Iconic Fighter Jet Leaves Centennial Park

NASHVILLE, TN -- Since 1961, F-86L Sabre Serial No. 53-0668 has made its home in Centennial Park. For twenty years, it served, bizarrely, as a piece of playground equipment before being moved northwest of The Parthenon in 1981 and put on display.

Monday, it left the park to return to its original home at Berry Field.

Several months ago, the 118th Wing of the Air National Guard, stationed at Berry Field, approached Metro Parks about relocating the jet to the airfield. As the move is consistent with the Centennial Park Master Plan, Parks agreed, as did the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, the jet's owner.

Monday afternoon, the 118th dismantled the jet from its display stand, 56 years after Mayor Ben West signed a lease with the unit to place it in the park. The Parks Board paid $1,000 to have the jet moved from Berry Field to Centennial.

Metro said the Guard is the "best possible steward" of the jet, which will remain in Nashville.

The 118th has a deep history stretching back nearly 100 years, rare for an air unit. Roots of the 105th Airlift Squadron (105AS) and the 118th Airlift Wing (118AW) reach to World War I when the 105th Aero Squadron of the American Expeditionary Force was formed at Kelly Field, Texas in 1917. After the war, in 1919, veterans of the 105th Aero Squadron residing in the Nashville area gathered for the purpose of organizing an air element of the Tennessee National Guard.

Photo by Jud McRanie, used under Creative Commons