Would really all foreigners understand that joke?! ;) The Luftwaffe lost one third of it's Starfighters in accidents that to some degree where caused by maintenance failures (the Germans got more F-104s then the LW could handle), the Canadians even lost half of their fleet - but some other operators lost not a single machine.

In Germany the plane thus became known as "widow maker".

Erdnagel :03:

Yes, I meant the 104, not the 101...call it a mid-afternoon numerical foul up. :03:

^^ Which is a pity, i liked the F-104 for its futuristic form and performance, however its stall characteristics and slow-flying properties must have been tricky, to say at least.

It is an astonishing small plane, there's one in the Hannover Laatzen aircraft museum.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyBDEG9dg-Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6K4iSxET6g

I still like it :)

..or was it the flying coffin?:hmmm:

^ It's nickname indeed was "Witwenmacher"/widowmaker, in the european part of the NATO.

Seems it needed the GE J97 engine, not much gliding capabilities (?)

To mention "gliding" when referring to "Starfighter" is a contradiction in itself. :) Those things glide in the meaning of an asteroid gliding past earth.

Yes, some of us 'foreigners' in the UK and especially those with an interest in military aviation are well aware of the saying.

Woooh - sorry...

I am not aware to what degree the high loss record in Germany and Canada got taken note of internationally, even more so when over here the German loss ratio gets attributed less to the plane and more to the inadequate maintenance by the LW. It usually is said that the defence minister of that time bought more planes - in not always crystal clear deals - than the LW could operate, did need, and could guarantee good maintenance for, a logistical overload, so to speak. To what degree that holds truth I cannot judge, but it is given as an explanation quite often.

So I considered the many Starfighters falling out of the German sky to be an issue more present in the German mind than in international one.

I was working at Lockheed at that time and something happened that you don't see everyday at Burbank airport. A C-5A landed, only happened twice as far as I know. I loaded some SR-71 parts in the second, only things on the plane, They were in some kind of hurry for these things I guess.

On the first one I had to unload it and what did my surprised eyes see.
A F-104 complete less wings and tail in Luftwaffe markings. The story I got was that Lockheed was so upset with all the Luftwaffe problems that they went to Germany and picked one off the line and loaded it up and bough it home to take a look. I knew some of the people that worked on it and they said it was the most poorly maintained aircraft they ever saw.

As far as "glide" goes a friend of my dad was a design engineer on the 104 and the way he explained it to me was that it got lift from the air flow management through the intake and engine, it got a pretty good percentage of lift this way. Don't remember what percentage.
A way to explain this was to picture a ring on a string and spinning the ring, the string is the air flow and the ring the 104. Cut the string and down comes the ring.

As far as the F-35 I not so sure about it. Too expensive and getting more so every day. Might turn out to be a good plane but who can afford it.
And I'm from a Lockheed family that goes back to the late 1930s, even own stock. Oh wait " Go F-35" :up::up::up::up::up:

Don't know what Canada's problem was, maybe the same thing maybe not.

Magic

Hello Magic,
thanks for the explanation, the airflow through the turbine needed for lift makes sense, looking at the relatively tiny wings - also they had not a subsonic aerodynamic profile, but more a 'spindle' one for high speeds - and no slats.

It is strange that the french air force and the Israelis flew their Mirages with improved Heinkel jet engines, the latter also forming the basis for the Bell X-5
(no this is not a Bell X5: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_P.1101), and Germany had to buy planes and jet engines from abroad :03:

The phrase here was "Glides like a brick."

Considering the situation Germany had been shortly after ww2 not so strange but maybe ironical.
In the 60s Germany just had started to recover from the war and building its industrial strength:hmmm:

It is also not so strange that western Germany was equipped with cold war bomber interceptors like f 104.
I suppose the war plan doctrine for that time would call just for that sice germany was in hot spot for the west - east conflict.

:salute:

again, you seem to have limited knowledge of how aircraft development works.

you are again wrong. Do you not understand the term "operating limitations"?


only because of operating restrictions, again perfectly normal for an aircraft which has not even finished all of its flight tests.

Agreed. But this is a very short list of relatively minor issues, again not uncommon for an aircraft at this stage of its development.

I seem to recall the F4 being referred to as 'the triumph of thrust over aerodynamics' and 'proof that with a big enough engine even a brick could fly." Although truth be told, I have heard good things about her maneuverability. :yep:

The thing with the F-4 is not that it has no agility but that most other foes that it might encounter have better agility.Of course an important element to any combat aircraft is its pilot/crew if the plane is flown where it has advantages and the opposing aircraft is at a disadvantage that aircraft will likely win the engagement.

Therefore an F-4 driver that knows his plane and knows his enemy this pilot will have confidence in his aircraft.

:yep: I think you could say that about most aircraft, if you know what you can get away with and know the limits of the enemies aircraft then you have an advantage in an engagement. For example a Spitfire pilot who knows his aircraft and the enemy would know to try to lure a 109 pilot into a turning dogfight where he has the advantage rather than a climbing dogfight where the 109 has the advantage.

I think how long the F4 stayed in service and the sheer number of nations it served with is another good indicator of what sort of aircraft it was at the end of the day.

True. There are numerous evaluations of the F-4 and its combat capabilities and actual performance to many to list in this thread without going a good way off topic.Though that already seems to have happened some what.

The the F-4 also ended up taking over the F-105's role in the USAF from 1968 onwards and performed very well as a strike aircraft.The F-4G was an excellent SEAD platform.The F-4 also has the honor of being the first aircraft to use laser guided bombs in combat back in 1972.

Yeah it was a work horse and flexible air plane but not very exceptional at any role.
F35 is possibly going the same route but on different level by today's standards.