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CaptainCrunch · 01-11-2025, 08:26 PM

Air Forces and the Starfighter

Even with the fading interest by the US Airforce in the F-104, it had attracted attention by 15 air forces around the world who were looking for a multi-role plane. The most significant in terms of the F-104 history were the air forces of Pakistan, Germany and Canada. The F-104 was about to become the United States premiere export fighter rivalling the F-5 freedom fighter and the 5th generation F-35. It was also going to receive a notoriety that would make the Starfighter a legend in the fighter community for all the wrong reasons.

Pakistan

Pakistan became the first non-Nato country to use F-104’sas they purchased a squadron of 12 F-104a’s and 2 F104B’s. As part of the adoption the 104a’s were refitted with the m-61 20 mm gun that the USAF had removed to make room for a improved radar system. Pakistan also used the more advanced GWE j70 11 engine. Which made it a lighter fighter with a better weight to thrust ratio.

During the 1965 India-Pakistan war the PAF used the F-104’s as high altitude interceptors and as a night fighter using an improved fire control system that gave it a look down shoot down capability. However, the Indian Airforce learned to send their bombers in at low altitudes in the ground clutter forcing 104 pilots to skim the earth at 300 feet and point their radars upwards. On Sept 6, 1965 the F-104 notched its first ever combat kill shooting down a Dussault Mystere with a side winder mission.

In the 1971 India Pakistan war the F-104’s mission had changed, and they were used for deep strikes on Indian airfields and radar sites.
In 1972 the US placed an arms embargo on both India and Pakistan even though India was a client of the Soviet Union and didn’t use much in the way of US equipment. It crippled Pakistan though and they couldn’t maintain their F-104’s and phased them out.

Germany

Germany became a major purchaser of the F-104 purchasing 916 of the jets to act as a multirole fighter, providing air superiority, high altitude interception and ground attack capabilities as part of the Lockheed Martin deal of the century where they licensed the 104 to local manufacturers boasted by Lockheed Martins use of bribery to close deals. When Germany purchased the F-104G in 1961 there was a rumored 10-million-dollar bribe to the Germany Defense Minister and his party. The investigation was eventually dropped, then reopened in 1978, however Lockheed was also implicated in bribing government officials with Italy and their purchases of C-130’s, Japan and their F-104 purchase, and various other air forces.

Germany was looking for an all-weather capable multirole platform and even though the F-104 was not an all weather nor was designed to be an interceptor or low altitude ground attack fighter, Lockheed Martin made a lot of promises. The F-104G was called the Super Starfighter, was given a more powerful engine with a larger tail for great rudder stability, a improved all weather radar system, and a larger drag chute. It could carry heavy weapons including special packages or a 2000 pound nuclear weapon.

Problems started occurring right away. The F-104 was never designed to be a low level bomber, and adding heavy bomb packages effected the flight characteristics. The other problem was with the pilots. When West Germany reformed their air force, the pilots that returned were not used to flying a highly technical advanced Mach Holy Crap fighter, that was intensely difficult to fly. German Pilots learned that you had to fly every inch of the aircraft and it was very unforgiving. The combination of technical errors and pilot errors caused 292 of the F-104G’s to crash killing 116 pilots.

In the United States Airforce, a pilot had to have nearly 1500 flight hours before even being considered for transitioning to the F104, the average German pilot had about 400 hours of flight time and mostly in slower less technologically advanced fighters. When you combine it with the flight issues that we’ll cover later, using the F-104 in a role that it wasn’t made for and the add on of advanced and distracting avionics it led to the F-104 gaining the nickname the Widow Maker. It was also clear when reviewing the F-104’s service record it was a cursed aircraft, it suffered a high number of bird strikes, pilots losing their special awareness due to weather and other innocent incidents that led to classes.

One of the lead pilots in the German Airforce was effectively fired for blistering the German Government for picking the F-104, the whole line was effectively grounded due to safety concerns and eventually, phased out in favor of the Phantom II and the Tornado.

Canada

At the end of the 1960’s Canada decided to replace the excellent F-86 Sabre, and as part of their list of requirements and due to their commitment to NATO started looking for a fighter that could act as a Nuclear Strike and reconnaissance platform, in combination with their CF-101 Voodoo interceptors that could fire the unguided nuclear tipped Genie rockets.
In the face of a Soviet invasion of Europe, the F-104 could be counted on to drop nukes on strategic road crossings, railway crosses, logistics center and armored formations.

After a competition that features such planes as the Dassault Mirage II3, the Gruman Super Tiger, the Northrop N-156 (F-5), the F-104 was selected over the F-105 Thunder Chief which the Airforce preferred. However, the F-104 was the cheaper version and was selected.

The fact that the Canadian Government had hamstrung the selection process by insisting that the plane be manufactured in Canada had helped the F-104 due to Lockheed Martin licensing the manufacture of the Starfighter to Canadair in Montreal.

The F-104 now designated at the CF-104 refitted with an air to ground attack packages with specialized equipment needed to carry nuclear weapons. And had the under carriage and landing gear re-enforcement.
Canadair would go on to fill Canada’s order for 200 CF-104’s as well as building 140 F-104G’s for the German Airforce.

8 Squadrons were sent to Europe to fulfil the role of Nuclear Strike aircraft and reconnaissance Aircraft, in the event of war, they would be equipped with US Nuclear bombs including the Mark 57 with the “Dial a Yield” ability to select whether the bomb was a 10kt or 20kt bomb.

In 1971 the CF-104 was reconfigured for conventional ground and was refitted to carry either Iron Bombs, Cluster Bombs or Rocket Pods, It was never configured to carry Sidewinder missiles to defend itself from air attacks.
During its time with the Canadian Airforce, it certainly earned its multiple nicknames such as the Widow Maker, the Law Dart and the Aluminum Death Pool as out of 200 fighters there were 110 serious accidents with 37 pilots being killed. This article will cover why the F-104 had so many accidents.
As Canada began to reduce its commitment to NATO, the CF-105 was reduced from 8 Squadrons to 3 Squadrons in Europe by 1971, but they weren’t really re-integrated in the AirForce for North American Continental Defense, and the last CF-104 was retired in 1988.

Starfighters at War

One could argue that the world was at its most volatile in the 1960’s and 70’s and the Starfighter did have a combat record in most theatres.
In 1958 The PRC began to shell the ROC or Tawain, the Chinese also shifted over 200 fighters and Bombers to Airfields to intimidate Taiwan’s Airforce. The Americans deployed a fighter wing of F-104’s whose mission was intimidation, at the time China were flying Mig 15’s and Mig 17’s and had nothing in their inventory that could keep up or get to the same altitude as the Starfighter, basically it helped to scare some sanity in the air force commanders on the mainland.

The Starfighter carried out a similar mission during the Berlin Crisis in 1961, where they were there to intimidate Soviet Airforce commanders.
During the Vietnam the Starfighters acted in multi roles, they acted as bombers and provided BARCAP for early warning aircraft. The Star Fighters 2937 combat missions and had a good rack record as only 13 Starfighters were lost with 5 of them being from engine failures or collisions, so only 8 were lost to enemy fire.

The Reputation

So why did the Starfighter garner a reputation as a dangerous aircraft with nicknames like the Window Maker or Lawn Dart. Out of the 900 F-104G’s that the German’s purchased nearly 300 crashed leading to the deaths of 116 pilots. In Canada out of the 200 Fighters over half of them crashed killing 37 pilots. Was there an inherent design flaw that would drop airplanes out of the sky, like the Soviet Blinder Bomber that would suddenly reverse its controls, or the Mig 15 that due to material issues would twist their wings and go into a flat spin?

The answer is no, the issues that caused a high crash rate were much more human.

One of the first issues was that the century series fighters were the new line of 2nd generational fighters. Because of that they had far more advanced avionics, and unlike the fly by feel fighters of the previous generation, a Pilot had to split his attention between the more complex monitoring systems, their threat warning systems, a more advanced display and still fly the plane. The Star Fighter was a finicky fighter that required a experience pilot with a hyper state of awareness, more then a quarter of the crashes were caused by distracted pilots, who weren’t looking out of the cockpit but were looking down at their instruments instead.

If there was a design issue its that the F-104 was designed with speed in mind, but the design didn’t deal well with landings. Because the small wings weren’t good at providing lift at low speed, by design the F-104’s had to land at a high state of speed or risk losing lift and slamming into the ground, and because of the design of the fuel tanks explode. This led to landing at high speeds and using a pilot chute to slow down, which created a whole other series of problems.

The other factor is that the Starfighter was rarely used for its intended purpose, which was a high-level, high-speed air superiority fighter. Because of its design it couldn’t dog fight at slow speeds or maneuver at slow speeds. Which meant that the counter to a F-104 was go get it into a turning battle and watch the F-104 lose its lift. Instead, air forces purchased the Starfighter to act as a low-level low speed to high speed bomber, or as a high level interceptor that would push the engines to failures. When the F-104 was used for its created mission, it was a safe aircraft, however it just wasn’t good at anything but Mach 2 bushwacking tactics.

The final issue once you get by an aircraft not being used for its purpose, that required a experienced pilot that could balance modern avionics with flying by feel, that you had to land at high speeds or die. The Starfighter was an unlucky aircraft. For the CF-104 21 of the 110 crashed due to bird strikes, 32 were attributed to a combination of poor level and low altitudes, 18 were attributed to actual engine failures or other system failures. For Germany their loss of nearly 1/3rd of their fighters most of their fighters were loss due to instability caused by flying them at low speeds and altitude which went against its design, it wasn’t built to be a low altitude bomber. Another large factor was that West German pilots didn’t have experience, on average a German Pilot had 400 hours of stick time, in the states you wouldn’t even be able to look at a F-104 from across the runway until you had more then 3x that amount.

Conclusion

The F-104 was part of the century series of fighters that were meant to introduce the second generation of fighter jets. Designed for specific roles, and combined with new engine, weapon and avionics technology it represented a radical leap forward for Western Air forces. The Starfighter was designed to fly higher and faster than anything else on the planet. Built to bushwack enemies from above, it never really got to fulfil its role.
A fighter that was unforgiving to its pilots, with a safety record that gave it legendary nicknames like the Windowmaker, it still intimidated Soviet, North Vietnamese and Chinese air force commanders.

While the idea of high-altitude high-speed fighters was an exciting concept for its designers, it ended up being used in roles that were unsuitable to its design, and that led to the loss of fighters and the death of pilots.

When you look at the design of the F-104, there are not a lot of design elements that carry on to this day. The Trapezoid thin leading-edge design never gained popularity, nor did the T-shaped flight control system.
In the end, the F-104 was like the overpowered muscle cars of the 60’s and 70’s, but despite the concept, its faded into obscurity, unfortunately known more for its safety record then its out of the box, almost science fiction like design.

01-11-2025, 08:26 PM	#273
CaptainCrunch Norm! Join Date: Jun 2002 Exp:	Air Forces and the Starfighter Even with the fading interest by the US Airforce in the F-104, it had attracted attention by 15 air forces around the world who were looking for a multi-role plane. The most significant in terms of the F-104 history were the air forces of Pakistan, Germany and Canada. The F-104 was about to become the United States premiere export fighter rivalling the F-5 freedom fighter and the 5th generation F-35. It was also going to receive a notoriety that would make the Starfighter a legend in the fighter community for all the wrong reasons. Pakistan Pakistan became the first non-Nato country to use F-104’sas they purchased a squadron of 12 F-104a’s and 2 F104B’s. As part of the adoption the 104a’s were refitted with the m-61 20 mm gun that the USAF had removed to make room for a improved radar system. Pakistan also used the more advanced GWE j70 11 engine. Which made it a lighter fighter with a better weight to thrust ratio. During the 1965 India-Pakistan war the PAF used the F-104’s as high altitude interceptors and as a night fighter using an improved fire control system that gave it a look down shoot down capability. However, the Indian Airforce learned to send their bombers in at low altitudes in the ground clutter forcing 104 pilots to skim the earth at 300 feet and point their radars upwards. On Sept 6, 1965 the F-104 notched its first ever combat kill shooting down a Dussault Mystere with a side winder mission. In the 1971 India Pakistan war the F-104’s mission had changed, and they were used for deep strikes on Indian airfields and radar sites. In 1972 the US placed an arms embargo on both India and Pakistan even though India was a client of the Soviet Union and didn’t use much in the way of US equipment. It crippled Pakistan though and they couldn’t maintain their F-104’s and phased them out. Germany Germany became a major purchaser of the F-104 purchasing 916 of the jets to act as a multirole fighter, providing air superiority, high altitude interception and ground attack capabilities as part of the Lockheed Martin deal of the century where they licensed the 104 to local manufacturers boasted by Lockheed Martins use of bribery to close deals. When Germany purchased the F-104G in 1961 there was a rumored 10-million-dollar bribe to the Germany Defense Minister and his party. The investigation was eventually dropped, then reopened in 1978, however Lockheed was also implicated in bribing government officials with Italy and their purchases of C-130’s, Japan and their F-104 purchase, and various other air forces. Germany was looking for an all-weather capable multirole platform and even though the F-104 was not an all weather nor was designed to be an interceptor or low altitude ground attack fighter, Lockheed Martin made a lot of promises. The F-104G was called the Super Starfighter, was given a more powerful engine with a larger tail for great rudder stability, a improved all weather radar system, and a larger drag chute. It could carry heavy weapons including special packages or a 2000 pound nuclear weapon. Problems started occurring right away. The F-104 was never designed to be a low level bomber, and adding heavy bomb packages effected the flight characteristics. The other problem was with the pilots. When West Germany reformed their air force, the pilots that returned were not used to flying a highly technical advanced Mach Holy Crap fighter, that was intensely difficult to fly. German Pilots learned that you had to fly every inch of the aircraft and it was very unforgiving. The combination of technical errors and pilot errors caused 292 of the F-104G’s to crash killing 116 pilots. In the United States Airforce, a pilot had to have nearly 1500 flight hours before even being considered for transitioning to the F104, the average German pilot had about 400 hours of flight time and mostly in slower less technologically advanced fighters. When you combine it with the flight issues that we’ll cover later, using the F-104 in a role that it wasn’t made for and the add on of advanced and distracting avionics it led to the F-104 gaining the nickname the Widow Maker. It was also clear when reviewing the F-104’s service record it was a cursed aircraft, it suffered a high number of bird strikes, pilots losing their special awareness due to weather and other innocent incidents that led to classes. One of the lead pilots in the German Airforce was effectively fired for blistering the German Government for picking the F-104, the whole line was effectively grounded due to safety concerns and eventually, phased out in favor of the Phantom II and the Tornado. Canada At the end of the 1960’s Canada decided to replace the excellent F-86 Sabre, and as part of their list of requirements and due to their commitment to NATO started looking for a fighter that could act as a Nuclear Strike and reconnaissance platform, in combination with their CF-101 Voodoo interceptors that could fire the unguided nuclear tipped Genie rockets. In the face of a Soviet invasion of Europe, the F-104 could be counted on to drop nukes on strategic road crossings, railway crosses, logistics center and armored formations. After a competition that features such planes as the Dassault Mirage II3, the Gruman Super Tiger, the Northrop N-156 (F-5), the F-104 was selected over the F-105 Thunder Chief which the Airforce preferred. However, the F-104 was the cheaper version and was selected. The fact that the Canadian Government had hamstrung the selection process by insisting that the plane be manufactured in Canada had helped the F-104 due to Lockheed Martin licensing the manufacture of the Starfighter to Canadair in Montreal. The F-104 now designated at the CF-104 refitted with an air to ground attack packages with specialized equipment needed to carry nuclear weapons. And had the under carriage and landing gear re-enforcement. Canadair would go on to fill Canada’s order for 200 CF-104’s as well as building 140 F-104G’s for the German Airforce. 8 Squadrons were sent to Europe to fulfil the role of Nuclear Strike aircraft and reconnaissance Aircraft, in the event of war, they would be equipped with US Nuclear bombs including the Mark 57 with the “Dial a Yield” ability to select whether the bomb was a 10kt or 20kt bomb. In 1971 the CF-104 was reconfigured for conventional ground and was refitted to carry either Iron Bombs, Cluster Bombs or Rocket Pods, It was never configured to carry Sidewinder missiles to defend itself from air attacks. During its time with the Canadian Airforce, it certainly earned its multiple nicknames such as the Widow Maker, the Law Dart and the Aluminum Death Pool as out of 200 fighters there were 110 serious accidents with 37 pilots being killed. This article will cover why the F-104 had so many accidents. As Canada began to reduce its commitment to NATO, the CF-105 was reduced from 8 Squadrons to 3 Squadrons in Europe by 1971, but they weren’t really re-integrated in the AirForce for North American Continental Defense, and the last CF-104 was retired in 1988. Starfighters at War One could argue that the world was at its most volatile in the 1960’s and 70’s and the Starfighter did have a combat record in most theatres. In 1958 The PRC began to shell the ROC or Tawain, the Chinese also shifted over 200 fighters and Bombers to Airfields to intimidate Taiwan’s Airforce. The Americans deployed a fighter wing of F-104’s whose mission was intimidation, at the time China were flying Mig 15’s and Mig 17’s and had nothing in their inventory that could keep up or get to the same altitude as the Starfighter, basically it helped to scare some sanity in the air force commanders on the mainland. The Starfighter carried out a similar mission during the Berlin Crisis in 1961, where they were there to intimidate Soviet Airforce commanders. During the Vietnam the Starfighters acted in multi roles, they acted as bombers and provided BARCAP for early warning aircraft. The Star Fighters 2937 combat missions and had a good rack record as only 13 Starfighters were lost with 5 of them being from engine failures or collisions, so only 8 were lost to enemy fire. The Reputation So why did the Starfighter garner a reputation as a dangerous aircraft with nicknames like the Window Maker or Lawn Dart. Out of the 900 F-104G’s that the German’s purchased nearly 300 crashed leading to the deaths of 116 pilots. In Canada out of the 200 Fighters over half of them crashed killing 37 pilots. Was there an inherent design flaw that would drop airplanes out of the sky, like the Soviet Blinder Bomber that would suddenly reverse its controls, or the Mig 15 that due to material issues would twist their wings and go into a flat spin? The answer is no, the issues that caused a high crash rate were much more human. One of the first issues was that the century series fighters were the new line of 2nd generational fighters. Because of that they had far more advanced avionics, and unlike the fly by feel fighters of the previous generation, a Pilot had to split his attention between the more complex monitoring systems, their threat warning systems, a more advanced display and still fly the plane. The Star Fighter was a finicky fighter that required a experience pilot with a hyper state of awareness, more then a quarter of the crashes were caused by distracted pilots, who weren’t looking out of the cockpit but were looking down at their instruments instead. If there was a design issue its that the F-104 was designed with speed in mind, but the design didn’t deal well with landings. Because the small wings weren’t good at providing lift at low speed, by design the F-104’s had to land at a high state of speed or risk losing lift and slamming into the ground, and because of the design of the fuel tanks explode. This led to landing at high speeds and using a pilot chute to slow down, which created a whole other series of problems. The other factor is that the Starfighter was rarely used for its intended purpose, which was a high-level, high-speed air superiority fighter. Because of its design it couldn’t dog fight at slow speeds or maneuver at slow speeds. Which meant that the counter to a F-104 was go get it into a turning battle and watch the F-104 lose its lift. Instead, air forces purchased the Starfighter to act as a low-level low speed to high speed bomber, or as a high level interceptor that would push the engines to failures. When the F-104 was used for its created mission, it was a safe aircraft, however it just wasn’t good at anything but Mach 2 bushwacking tactics. The final issue once you get by an aircraft not being used for its purpose, that required a experienced pilot that could balance modern avionics with flying by feel, that you had to land at high speeds or die. The Starfighter was an unlucky aircraft. For the CF-104 21 of the 110 crashed due to bird strikes, 32 were attributed to a combination of poor level and low altitudes, 18 were attributed to actual engine failures or other system failures. For Germany their loss of nearly 1/3rd of their fighters most of their fighters were loss due to instability caused by flying them at low speeds and altitude which went against its design, it wasn’t built to be a low altitude bomber. Another large factor was that West German pilots didn’t have experience, on average a German Pilot had 400 hours of stick time, in the states you wouldn’t even be able to look at a F-104 from across the runway until you had more then 3x that amount. Conclusion The F-104 was part of the century series of fighters that were meant to introduce the second generation of fighter jets. Designed for specific roles, and combined with new engine, weapon and avionics technology it represented a radical leap forward for Western Air forces. The Starfighter was designed to fly higher and faster than anything else on the planet. Built to bushwack enemies from above, it never really got to fulfil its role. A fighter that was unforgiving to its pilots, with a safety record that gave it legendary nicknames like the Windowmaker, it still intimidated Soviet, North Vietnamese and Chinese air force commanders. While the idea of high-altitude high-speed fighters was an exciting concept for its designers, it ended up being used in roles that were unsuitable to its design, and that led to the loss of fighters and the death of pilots. When you look at the design of the F-104, there are not a lot of design elements that carry on to this day. The Trapezoid thin leading-edge design never gained popularity, nor did the T-shaped flight control system. In the end, the F-104 was like the overpowered muscle cars of the 60’s and 70’s, but despite the concept, its faded into obscurity, unfortunately known more for its safety record then its out of the box, almost science fiction like design. __________________ My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!