RE: You Know You Want To...Lockheed F104 "Starfighter"
Discussion
uncle tez said:
The wings dont look big enough to me
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.
LotusOmega375D said:
300bhp/ton said:
thewheelman said:
I know Clarkson used to have a fighter plane in his garden, for that reason alone, no thanks!
Used too? Does he not any longer?Oddball RS said:
Great looking plane, not so good at the flying part though.....
Wash your mouth out, it was designed by KJ. It was extremely good actually, went very fast, climbed incredibly well and agile, even by todays standards. Perhaps not quite the qualities required from an MRCA though.I bloody love em and am happy to have heard and seen them used in anger, no recording can ever do them justice
Justayellowbadge said:
LotusOmega375D said:
300bhp/ton said:
thewheelman said:
I know Clarkson used to have a fighter plane in his garden, for that reason alone, no thanks!
Used too? Does he not any longer?
the f104 was mighty good, at certain things, less so at others. but as a fast intercept fighter, i guess low speed, low level manoeuvrability wasn't exactly high on the wish list at the design stage.
shame about the lockheed bribery sales technique though(not that us brits are any better, just look at bae nowadays...allegedly), if not for that the world may have had a much more capable bit of british engineering in it's place, the tsr2.
a mighty clever bit of kit the tsr2, enabling both high speed performance, and the ability to land the damn thing without needing to be as skilful a pilot as neil armstrong(apparently the f104 was/is one of his favourite planes).
oh, and the "north american eagle", i'm not saying that i could do any better, i most certainly could not, but it is a rather substantial pile of balls that'll never be faster than thrust ssc, let alone even being remembered once "bloodhound" has it's day in the south african sun.
having said that, i'd still buy the f104, if that price is within my budget, i might be able to stretch to somewhere around the 20p mark!
shame about the lockheed bribery sales technique though(not that us brits are any better, just look at bae nowadays...allegedly), if not for that the world may have had a much more capable bit of british engineering in it's place, the tsr2.
a mighty clever bit of kit the tsr2, enabling both high speed performance, and the ability to land the damn thing without needing to be as skilful a pilot as neil armstrong(apparently the f104 was/is one of his favourite planes).
oh, and the "north american eagle", i'm not saying that i could do any better, i most certainly could not, but it is a rather substantial pile of balls that'll never be faster than thrust ssc, let alone even being remembered once "bloodhound" has it's day in the south african sun.
having said that, i'd still buy the f104, if that price is within my budget, i might be able to stretch to somewhere around the 20p mark!
Or go to America and fly in a real one? http://www.starfighters.net/#!__page-0
the safety record is actually misleading. Early supersonic jets like this were very diffucult to look after and demanded specialist training that at the time hadnt been developed. for its role as interceptor the F104 was good. The Germans used it as a low level machine, later in anti-shipping roles. Wasnt very suited to that.....
the safety record is actually misleading. Early supersonic jets like this were very diffucult to look after and demanded specialist training that at the time hadnt been developed. for its role as interceptor the F104 was good. The Germans used it as a low level machine, later in anti-shipping roles. Wasnt very suited to that.....
911motorsport said:
If my memory serves me right I recall they were once used to terrify a group of terrorists holding hostages aboard a train. Whether the terror was to be borne of the noise, or the fear of one (or several)of them crashing I'm not quite sure.
Noise, trust me, these things sound like a kind of prehistoric monster when the nozzles are jiggledtoilet said:
the f104 was mighty good, at certain things, less so at others. but as a fast intercept fighter, i guess low speed, low level manoeuvrability wasn't exactly high on the wish list at the design stage.
shame about the lockheed bribery sales technique though(not that us brits are any better, just look at bae nowadays...allegedly), if not for that the world may have had a much more capable bit of british engineering in it's place, the tsr2.
Er...no.shame about the lockheed bribery sales technique though(not that us brits are any better, just look at bae nowadays...allegedly), if not for that the world may have had a much more capable bit of british engineering in it's place, the tsr2.
Next.
Apache said:
filski666 said:
LukeSi said:
Sod it, I'd still have a go flying one. As long as it has an ejection seat I don't care 
didn't the ejector seat fire downwards ?Edited by LukeSi on Friday 14th October 14:13
early ones, brieflyRiggers said:
droschke7 said:
Riggers said:
I meant the first to fly at a sustained Mach 2 
I'm ex 5 squadron the lightning could and did do that in fact some of the later models were even faster
dy intelligent and extremely sharp 
as this interchange between a short-tempered Frankfurt Airport Controller and British Airways 747 Pilot clearly shows Speedbird 206: " Frankfurt , Speedbird 206! Clear of active runway."
Ground: "Speedbird 206. Taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven."
The BA 747 pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop.
Ground: "Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?"
Speedbird 206: "Stand by, Ground, I'm looking up our gate location now."
Ground (with quite arrogant impatience): "Speedbird 206, have you not been to Frankfurt before?"
Speedbird 206 (coolly): "Yes, twice in 1944, but it was dark, -- And I didn't land."
toilet said:
Shame about the Lockheed bribery sales technique though, if not for that the world may have had a much more capable bit of British engineering in it's place, the TSR2.
Nearly right.Lockheed bribing Ministers and Air Marshalls around the world helped result in the cancellation of the Saunders-Roe dual fuel intercept fighter.
General Dynamics bribing Ministers and Air Marshalls around the world helped result in the cancellation of the TSR2.
I mean it wasn't like it was so endemic in the 60s & 70s that President Carter had to pass an Act of Congress to stop it. Nor would I dream of suggesting that anybody in the British government would ever dream of taking bribes from the American defence industry. I mean its not like the Germans did....or the Greeks.....or the Italians..... or the Japanese.
On a totally unrelated subject Denis Healey (defence minister at the time of the TSR2 cancellation.) is the only British politican to admit to being a member of the infamous Bilderburg Group. The same group that has include chairmans of both General Dynamics & Lockheed in its time.
Not that those two facts have anything to do with each other and you'd be a fool or a communist to think so...
dapprman said:
Yup - though Lockhead claimed the poor safety record for the German F104s was down to their converting screw/bolt/panel sizings from US imperial to metric ....
Not sure where the USAF accident records come from either as they rejected the plane.
It was down to the extremely poor maintenance from the un[der]trained groundcrews. They got better but there was a lot of "cross" servicing going on in the background between the NATO allies, all unofficial of course.Not sure where the USAF accident records come from either as they rejected the plane.
Gassing Station | Boats, Planes & Trains | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff