Sorry this is off-topic, but is the cockpit of that plane open?!
It certainly looks that way....not being a pilot, I don't know if that's normal or not for this sort of aircraft. Undoubtedly somebody will come along soon who can add information about that....Free Republic is teeming with experts on all manner of military and aviation subjects.
The pilot has the canopy slid back for some reason; odd, but not impossible: there'd be some airspeed above which the canopy had to be closed but below that, no problem. The plane is landing, incidentally (airbrakes are deployed), so there might be some problem and the pilot is cautiously making sure he can get out if it all goes pear-shaped.
Wrong model F-86, anyway: the rocket-armed one was the F-86D, which only had about 25% parts commonality with the basic F-86.
It is ... it looks like a photoshop job. Possibly even a photoshop of a plastic model.
It is ... it looks like a photoshop job. Possibly even a photoshop of a plastic model.
Note that the front tire (tyre?) is NOT spinning. Also, no visible jet exhaust.
Now ... nobody's claiming that the picture is of the airplane in the report taking off ... but real, archival photos are available. Why use such an obvious fabrication?
That is not a picture of an F-86D.