21s.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: At the beginning of the war, PAF had eight squadrons of F-86 Sabres. Along with the newer fighter types such as the Mirage III and the Shenyang F-6, the Sabres were tasked with the majority of operations during the war. In East Pakistan, PAF's only Tail Choppers squadron was equipped with 16 F-86Es out of which 4 were modified to fire AIM-9/GAR-8 missiles.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: In the Battle of Boyra Indian Folland Gnats of 22 Squadron IAF shot down two F-86Es and severely damaged one F-86E.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: PAF F-86s performed well, with Pakistani claims of downing 31 Indian aircraft in air-to-air combat. These included 17 Hawker Hunters, eight Sukhoi Su-7 "Fitters", one MiG 21, and three Gnats while losing seven F-86s. The most interesting of these was a battle between two Sabres and four MiG-21s. One MiG was shot down, without any Sabres lost. This was achieved due to the greater low-speed performance of the Sabre in comparison to the delta-winged MiG-21.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: India, however, claims to have shot down 11 PAF Sabres for the loss of 11 combat aircraft to the PAF F-86s. The IAF numerical superiority overwhelmed the sole East Pakistan Sabres squadron (and other military aircraft) which were either shot down, or grounded by Pakistani fratricide as they could not hold out, enabling complete air superiority for the IAF.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: In East Pakistan, the F-86Es of the Tail Choppers took active part in several CAS & COIN missions against Mukti Bahini militants & irregular Indian forces.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: On 15 April 1971, a formation of 4 Sabres led by Flight Lt. Abbas Khattak strafed and rocketed many rebel strongholds at Bhairab Bazar to support the Pakistan Army's efforts in re-capturing food stocks & silos from the Mukti-Bahini militiants.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: On 26 April 1971, Flight Lt. Abbass led another Sabre formation at Patuakhali where surviving rebels had regrouped after facing a defeat at Barisal by the hands of the Army. The Sabres struck several rebel strongpoints to soften up resistance after which SSG units were inserted via Mi-8s to clear out the area.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: On the Western Front, F-86Es and F-86Fs from various PAF squadrons played a vital role in backing the Pakistan Army's counter attacks at several sectors with Air support.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: At Shakargarh & Marala sectors, PAF F-86F/Es from the No. 17, No. 18 & 26 Squadrons alongside Shenyang F-6s took part in air support missions backing Pakistan's I Strike Corps counter attacks against the Indian army's I Corps. Although ill-equipped for anti-tank roles, the Sabres were modified to carry general purpose bombs in an effort to provide as much effective air support as possible.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: In the Battle of Chamb, F-86Fs from the No. 26 Squadron "Black Spiders" and F-86Es from the No. 18 Squadron supported Iftikhar Janjua's forces in capturing Chumb flying 146 air support sorties. At one point, the Indian Army suffered a major blow at Akhnur when sabres from the No. 18 Squadron destroyed their ammunition dumps.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: At Sulemanki, F-86Es of the No. 17 Squadron "Tigers" flew 55 CAS sorties in support of the IV Corps offensive in which they claimed 6 Indian tanks and a number of military vehicles destroyed.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: At Thar, F-86E & Fs belonging to the No. 19 Squadron struck Indian army positions during their Close Air Support missions. In total, they destroyed 8 Indian Tanks and several military vehicles while also damaging 2 Military trains.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: In 1958, the Forca Aerea Portuguesa (FAP) received 50 F-86Fs from ex-USAF stocks. A few former Norwegian Air Force F-86Fs were also purchased as spares in 1968–69.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: The FAP deployed some of its F-86F Sabres to Portuguese Guinea in 1961, being based at AB2 – Bissalanca Air Base, Bissau. These aircraft formed "Detachment 52", initially equipped with eight F-86Fs (serials: 5307, 5314, 5322, 5326, 5354, 5356, 5361, and 5362) from the "Esquadra 51", based at the BA5 – Monte Real Air Base. These aircraft were used in the Guinea-Bissau War of Independence, in ground-attack and close-support operations against the insurgent forces. In August 1962, 5314 overshot the runway during an emergency landing with bombs still attached on underwing hardpoints and burned out. F-86F 5322 was shot down by enemy ground fire on 31 May 1963; the pilot ejected safely and was recovered. Several other aircraft suffered combat damage but were repaired.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: In 1964, 16 F-86Fs based at Bissalanca returned to mainland Portugal due to U.S. pressure. They had flown 577 combat sorties, of which 430 were ground-attack and close-air-support missions.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: The Philippine Air Force (PAF) first received the Sabres in the form of F-86Fs in 1957, replacing the North American P-51 Mustang as their


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: primary interceptor. F-86s first operated from Basa Air Base, known infamously as the "Nest of Vipers", where the 5th Fighter Wing of the PAF was based. Later on, in 1960, the PAF acquired the F-86D as their first all-weather interceptor. The most notable use of the F-86 Sabres was in the Blue Diamonds aerobatic display team, which operated eight Sabres until the arrival of the newer, supersonic Northrop F-5. The F-86s were subsequently phased out of service in the 1970s as the Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighter and Vought F-8 Crusaders became the primary fighters and interceptors of the PAF. Antonio Bautista was a Blue Diamonds pilot and a decorated officer. He was killed on 11 January 1974 during a combat sortie against rebels in the south of the country.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: During the Korean War, the Soviets were searching for an intact U.S. F-86 Sabre for evaluation/study purposes. Their search was frustrated, largely due to the U.S. military's policy of destroying their weapons and equipment once they had been disabled or abandoned; in the case of U.S. aircraft, USAF pilots destroyed most of their downed Sabres by strafing or bombing them. However, on one occasion, an F-86 was downed in the tidal area of a beach and subsequently was submerged, preventing its destruction. The aircraft was ferried to Moscow and a new OKB (Soviet Experimental Design Bureau) was established to study the F-86, which later became part of the Sukhoi OKB. "At least one F-86… was sent to the Soviet Union, the admitted, and other planes and prizes such as U.S. G-suits and radar gun sights also went." The Soviets studied and copied the optical gunsight and radar from the captured aircraft to produce the ASP-4N gunsight and SRC-3 radar. Installed in the MiG-17, the gunsight system was later used against American fighters in the Vietnam War. The F-86 studies also contributed to the development of aircraft aluminum alloys such as V-95.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: The old but nimble MiG-17 had become such a serious threat against the Republic F-105 Thunderchief over North Vietnam that the USAF created project "Feather Duster" to test which tactics supersonic American fighters could use against fighters such as the MiG-17. ANG F-86H units proved to be an ideal stand-in for the Soviet jets. One pilot remarked, "In any envelope except nose down and full throttle", either the F-100 or F-105 was inferior to the F-86H in a dogfight.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: Two types based on the U.S. F-86F were built under licence by the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation (CAC) in Australia, for the Royal Australian Air Force as the CA-26 (one prototype) and CA-27 (production variant). The RAAF operated the CA-27 from 1956 to 1971. The CAC Sabres included a 60% fuselage redesign, to accommodate the Rolls-Royce Avon Mk 26 engine, which had roughly 50% more thrust than the J47, as well as 30 mm Aden cannon and AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles. As a consequence of its powerplant, the Australian-built Sabres are commonly referred to as the Avon Sabre. CAC manufactured 112 of these aircraft. Ex-RAAF Avon Sabres were operated by the Royal Malaysian Air Force ("TUDM") between 1969 and 1972. From 1973 to 1975, 23 Avon Sabres were donated to the Indonesian Air Force ("TNI-AU"); five of these were ex-Malaysian aircraft.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: The F-86 was also manufactured by Canadair in Canada as the CL-13 Sabre to replace its de Havilland Vampires, with the following production models:


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: Note: The costs are in approximately 1950 United States dollars and have not been adjusted for inflation.


title: North American F-86 Sabre

text: According to the FAA there are 50 privately owned and registered F-86s in the US, including Canadair CL-13 Sabres.


title: Arthur Ashe

text: Arthur Robert Ashe Jr. (July 10, 1943 – February 6, 1993) was an American professional tennis player who won three Grand Slam singles titles. He started to play tennis at six years old. He was the first black player selected to the United States Davis Cup team, and the only black man ever to win the singles title at Wimbledon, the US Open, and the Australian Open. He retired in 1980. He was ranked world No. 1 by Rex Bellamy, Bud Collins, Judith Elian, Lance Tingay, "World Tennis" and "Tennis Magazine" (U.S.) in 1975. That year, Ashe was awarded the 'Martini and Rossi' Award, voted for by a panel of journalists, and the ATP Player of the Year award. In the ATP computer rankings, he peaked at No. 2 in May 1976.


title: Arthur Ashe

text: Ashe is believed to have acquired HIV from a blood transfusion he received during heart bypass surgery in 1983. He publicly announced his illness in April 1992, and began working to educate others about HIV and AIDS. He founded the Arthur Ashe Foundation for the Defeat of AIDS and the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health before his death from AIDS-related pneumonia at the age of 49 on February 6, 1993. On June 20, 1993, he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by United States President Bill Clinton.


title: Arthur Ashe

text: Arthur Ashe was born in Richmond, Virginia, to Arthur Ashe Sr. (d. 1989) and Mattie Cordell Cunningham Ashe on July 10, 1943. He had a brother, Johnnie, who was five years younger than he. The brothers were born into a family that claimed direct descent from Amar, a West African woman who was enslaved and brought to America in 1735 aboard a ship called "The Doddington". Ashe family members were enslaved by North Carolina Governor Samuel Ashe.


title: Arthur Ashe

text: In March 1950, Ashe's mother Mattie died from complications related to a toxemic pregnancy (now known as pre-eclampsia) at the age of 27. Ashe and his brother were raised by their father who worked as a handyman and salaried caretaker/Special Policeman for Richmond's recreation department.