USAF North American F-86 Sabre fighters  at Suwon Air Base.

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Korea was the first time jet aircraft fought each other in war. Once formidable propeller driven aircraft, designed during World War II, we superseded by a new generation of faster, jet-powered fighters. For the initial months of the war, the P-80 Shooting Star, F9F Panther, Gloster Meteor and other jets under the UN flag dominated the Korean People's Air Force (KPAF) propeller driven Soviet built fighters. By early August 1950, the KPAF was reduced to only about 20 planes.

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The Chinese intervention in late October 1950 bolstered the KPAF with the MiG-15, one of the world's most advanced jet fighters. The heavily armed MiGs were faster than first-generation UN jets and therefore could reach and destroy US B-29 Superfortress bomber flights despite their fighter escorts. With increasing B-29 losses, the USAF was forced to switch from a daylight bombing campaign to the safer but less accurate night time bombing of targets.

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The USAF countered the MiG-15 by sending over three squadrons of its most capable fighter, the F-86 Sabre. These arrived in December 1950. Once in a level flight dogfight, both swept-wing designs attained comparable maximum speeds of around 1,100 km/h (660 mph). The MiG climbed faster, but the Sabre turned and dived better.

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Unlike the Vietnam War, in which the Soviet Union only officially sent "advisers". Fearful of confronting the US directly, the Soviet Union denied involvement of their personnel in anything other than an advisory role, but air combat quickly resulted in Soviet pilots dropping their code signals and speaking over the wireless in Russian. This known direct Soviet participation was a provication that the UN Command deliberately overlooked, not wanting the war to expand to include the Soviet Union, and potentially escalate into atomic warfare.

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After the war, and to the present day, the USAF reports an F-86 Sabre kill ratio in excess of 10:1, with 792 MiG-15s and 108 other aircraft shot down by Sabres, and 78 Sabres lost to enemy fire although the Soviet Union, China and the KPAP dispute this.

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The war also featured the first large scale deployment of helicopters for medical evacuation (medevac). Helicopters like the Sikorsky H-19 helped reduce fatal casualties to a dramatic degree when combined with complementary medical innovations such as Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals. The medical evacuation and care system for the wound was so effective for the UN forces that a wounded soldier who arrived at a MASH unit alive typically had a 97% chance of survival. The limitations of jet aircraft for close air support highlighted the helicopter's potential in the role, leading to development of the helicopter gunships used in the Vietnam War.

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Source: Wikipedia