Simviation Forums

Whooooaaaaaah

The Flying Coffin or Widowmaker, whichever you prefer.

Nice shots though

great pics

Sure it had some problems, but according to many Canadian servicemen,
"The aircraft responded like a thoroughbred when it was flown within its performance envelope."

Trouble was I think it had a very limited envelope!

Afraid that any aircraft that kills its pilots as often as that one did is a bad aircraft. The people who fly planes are only human after all - they make mistakes. Any plane that is that unforgiving has to be binned - and it went on for far too long before that decision was taken.

As I recall the Germans carried on flying it after the Americans had stopped - and it still carried on killing people as usual.

Very nice. It looks a good sim. My memory is failing rapidly & I would need to check my facts. I seem to remember reading somewhere that the Luftwaffe version of the F-104 was somehow different to the ones used by other air forces. This was the one that killed all those pilots & gave the "Widowmaker" its name & bad reputation.

PS. http://www.aircraftplanesandjets.com/fighters/f_104_starfighter.htm

The Lockheed Starfighter adopted the somewhat inappropriate nickname of the "Widowmaker" as a result of some unfortunate incidents as the F-104G's service with the Luftwaffe. This term, however did not apply generally as the Starfighter compiled a remarkable service record.

good pics!

and the luftwaffe version of the F-104 was somehow modified concerning the weapons or something like that. don't know exactly 'bout it. gotta make some research and will tell ya if i've found something good.

p.s: if i remember correctly ,the cause for the accidents was a part of the aircraft,which wasn't good enough to resist the cold temperatures of the winter. will do some research on this,too.

nice pics but pretty dangerous craft i must say!

good pics!

and the luftwaffe version of the F-104 was somehow modified concerning the weapons or something like that. don't know exactly 'bout it. gotta make some research and will tell ya if i've found something good.

I found a more detailed report here. http://www.military.com/Content/MoreContent1/?file=cw_f9_1
Despite what it says in my previous quote it was difficult to fly & the USAF suffered high losses. The stalling speed was an unbelievable 198 mph. In seven years, 49 of the 153 that were eventually built were lost to accidents, a staggering 32 percent. The downward-firing ejector seat did not improve matters. Eighteen pilots were killed during the same period.

The Luftwaffe insisted on the more conventional Martin-Baker style seat & other "improvements".

the F-104G. It incorporated a redesigned airframe, a more powerful version of the J-79 engine, a larger tail, an inertial navigation system, improved radar and five hard points for external stores.

Because the Bundesluftwaffe (Federal German Air Force) expected to use the F-104G largely as a low-altitude fighter-bomber, it adamantly rejected the Starfighter's lethal downward-firing ejector seat. The Germans wanted to equip the plane with Britain's superior Martin-Baker ejector seat, but Lockheed was equally insistent upon using an upward-firing seat of their own design. After 23 months of haggling, the Bundesluftwaffe acquiesced to Lockheed's wishes. In 1967, however, the F-104Gs were finally retrofitted with the British seats.

The F-104G became, for all intents and purposes, the first "Eurofighter." In addition, a further 238 F-104Gs were manufactured in Canada by Canadair as CF-104s. A total of 1,585 F-104Gs and CF-104s were built, including two-seat conversion trainers. That was more than five times the number of Starfighters built for the U.S. Air Force.

The F-104 became as controversial in West Germany as it had been in the United States. The modifications made to the aircraft caused an increase in weight that raised the stall speed to 216 mph. As a result of the frequent adverse weather conditions over northern Europe, combined with the effect of all those added external stores on the F-104G's airframe, the West German press reported Starfighter crashes with a frequency that became an embarrassment to the government. In 1965 alone, the Bundesluftwaffe lost 30 F-104Gs in accidents. In consequence, although most Americans were unaware of it, many Bundesluftwaffe pilots were flying their F-104Gs, disguised in U.S. Air Force markings, over the southwestern United States--where the weather was much better for training flights--during the 1960s and 1970s.

thanks ,hagar. very informative and you saved me alot of time.

Thanks for that Doug

I didn't remember the detail but I certainly remembered the staggering number of losses suffered by that plane.

As I said originally, it was a poor design that should never have got past prototype stage and was allowed to go on for far too long when it did get into production.

They'd never get away with it today

- pilots wouldn't fly it
- the government/manufacturer would be open to massive compensation claims - and quite right too

The guys who guard and look after our freedom have a difficult and dangerous enough job without exposing them to unnecessary risk purely of the making of politicians and the incompetence of the people who specified, designed and ordered such an unworthy aircraft. The only one I've ever seen is in the Air and Space Museum in Washington and that's where it needs to stay as a constant reminder.

Mind you, as the UK government cuts back and chees-paires on the defence capability of our country, maybe we ought to make sure a photograph is placed on Mr Blair's desk as a reminder of what happens when politicians start to run too much of the show.

nice pics!  :)

Lovely pics and a nice plane, even though it was perhaps a bit of a death trap

Yeah Steve. Don't spend too much time in it - we'd hate to lose ya