RE: You Know You Want To...Lockheed F104 "Starfighter"
Discussion
carl_w said:
Short stubby wings and apparently no horizontal stabilizers...
Bet the take off and landing speeds were pretty high
Landing speeds typically in the 175-190 knots region depending on fuel state/weight.Bet the take off and landing speeds were pretty high
As G15 says, flapless landing was in the 220-240 knots region...... and the drag chute had a 180 knot limitation...... and like the Lightning, it had not very good, very narrow tyres.
Legendary aircraft
Ginetta G15 Girl said:
Back to F104s...
I was 'holding' at RAF Bruggen in the mid 80's on 17(F)Sqn (whilst they still had Jaguars). The day in question was RED/RED (ie 200' cloudbase, 500m vis).
A Cloggie 104 calls up with a HYD problem (bear in mind that at this time Bruggen was an MDA (Master Diversionary Aerodrome) within the 'Clutch' airfields.
We are sitting in the PBF (Pilots' Briefing Facility - a 'hardened' building), when we hear: "STATE TWO! STATE TWO! STATE TWO! DUTCH F104 AIRCRAFT, HYDRAULICS FAILURE FOR RUNWAY 27".
Thinking: 'This'll be good,' we all pile outside to watch. The 17F 'Hard' at that time was on the North side of the R/W at the Eastern end.
We hear the whistle of the 104's J79, bearing in mind the claggy day, followed by the Cloggie tearing past us having failed to engage the Approach End RHAG (arrestor cable).
An old Sqn 'Hand' comments: "He's dead then!" (Bear in mind that a flapless F104 will be touching down at somewhere around 240 kts).
About 10 or so minutes later we hear the Cloggie taxi-ing back.
The same 'Hand' comments: "Lockheed must have made good brakes then."
We got pished with the Dutchman that night. As I recall he seemed to be able to quaff ENORMOUS quantities of Grolsch!
As I posted earlier in the thread One of the Lockheed brothers founded the aircraft company whilst another started Lockheed brakes and IIRC developed the first hydraulic independant four wheel braking system for cars.I was 'holding' at RAF Bruggen in the mid 80's on 17(F)Sqn (whilst they still had Jaguars). The day in question was RED/RED (ie 200' cloudbase, 500m vis).
A Cloggie 104 calls up with a HYD problem (bear in mind that at this time Bruggen was an MDA (Master Diversionary Aerodrome) within the 'Clutch' airfields.
We are sitting in the PBF (Pilots' Briefing Facility - a 'hardened' building), when we hear: "STATE TWO! STATE TWO! STATE TWO! DUTCH F104 AIRCRAFT, HYDRAULICS FAILURE FOR RUNWAY 27".
Thinking: 'This'll be good,' we all pile outside to watch. The 17F 'Hard' at that time was on the North side of the R/W at the Eastern end.
We hear the whistle of the 104's J79, bearing in mind the claggy day, followed by the Cloggie tearing past us having failed to engage the Approach End RHAG (arrestor cable).
An old Sqn 'Hand' comments: "He's dead then!" (Bear in mind that a flapless F104 will be touching down at somewhere around 240 kts).
About 10 or so minutes later we hear the Cloggie taxi-ing back.
The same 'Hand' comments: "Lockheed must have made good brakes then."
We got pished with the Dutchman that night. As I recall he seemed to be able to quaff ENORMOUS quantities of Grolsch!
When I was a kid we lived close to a dutch base where they had 104s . Sometimes they passed 20ms over the woodlands where we had our house....................I loved those huge sound moments. Its 30yrs ago but seeing the youtube vids get back the memories lively!
Now when the silent Ryanair jets pass at 900ms instead of 1000ms: 3000 people complain, ........................what happened ??????
Now when the silent Ryanair jets pass at 900ms instead of 1000ms: 3000 people complain, ........................what happened ??????
M0BZY said:
aeropilot said:
Blimey, 5 Sqn using the Harmonious Drag Master ....... that's showing your age a bit 
Not wrong there,pity there isnt an airworthy Jav' to show the kids.These will be familiar to you then....
5 Sqn FAW9's from RAF Geilenkirchen taken during the last year of 5 Sqn Jav ops in 1965.
aeropilot said:
Spares would be a bit of an issue. Last flying Jav was the raspberry ripple one that is at Duxford, which made the last ever Jav flight when it was flown into Duxford in Jan 1975.
These will be familiar to you then....
5 Sqn FAW9's from RAF Geilenkirchen taken during the last year of 5 Sqn Jav ops in 1965.
Thanks for that,with drop tanks as well,but they were at Laarbruch in my time,I didn't know they moved to Geilenkirchen.These will be familiar to you then....
5 Sqn FAW9's from RAF Geilenkirchen taken during the last year of 5 Sqn Jav ops in 1965.
M0BZY said:
aeropilot said:
Spares would be a bit of an issue. Last flying Jav was the raspberry ripple one that is at Duxford, which made the last ever Jav flight when it was flown into Duxford in Jan 1975.
These will be familiar to you then....
5 Sqn FAW9's from RAF Geilenkirchen taken during the last year of 5 Sqn Jav ops in 1965.
Thanks for that,with drop tanks as well,but they were at Laarbruch in my time,I didn't know they moved to Geilenkirchen.These will be familiar to you then....
5 Sqn FAW9's from RAF Geilenkirchen taken during the last year of 5 Sqn Jav ops in 1965.
M0BZY said:
aeropilot said:
Spares would be a bit of an issue. Last flying Jav was the raspberry ripple one that is at Duxford, which made the last ever Jav flight when it was flown into Duxford in Jan 1975.
These will be familiar to you then....
5 Sqn FAW9's from RAF Geilenkirchen taken during the last year of 5 Sqn Jav ops in 1965.
Thanks for that,with drop tanks as well,but they were at Laarbruch in my time,I didn't know they moved to Geilenkirchen.These will be familiar to you then....
5 Sqn FAW9's from RAF Geilenkirchen taken during the last year of 5 Sqn Jav ops in 1965.
Think it is a shame that these incredable aircraft end up as garden ornaments.
After visiting Brooklands and the selection of slowly decaying aircraft there it makes you wonder if they have souls like old cars in the same state.
Thinking for example of the VC10 which flew out of the Vickers factory site once then ended its days flying back before they tore up the runway..It'll never again return to the skys!
Thank goodness for places like Duxford where Hurricanes and Spitfire poke out of hangers like being mass produced.
After visiting Brooklands and the selection of slowly decaying aircraft there it makes you wonder if they have souls like old cars in the same state.
Thinking for example of the VC10 which flew out of the Vickers factory site once then ended its days flying back before they tore up the runway..It'll never again return to the skys!
Thank goodness for places like Duxford where Hurricanes and Spitfire poke out of hangers like being mass produced.
Tango13 said:
Wings too small sir? In that case we'll stretch them a quite a lot and rename the result the U-2.
Lockheeds' "Skunk Works" did pretty much exactly this to build the U-2, bigger wings, a subsonic engine inlet configured for altitude, bycycle undercarrige and a quite a few other mods but C.J "Kelly" Johnson went on record that the U-2 was an extrapolation of the F-104.
Mind you the Skunk Works also built the prototype F-104 so they knew what they were doing.
Didn't know that. Lockheeds' "Skunk Works" did pretty much exactly this to build the U-2, bigger wings, a subsonic engine inlet configured for altitude, bycycle undercarrige and a quite a few other mods but C.J "Kelly" Johnson went on record that the U-2 was an extrapolation of the F-104.
Mind you the Skunk Works also built the prototype F-104 so they knew what they were doing.
Apache said:
Strange that so many people say the 104 was a bad jet yet the TSR2 was a good one
Very.The 104 had its shortcomings - as did virtually all the high performance front line jets built and designed in the same era.
All we can ever say about the TSR-2 (which was a later generation of aircraft) was that it had potential.
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