Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The J-79 Howl of the F104

You older farts remember this identifier? The GE J-79 howl was to the Starfighter as the Merlin to the P-51 and Spit.Modern jet aircraft still don't haul azz much faster..it had its share of mechanical problems but was another hummer by the Lockeed/kelly Johnson Skunk Works design team.

[video:youtube]chttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIvv1PAmesM&feature=related[/video]

Some really good formation work there.

I had a skipper who had attended USAF test pilot school and got some time in the 104. He said with the small wing and giant j79 it was the only jet he flew where you had to change the aileron trim when you changed power settings. Landed at something around 200 kts.

At least, by the looks of it - might be closer to 250.. Man, you wouldn't wanna try to land THAT on the Enterprise..


I like that black-striped one at about 1:58.. Sweet paint job..

We had one assigned to our recon Sqd in SEA of the RF variety.They flew the dog chit out of it but seems it always came back unscathed.With that incredible 200 knt touchdown speed can't imagine a drag chute failure but we did have a barrier up several times for F-4's with hung ordinance.

Looks like some of them have red "REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT" streamers hanging from their wingtips just inboard of the tip tanks when they're maneuvering after landing.

Do you know what those are?

Safety pins for explosive charges to blow the tip tanks off is my guess. While not a standard procedure, I suspect it is the tactic of last resort in an asymmetric fuel situation. With that wing I suspect that would get, ummm, sporty landing with a full tip.

Fairly sure the film was edited and pieced together so very unlikely those were left in on take off.

Actually around 190kts landing speed, standard configuration. When we deployed to the Med, often-times we'd fly into Signolla where the Guineas had some 104s and we talked to some of the pilots about the flying characteristics. The equivalent of an airborne Dragster, all forward acceleration and or climb and no turn radius.

The Turks were still flying them out of Diyarbakir in 1990. Crazy bastids would fly by our radome wide open and down on the deck. Things were very fast and loud. They also had an impressive scrap pile of 104s and F4s at the airport.

The 104 had its mechanical issues but pilot error was also a common denominator for its attrition rate.

During its period of service with the German armed forces,
about 270 German Starfighters were lost in accidents, just under 30 percent of the total force. About 110 pilots were killed. However, the attrition rate in German service was not all that much greater than that of the F-104 in service with several other air forces, including the United States Air Force. Canada had the unenviable record of losing over 50 percent of its 200 single-seat CF-104s in flying accidents. The loss rate of Luftwaffe Starfighters was not all that extraordinary, since the Luftwaffe had suffered a 36 percent attrition rate with the Republic F-84F Thunderstreak, the Starfighter's immediate predecessor. There was nothing intrinsically dangerous about the Starfighter, since the Royal Norwegian Air Force operating identical F-104Gs suffered only six losses in 56,000 flying hours, and the Spanish Air Force lost not a single one of its Starfighters to accidents.

Nevertheless, some of the Luftwaffe crashes could indeed be traced to technical problems with the F-104G itself. Engine problems, including difficulties with the J79's variable afterburner nozzle, and contamination of the Starfighter's liquid oxygen system causing loss of consciousness of the pilot were listed as contributing factors in some of the accidents. There were also problems with the automatic pitch-up limiter during high-speed low-altitude flying and in tight turns, resulting in its temporary removal, with accompanying restrictions on the maneuverability.

However, the high rate of crashes while in Luftwaffe service could be blamed more on the hazards of flying low-altitude missions at high speeds in the bad weather of Northern Europe than on any intrinsic flaw with the F-104G. Human error was probably the major cause of the majority of the accidents.

Cool video.

That J-79 was sure a dirty engine.

Yep and the -17A GE version on the F-4 wasn't much better.The Gomer's woulda been better off to have an Air/Air missle that follwed smoke instead of heat sigs.

When I was stationed at Luke A.F.B. in the late sixty's the Germans had a training squadron of 104's there. They lost several during training. The general consensus was that they were trying to use the aircraft as a close air support for ground troops. A role it was never intended for, it was very unforgiving in manuvers close to the ground, while firing the big 50 they had mounted in them.
The base also had training squadrons of F4's, A7's and F100's . The howl of those J79's was an all day every day occurance, we complaind about it then. But today I wouldn't mind hearing it again.

Flyboy, thanks for posting.

I rememeber reading somewhere that while Germany was experiencing a high loss rate with its F104s, both Spain and Denmark were flying the same plane and both countries were experiencing good safety records. I believe the difference was that Spain and Denmark were using the F-104s as pure interceptors, the role for which it was intended.

Note the parked Avanti when they're landing.

Someone flys one of those in and out of here, and you can hear it coming before you see it. It hauls ass, and sure looks like a nice ride. I'd rather go up in that than one of the Marlboro G650's..

We'd get Italian and German 104's in occasionally. This Italian 104 came in for the NATO Recce exercise, Ample Gain in 1986.

This was actually a replacement that arrived a day later, as it's squadron mate crashed into a hillside en route to our base. We spent the better part of the day running missions to find the crash site, as it was in a heavily forested area.

Huh. Explosives next to the fuel tanks, and setting them off is the preferred option? Interesting.

Here's an old Sports Illustrated article about Darryl Greenamyer's standing-start record in his F-104: Red Baron.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1093756/1/index.htm

I still like the Phantom!

The Japanese had these in the mid to late 60's. I was over at the airfield when the had an alert and scrambled two of them. They went down the run way maybe 800 feet pulled back on the stick and went nearly vertical in a unbelieveable distance. Then out of site in less than 10 seconds. A missle with short wings and seats.

Another time we were down on the coast south of Tomakomai one day and an old F86 was pulling a sock and the 104's were coming in on it for gun practice. We watched a guy slow just a little too much. He bailed when the plane stalled about 100 feet over water we got to watch her go in.