Lang
9/6/26
Hawkeye fans flying into or driving by the Iowa City Municipal Airport on Saturday on their way to the University of Iowa football team’s home opener got a pleasant surprise as the historic F-86 Sabre Jet in front of the facility has been painted black-and-gold.
The new paint job…which actually features the Sabre’s original colors… is part of renovations now underway on the historic jet, which was first installed at the airport’s entrance on South Riverside Drive in 1972 as a memorial to Vietnam prisoners of war. Earlier this year, city officials were considering replacing the Sabre with a new memorial, citing increasing maintenance costs and an estimated $10,000 in repairs. But local residents took issue with the idea and formed the Save the Sabre Project, which is still raising money privately to help restore and improve the memorial. As of late Saturday night, the group had raised just over $5,000 toward its $25,000 goal.
A link to the Save the Sabre GoFundMe page can be found here.
