Quite the look back! I had a CO that got a chance to fly the F-104 (as well as the F-101) when he did a joint tour at the USAF Test Pilot School. He loved it but said at 250 kts you were out of airspeed and ideas.

We flew with the CF-18's at Comox AB quite a bit to provide EW training and then with the CT-33's to provide EW training to our and your ships. They had a radar signal simulator in the nose. We would carry an AST-6 pod to simulate a Mirage or whatever else was needed then we would kiss the CT-33's off and they would radiate Exocet seekers and close on the ship. We'd then switch to Exocet and then screen with our normal ALQ-99 jamming to simulate large scale jamming for the crews to work through. A lot of fun flying low over the water at 200' and 500 kts.

Here's a picture I took over San Clemente Island. Mostly the Canadian crews were happy to be at Miramar in San Diego in February I think! The orange pod on my wingmans station #1 is a TACTS pod for range telemetry and recording the exercise. Good times indeed.

[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

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