- 4 days ago
For educational purposes
The F-104 Starfighter, creation of Lockheed's legendary chief engineer, Kelly Johnson, was certainly a controversial aircraft.
Dubbed the "manned missile", it was, in many ways - especially appearance the "hottest" plane ever built.
Its wing looked far too small to be aerodynamically feasible and caused considerable concern to USAF decision makers, yet when it came to moving at high speed - Mach 2 plus in a straight line. the Starfighter had few rivals.
For all the controversy, doubts and official opposition, the Starfighter actually stayed in production from the 1950s through to the 1980s longer than any other jet combat aircraft, it was also ultimately a substantial money earner for Lockheed.
Paradoxically, it was not in its originally planned role as a small, light and simple day fighter that the Starfighter found its main success, instead it was painstakingly developed into a heavier and more complex plane, amongst other variants it became an extremely effective all weather attack aircraft.
This is but a short summary of the fascinating Starfighter story, the whole story of the GREAT PLANE is here in an action packed GREAT PLANES video that puts you right in the cockpit.
Watch it. Fly it. Judge for yourself whether or not the Starfighter deserved its reputation.
The F-104 Starfighter, creation of Lockheed's legendary chief engineer, Kelly Johnson, was certainly a controversial aircraft.
Dubbed the "manned missile", it was, in many ways - especially appearance the "hottest" plane ever built.
Its wing looked far too small to be aerodynamically feasible and caused considerable concern to USAF decision makers, yet when it came to moving at high speed - Mach 2 plus in a straight line. the Starfighter had few rivals.
For all the controversy, doubts and official opposition, the Starfighter actually stayed in production from the 1950s through to the 1980s longer than any other jet combat aircraft, it was also ultimately a substantial money earner for Lockheed.
Paradoxically, it was not in its originally planned role as a small, light and simple day fighter that the Starfighter found its main success, instead it was painstakingly developed into a heavier and more complex plane, amongst other variants it became an extremely effective all weather attack aircraft.
This is but a short summary of the fascinating Starfighter story, the whole story of the GREAT PLANE is here in an action packed GREAT PLANES video that puts you right in the cockpit.
Watch it. Fly it. Judge for yourself whether or not the Starfighter deserved its reputation.
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LearningTranscript
00:30No designer working on a new plane
00:59would even consider that the aircraft
01:01might be in production for 30 years.
01:04Put simply, that does not happen.
01:06So, if that is the rule,
01:09there must be an exception.
01:20The Lockheed Starfighter's general specifications
01:23were nutted out in 1952
01:26and it first flew in 1954.
01:29The last F-104 to be produced
01:32rolled off the assembly line in 1983.
02:05With the new demands on U.S. aircraft,
02:07the designers were confronted
02:08by a problem in the available engines.
02:11A new generation of engines was being developed,
02:14but these were still at very early stages
02:16and the timetables for their availability
02:18were undetermined.
02:20Hence, the designers were uncertain
02:22whether to proceed with established,
02:24quite limited power plants
02:25or wait for the new, lighter,
02:27and presumably more powerful projections.
02:30At Lockheed, the team led by Kelly Johnson,
02:33one of the best design groups in the world,
02:36was alternating between lightweight concepts
02:38built around the available jets
02:39or vastly heavier and more powerful designs
02:42based on projections of new engines.
02:46Johnson had joined the Lockheed company
02:47during the development of their Electra.
02:49He'd supervised some wind tunnel testing
02:52of the plane at the University of Michigan
02:53and had attracted the attention of Lockheed engineers
02:56with his constructive criticism of the plane.
02:59He was hired by the company
03:01and it was his work on developing the Electra
03:03and the subsequent Hudson bomber
03:05into success stories
03:06that gave him a rapid rise.
03:08His innovative and intuitive work
03:16brought great reward for the company.
03:18The P-38, unorthodox, long-ranged,
03:21a pleasure to fly,
03:22was typical of his unblinkered approach
03:24to design solutions.
03:26It was a success as a plane
03:28and as a financial proposition,
03:30being manufactured in large numbers.
03:33The lightning's twin boom
03:35can be seen as part of the pace
03:37and engineering daring
03:38of development in aviation during the 30s.
03:41However, with the end of the war,
03:43things got a lot quieter,
03:45still with much activity
03:46around the new jet engines
03:47and in civil aviation,
03:49but with little of the pre-war impetus
03:51and only limited funding.
03:55In the USSR,
03:57unlike most post-war countries,
03:59design of new fighter planes
04:01continued at a great pace.
04:04A long series of new designs appeared
04:06and though some of them
04:07were woefully inadequate,
04:09eventually Russia began
04:10to make very impressive military aircraft
04:12in large numbers.
04:14The popular Western perception
04:16of the Russians
04:17was that they lagged
04:18in design and industrial competence
04:20and so the state of development
04:21of their planes
04:22came as a shock to many
04:23when MiG-15s appeared
04:25in the sky of Korea.
04:26The US pilots,
04:28hard-pressed in their sabres
04:30to keep on top of the MiGs,
04:31called for radical new planes
04:33to give them back the advantage
04:34that they had been encouraged
04:35to take for granted.
04:38Kelly Johnson,
04:39visiting Korea,
04:40repeatedly was told by the pilots
04:41that they needed a plane
04:42with the edge on the Russians
04:43in height and speed
04:45and they needed it soon.
04:47That settled the debate
04:48on Lockheed's next project.
04:50Seeing the need
04:51as being a plane
04:52that would go as high as possible,
04:53as fast as possible,
04:55he determined on a lightweight fighter.
04:58In a short time,
04:59he settled on what was to be
05:00the 104's most controversial
05:02design element,
05:03its extraordinarily small,
05:05thin wing.
05:06This was a departure
05:07from most contemporary thinking.
05:09In addition to its size,
05:11the wing also disregarded
05:13the highly swept shapes
05:14that had been adopted
05:15for supersonic flight.
05:17Wind tunnel testing
05:18began on hundreds of variations
05:20around the basic concept.
05:22Much of the testing
05:23was directed at proving the wing
05:24because of the many doubts
05:26being expressed about it.
05:28There were those
05:29who believed the wing
05:30could not be built
05:30to fly at all,
05:32those who did not believe
05:33it could be built
05:33to cope with super high speed stresses
05:35and those who thought
05:37that even if it could be built
05:39and cope with the speed,
05:40it would not be able
05:41to lift any worthwhile payload.
05:44It was to be only 7 foot long
05:46and to go from being
05:47just over 4 inches thick
05:48at the fuselage
05:49down to under 2 inches thick
05:51at the tip.
05:51New boundary layer control
05:54was employed
05:54to allow the tiny area
05:56enough lift
05:56for a short landing length
05:58but it would have
05:59no internal provision
06:00at all for guns or wheels.
06:03Many elements of the design
06:05were studied
06:05during the supersonic
06:06wind tunnel testing.
06:08Here, attention is focused
06:09on the air intakes,
06:10seeking to prove
06:11that the shock waves
06:12around the inlets
06:13allowed for controllable
06:14and dependable supply
06:15to the engines.
06:16This footage,
06:18taken near MAC-2,
06:19shows the shock waves
06:20around the model
06:21in tests to establish
06:22the pressure loads
06:23in the ducting
06:24under various flight conditions.
06:25In addition to the wind tunnel
06:35testing of the 104,
06:37more unconventionally,
06:38the design was further tested
06:40as models
06:41bolted to 5-inch army rockets
06:43and shot off
06:43over the desert.
06:45These tests
06:46reproduced fairly accurately
06:47the types of stresses
06:48that very high speeds
06:50and accelerations
06:51would exert
06:51on the wing
06:52at lower altitudes.
06:53Not only did they allow
06:55for testing
06:56of the shape of the wing,
06:57but also its construction.
07:00Though apparently eccentric,
07:01the rocket firings
07:02were a very valuable tool
07:04for the engineering team.
07:23the rocket has been
07:24in terms of the air
07:33in the air
07:34in terms of the air
07:36in terms of the air
07:37trotzdem
07:37that uses the wing
07:38atanity of the air
07:39injection.
07:39Under the air
07:40in terms of the air
07:41and other concentrations
07:42have been
07:43missed the air
07:44in terms of Drive
07:45to be stable
07:45based on the air
07:46and ЎавалОÑÑ
07:46because the fish
07:47are not
07:48in the air
07:49and the air
07:50and the air
07:51has been
08:21Tests on the tail were also conducted.
08:34It too was designed to be very thin and there were many people unconvinced that it could
08:39be given enough strength.
08:41Once again, the tests helped the team to sort out the best combination.
08:51In a short development period, hundreds of models were built as the basic elements were
09:00shuffled.
09:01Generally, little or nothing was added to the original plane.
09:05And with the F-104's appearance settled, a contract was issued for two planes to be built.
09:10The first step in the fabrication saw the three fuselage modules mocked up in full scale.
09:28Simultaneously, the jigs to cradle the whole planes were built.
09:33All over the workshop, drilling, milling and cutting of the parts commenced.
09:38The planes, on an experimental production run, were essentially hand-built.
09:43In a flurry of activity after the receipt of the March 1953 contract, Blockheed cleared
09:49production space, constructed a wooden mock-up and then, without stopping, built the two prototypes.
09:56The first flight was to take place only 12 months after the signature of the contract.
10:10The achievement in that 12 months is astonishing.
10:14This was not a design that had been simmering away on the back burner for a long time.
10:19It had come into existence in late 1952.
10:22It was a leap forward in aviation, and technologically very advanced.
10:27However, its development was spectacularly rapid.
10:52The controversial wings were not made to go through the fuselage, as with most of the fighters
11:01of the day.
11:03They were bolted to the side, with heavy-duty, precision-forged aluminium fittings that tied
11:08into the wing skins.
11:10What Johnson had designed was very straightforward in some ways.
11:14Asked for a plane that could fly higher and faster than the MiGs, he produced a manned missile.
11:19With its undercarriage retracting into the fuselage in a fairly complicated way, even this had
11:28to be subjected to more than the usual testing.
11:31The Air Force had had no legal document calling for submission of a design anything like the
11:37104.
11:38And without the prestige of Lockheed and Kelly Johnson, they may have simply rejected it.
11:43However, given the claims of expected performance, finding the concept logical and exciting, and
11:50with no other way to really assess the idea, they had issued the March 1953 contract.
11:57There was still no apparent existing slot in the inventory for such a plane.
12:00But, there was also the evidence of Korea to suggest that perhaps they should be.
12:06The F-104 was, however, very definitely on trial.
12:10The construction of the plane went ahead rapidly, with the major sub-assemblies coming together
12:33and the vibration testing at Lockheed's plant.
12:35The vibration testing established the natural frequency patterns for the entire structure,
12:41in final preparations to ensure the plane was safe for flight.
12:45The F-104 prototype left the Lockheed plant in the early morning of February the 25th, 1954,
13:05amid tight security, and was transported to Edwards Air Force Base.
13:09The crews immediately began a thorough round of checking and re-checking the plane's systems,
13:16in preparation for its first flight.
13:20The engine selected for the prototypes was the Wright J-65,
13:24which was to prove very inadequate in propelling the 104, neat and light though it was.
13:30Most production starfighters were to use the General Electric J-79 engine,
13:35with higher thrust and less weight.
13:37It was this engine that was to send the 104 beyond twice the speed of sound.
13:46With the first flight a few days off, the rapid tempo of testing continued,
13:51with the engine being run up and finally prepared.
13:53For a number of reasons, including the fear of ejecting pilots being dismembered by the tail of the plane,
14:05the seat ejection was arranged to work downward.
14:09While obviously of no use at low levels,
14:12this system allowed for a simplified layout in the cockpit,
14:15and the arrangement of the canopy and the seat itself.
14:17Because of the danger of impacting pilots straight into the ground,
14:22later starfighters used conventional ejection seats, firing upward.
14:26Although the test pilot Tony Levere had made a skip-off during taxi trials on the 28th of February,
14:35on March the 4th, 1954, the 104 was rolled out for its first official flight.
14:40L'Evea ran through a series of ground tests,
15:05operating the flight controls and checking that everything was working.
15:08Satisfied that all was well,
15:30he then started down the runway and lifted the 104 into the air for the first time.
15:38In the weeks of test flights that followed,
15:46it became evident that the power plant was lagging far behind the Mach 2 potential of the airframe.
15:52But the Lockheed concept of the lightweight fighter was conclusively proved.
15:57It's the big bigī Trooper,
16:03which is the most бПг theme.
16:07Did it all point to seatصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصصص.
16:14Despite the prototype's inability to exceed 1.3 times the speed of sound with its current
16:41engine, the design had been vindicated sufficiently for the Air Force to order 15 more planes
16:47with uprated power plants as F-104As.
16:51In April 1955, one of these finally took the starfighter past MAC-2, which was the signal
16:57for 104 production to swing into top gear.
17:00For the moment, the intense testing of the two prototypes continued.
17:19The prototypes, seen here flying together, were both to be lost in accidents during the
17:24test period, which was long and troubled.
17:28There were many incidents where bugs in the plane's engine or its other equipment were
17:31encountered, often in situations that were either potentially or actually very dangerous.
17:37The Due of a qualidade of guessing ingesting gear
17:40It wouldn't be able to ì¬ë¯žìing legs after the 2-1 is along the route to a place or
17:44the map of the sea was a lunar ìdetector's performance.
17:46It's not an accident.
17:48It is a instinct
17:50it's important
17:50it's important
17:51that hasn't addressed
17:52entirely
17:52to do
17:53the
17:55Tony Lavia was involved in one early mishap in 1955 while testing the firing of the starfighter's
18:19high-speed cannon in supersonic flight.
18:25After a trouble-free first firing, Lavia started the plane on another run, ready to fire the
18:41gun again.
18:46This time something went dreadfully wrong and the plane lost all engine power.
18:51Lavia found himself having to make some very quick decisions.
18:55He was about 40 miles from base, but high enough theoretically to be able to glide back
19:00to land.
19:01This is what he set out to do, knowing that he still had a margin to eject from the plane,
19:07but also knowing that very soon he would have to commit himself to the landing as he passed
19:11below the safe limits for the ejection seat.
19:18He was a living in the state.
19:23He was a living in the state of the state of the state of the state.
19:28His work was to work in the state of the state of the state and do that to pass him.
19:34Even before the hatch was opened, a dirty smudge of smoke showing on the fuselage confirmed
20:03that the gun had caused the trouble. Behind the gun, in the gun compartment, was a hole
20:09blown into the plane when a cartridge had ejected backward through the gun base plate.
20:16Relieved that the malfunction was in the gun and not in the airframe, the engineers fixed
20:21the plane and the tests went on. The repaired prototype, number 787, went back to the gun
20:30testing, but four months later there was to be a recurrence of problems with the cannon.
20:40With pilot Herman Salmon at the controls, the 104 leveled out at 47,000 feet for its second
20:46firing run of the day. Again there was an explosion, but this time the damage was major and the
20:53aircraft became uncontrollable. At 20,000 feet, the pilot ejected from the crippled plane.
21:13Emergency services responded immediately and Salmon was located, fortunately unharmed.
21:32The starfighter was a total loss. The first of many F-104s to be written off in crashes.
21:48The cannon had been the obvious suspect in the crash and it was established that again a malfunction
21:58in the gun had damaged the plane, this time with drastic effect.
22:08The starfighter's gun was the Vulcan M61 cannon. Six foot long and 300 pounds in weight,
22:15it was, at the time, claimed to be the fastest firing gun of its type in the world.
22:21It could fire 6,000 20 millimetre cannon shells in a minute.
22:28The design borrowed two features from the famous Gatling gun, first patented way back in 1862.
22:53Both had a rotating cluster of barrels and both were externally driven.
23:00Rigidly clamped together, the six barrels gave each other support and the installation did not have the whip of a single barrel.
23:07In addition, the arrangement centralised the recoil of the gun.
23:12In contrast to the hand-cranked Civil War Gatling guns, the M61 was driven with electric power from the plane.
23:19This did away with any need to attempt to trap and use the exhaust of the gun firing,
23:25which meant that the installation was less susceptible to corrosion or fouling.
23:30Each round was fired independently, eliminating the erratic recoil of multi-gun and gas reloaded options.
23:37At the time, the M61 was a new weapon, and the troubles that it caused in the early days of the 104 must be accepted as part of the teething that can be expected with any piece of advanced equipment.
23:50A comparison of the Vulcan with the U.S. Air Force's previous preference of machine guns is difficult.
23:56In hitting power, range, speed of fire, the effects of the plane on the gun's action, indeed all measures of effectiveness,
24:04the Vulcan has such a wide margin of superiority as to render such an evaluation meaningless, even with consideration of multiple machine gun installations.
24:21Contrasting with Kelly Johnson's assessment, the military procurement policies after Korea demanded multi-role capability.
24:28So, despite the origins of the design as a single-function specialised fighter, provision was developed for the F-104 to carry a mix of weapons.
24:39Though the starfighter's superlative performance was appreciated in the USAF, it was not seen as sufficient justification for the project.
24:47And Lockheed was forced to develop some unlikely attachments for the plane in trying to convince the Air Force to stay with the project.
24:55Among these was this trapeze installation to allow the carriage and delivery of the Gini nuclear rocket.
25:01This clever launching mechanism was another product of Kelly Johnson's intuition.
25:20With the challenge that his plane could not deliver the device over a combat radius of 650 miles,
25:26Johnson undertook to have it do just that within 60 days.
25:33The tiny starfighter's fuselage was already fully occupied,
25:36and a major influence on the launcher was the need to keep it out of the way of the undercarriage.
25:41With little fuss, the 104 demonstrated successful firings of the Gini at 56,000 feet, at above 1.7 times the speed of sound.
26:02But the ability of the design to respond to such a challenge was to serve it little good in the Air Force's eventual assessment.
26:13Lockheed tested a variety of weapons delivery attachments and external fuel tanks,
26:25increasing the range and versatility of the plane, but still could not rescue the project.
26:31The weight of opinion against it was gaining momentum.
26:34The 104 was very much in the right place at the wrong time.
26:39It affronted most of the prevailing trends in design.
26:43Where other fighters were getting bigger to do more things,
26:46Kelly Johnson had abandoned all but the essential ingredients in getting the plane's size down
26:51to get Mach 2 out of a single afterburning turbojet.
26:55But this condemned the starfighter to a very limited career with the USAF.
27:00There was simply no way to cram all the rapidly expanding hardware of radars,
27:05aiming controls and other new avionics into the little plane.
27:09Its capabilities were not to be matched for many years, if they've ever been effectively matched.
27:14But the fact that it could do a lot of things that its heavy brethren could not do
27:18was ignored in the overall antipathy towards lightweight fighters.
27:22It lacked all-weather capability, lifting power and range, the assessments said,
27:27and these perceived failings were eventually to decide the issue.
27:31The project was set for financial failure,
27:34but the work that had started on giving the F-104 greater versatility went on apace,
27:40trying to forestall the inevitable and keep the Air Force involved in the plane.
27:45So, what if you start moving around?
27:46It was a great question.
27:47You don't know what you had or may have looked at,
27:48you don't know what you did when you were from there?
27:55If you were from the ship, there was a great opportunity to find,
28:00and you didn't have any problems.
28:01You don't know what we can do.
28:04You got them who were from the ship in the U.S.
28:06The plane's weapons capability included standard systems, like the Sidewinder air-to-air missile.
28:34There was no question that it was an effective firing platform.
28:39The little plane revelled in the air superiority role it had been built for, and was, stiletto-like, lethal.
29:04More sophisticated radar and fire control packages were developed for the fighter, and prowling B-47 bombers were detected and intercepted with great efficiency.
29:19But the Air Force was fully aware of the fighter's capabilities, and preferred other options.
29:34Air Force was fully aware of the fighter's capabilities, and preferred other options.
30:04Air Force is fully aware of thearians and also its function.
30:09Air Force is smart.
30:11Air Force Followers
30:12Air Force
30:16Air Force
30:18Air Force
30:20Air Force
30:22Air Force
30:25From the start, the Air Force attitude had been guarded.
30:48The F-104 was the first plane to be purchased on a fixed-then-fly basis.
30:54To that time, the practice had been for the Air Force to accept a new plane into use while
30:58it was still being tested, and to conduct a large part of the testing itself, the fly-and-then-fix principle.
31:06With the radical nature of the F-104, the onus was returned to the manufacturer, and this
31:11has since been the rule.
31:13The complexity of the packages that modern combat aircraft have become allows no other
31:18avenue.
31:20As the prospect of large USAF orders faded, another market was quietly revealing itself
31:49in Europe.
31:50The pure performance of the plane was remarkable, and with its rapidly expanding tactical capability,
31:56it was maintaining a position as the design to beat.
31:59On top of the expansion in the weaponry of the plane, during 1958 and 1959, it was sent
32:05on a spree of record setting to reinforce the message of its potency.
32:10Even when the new F-4 Phantom II broke some of the starfighter's records, the F-104s promptly
32:15set new marks outside the F-4's ability.
32:21Essential to the starfighter in overcoming criticism of its limited range was that it
32:25accommodate in-flight refuelling technology.
32:28At the time, this was still very new, and expensive lengths were gone to in setting the
32:33plane up.
32:34The 104 had to display capacities in ordnance, range and technical sophistication that had
32:40been deliberately excluded from the designer's original consideration.
32:45These were now deliberately reworked into the performance spectrum to prepare for the potential
32:50specifications to be set by the West German Luftwaffe.
33:05To be able to sell the planes in large numbers still required overcoming the same problems
33:10that the USAF had set.
33:12It had to be developed into a multi-role all-weather strike aircraft, and with question marks already
33:18over the plane, it had to compensate by not simply succeeding, but excelling in the tasks
33:23it was set, even so apparently simple a task as aerial refuelling.
33:28by turning left hand, it was not necessary to maintain a forward Patel.
33:31The court was decided to do to make a new mission with the
33:32ship.
33:33So you've given the gutter, at least once incha, you can test that, you can see the
33:34whole ship itself in order to arrive with that dog.
33:35And, once again, we've made the equipment to arrive with the ship, you can see the
33:36other members of the ship.
33:38The ship is also ready for the ship, and if you are ready for the ship.
33:42That the ship is ready for the ship, and not only a ship, I'm ready for the ship.
33:48Oh, my God.
34:18Oh, my God.
34:48The German order was becoming so important as to require all sorts of unlikely capacities
34:58from the plane, including barrier landing strength, the Luftwaffe being concerned to
35:03be able to deploy planes away from bases in the event of conflict.
35:06Oh, my God.
35:36Oh, my God.
36:06It had the strength to cope with this artificially shortened landing, but the challenge to
36:11the pilots was another thing entirely.
36:12In the long term, there were to be
36:40few performance targets set for the F-104 that it could not cope with, but there was never
36:45a certainty that any individual pilot would be able to cope with the plane.
36:49The need for specific training of pilots for the F-104 was a signal of things to come, rather
36:55than an exception to a long-standing rule.
36:58A properly trained pilot flying a well-maintained F-104 was not at risk, but when an unprepared
37:04pilot met the plane, the combination could be lethal.
37:28The starfighter's survival had become dependent upon sales in overseas markets, and the development
37:34of the plane became determined by the specified and perceived needs of the NATO clients.
37:40If Germany needed short take-off and landing, then Lockheed would show successful crash barrier
37:45landings and zero-length launch capability.
37:47Here, on the first occasion that such technology was tested, the truck-mounted, rocket-propelled
37:53launch system is demonstrated with an F-84.
37:57First unmanned and then with a pilot, the launchers were executed satisfactorily.
38:02Nothing very useful was to come of this development, but the potential for its successful employment
38:07with the starfighter was a valuable string to the project's bow in the eyes of the Luftwaffe.
38:12With West Germany being the border between Eastern and Western spheres of influence, it
38:18was essential that, no less than the other European states, she retrieve her power as a
38:23military force, not only in weaponry, but in industrial capacity.
38:28Unlike the situation at the end of the First World War, there was a perception of a need
38:33for a strong Germany at the front of the Western Alliance.
38:36Germany's logical concerns became considerations for the company strategists working on selling
38:41the 104.
38:43The concentration on Germany's conceivable needs was reasonable.
38:48NATO needed new arms, and there was a healthy desire to standardise the NATO armouries.
38:54If the German call for new equipment could be won for Lockheed, the signs were that many
38:59other orders would be won at the same time.
39:29The nearest the starfighter was to get to a regular use of rocket-assisted take-offs
39:50was with the specially built 104-Ns, which employed rocket firings in exposing potential astronauts
39:57to operating hydrogen peroxide thrust controls in the thin air over 100,000 feet.
40:02One of the developments that saw the F-104 concept saved was the two-seat variant.
40:27US fighters always seemed to have a trainer or reconnaissance version that used two seats,
40:32and the F-104 was no exception.
40:35The Germans were primarily after a ground-strike aircraft, but also were looking for a jack-of-all-trades,
40:41and a twin-seat variant was very much part of their thinking.
40:47Lockheed's sales strategy included a production offset package that would see the planes manufactured
40:52by cartels of European aviation companies.
40:55The shot in the arm for European aerospace capability from the construction of these new factories
41:01was one of the clinching factors in the successful campaign.
41:04The plane itself performed very well.
41:16In the fly-offs, its edge over the other entrance was clear, to the point of almost being a walk-over.
41:22The competition for the contract was serious, and some of the competitors were very able aeroplanes,
41:27particularly the British Lightning.
41:28But it would appear to have been sabotaged by political considerations,
41:33and by the time that the contract was decided,
41:35the 104 had proved itself the outstanding aircraft in the competition.
41:39The development period had been long, and plagued by various troubles,
41:58and the plane's reputation as a hot ship had cut a bit both ways,
42:02in that its unquestioned performance could be very unforgiving to the unwary pilot.
42:06There were constraints on what a pilot could get away with in his 104.
42:12There were to be over 8,000 flights in the test series using 52 aircraft,
42:16and several of the planes were lost through equipment malfunctions and pilot errors.
42:21But the starfighter arrived near the junction between two ages of aviation
42:25meant that its technology was virtually all new and untried.
42:29This meeting of the two ages is almost comically embodied in this sight,
42:33of the 104's trim nose bolted to the front of a DC-3 during testing of the starfighter's avionics.
42:40The plane was not the first US designed to seek light weight and smallness as virtues.
42:45For example, the Bell XP-77 had nearly gone into production during the Second World War.
42:51The Wing 2 was not without precedent, being very similar to that of the X-3.
42:55But the starfighter was revolutionary in many ways,
42:59and as the program went on, it was surrounded by controversy.
43:03Much of it not centred on the airframe,
43:05but sufficient for the starfighter to be unfairly dismissed as a lemon.
43:09The USAF pulled its 104's out of operational use after only two years of service.
43:14Though later, during Vietnam,
43:17some were to be deployed in Southeast Asia as high-flying MiG cap for the B-52s
43:21and in low-level tactical support strikes.
43:29The Russians had also learnt lessons from Korea
43:33and the experience there of their redoubtable MiG-15s
43:36and had developed the MiG-17.
43:40Where the starfighter sacrificed almost all in the quest for speed and climb,
43:44the USSR developed a radically different requirement issued in 1953.
43:49This was for a short-range interception fighter.
43:53High performance was stipulated,
43:55especially in speed, climb rate and rate of turn.
43:59The primary armament was to consist of air-to-air missiles,
44:02internal cannon and a light ground support bomb load.
44:06The MiG-17s were basically an updated 15
44:09with better handling and a more sharply swept wing and tailplane.
44:13It was to be built in very large numbers
44:16and, though theoretically obsolete even when first proposed,
44:20it defied this assessment
44:21and proved a very valuable and effective plane,
44:25even in the mid-60s in the skies of Vietnam.
44:27The MiG-17s were announced in many Royal Harkis,
44:32and the ship of Japanese-based sustained
44:56US thinking was totally different.
45:01If we ignore the F-104 and look at the other Century fighters, we find that they all were
45:06much larger planes.
45:08They also shared a commitment to state-of-the-art technology with varying degrees of success.
45:14The 100 Super Sabre, the 101 Voodoo and the 102-106 Delta Dagger Delta Dart all faded
45:20fairly rapidly into history, seeing limited service in Vietnam.
45:26They all reflected in their way the concept of the fighter as a stand-off missile launch
45:30platform.
45:32Theoretically they were specialised aircraft, devoted to facets of an overall fighter spectrum.
45:38But during their careers, these divisions tended to fade as each developed multi-role capacity.
45:45The 100 and 101 in particular grew into different uses.
45:52the 10th century were separated, where the 1st century was exposed to the 4th century yet.
45:59And as a result of the fighter in the current career, the 4th century was the 1st century.
46:04It was 3rd century to 2nd century.
46:07They wanted to walk up, so it was a successful fighter.
46:12It is doubtful that any of the other planes in the Century series could have coped with
46:34the Starfighter as an opponent.
46:36Indeed, there are many considerably more modern planes that would have great difficulty
46:40with 104.
47:06The overseas sales program with the Starfighter not only rescued the project from the brink
47:11of financial disaster, but made it into an outstanding success for the company.
47:17With the deals on production, it went into service with 14 air forces and was the nearest
47:22to a standard Western fighter plane to have been achieved.
47:26The fire control systems and other controls were virtually tailor-made for each country's
47:30version of the plane, and it came to be used in many ways.
47:35The 104 may have had a reputation for demanding the respect and care of the pilot, but it also
47:41had a reputation as the hottest thing in the air.
47:44The customer air forces around the world employed it in a variety of roles and persisted with
47:49its development throughout the years that followed, right down to the last ones, built in 1983.
48:00As presumably everybody knows, the Germans, whose order had been so critical, initially
48:06had a fairly miserable time with the plane, losing over 200 of them in accidents.
48:12The reasons for this are many, but little blame can be apportioned to the plane itself.
48:17The disaster of its early deployment with the Luftwaffe had complex roots, and it took
48:22time to rectify the causes.
48:24The West Germans had a shorter, similar experience when bringing the F4 into their inventory, and
48:30none of the other starfighter customer nations had an experience remotely like the German problems.
48:36It is safe to say that these problems sprang in the main from the Luftwaffe's circumstances
48:40at the time.
48:54Lockheed maintained its own private starfighter as a promotional device, flying almost constantly
49:24around the world in search of orders, and in later PR efforts to try to rescue the plane
49:30from the snowballing bad publicity that was attaching to it, and turning it into possibly
49:35the most controversial aircraft of all time.
49:54the final eightks before the planes behind theå en, then it was alsoland-
49:56the early naval battle of the balloons, and the loose City David Mawad, which was the
49:58alleged military emergencyÏvers.
49:59I think it is a great case of the war.
51:00It was in this plane that Jackie Cochran, the hero of the 30s Bendix races, and the Second
51:22World War Wasps, the women ferry pilots, became the first female Western pilot to break the
51:27speed of sound.
51:57Kelly Johnson's design team proceeded from a plane with almost no wing to a plane with
52:16extraordinarily long wings, the U-2 spy planes, and then to the remarkable Mach 3 SR-71 Blackbird.
52:23Both of these aircraft bear some superficial resemblances to the 104.
52:29Certainly, comparing the three to other planes of their time, it's easy to see them as stablemates,
52:35products of the one vision.
52:53Well, this is my favorite part.
52:54Like this rocket's power, it's easy to see them as possible.
52:55I think that the end of it was an incredible jet of mass.
52:59The car is somewhat more hostile to the one, but it's a very easy way to strip them.
53:03After all, I heard the boat as well.
53:04It was an empty gun, so the end of it was a kind of a big mess.
53:05It was a long time to the dark.
53:06It was very warm in the air.
53:07The other one thing was the main entrance to the north.
53:08I heard the main entrance to the park, which was the train that was a big sign of his life,
53:13The man behind these planes,
53:42Kelly Johnson, retired, universally respected, as one of the giants of aviation.
53:48His designs over his long career having constantly been at the cutting edge of their time,
53:53and some far ahead of their time.
53:56The 104, redesigned with bigger wings and greater manoeuvrability as the Lancer,
54:01was put forward in the fighter competition that saw the F-15 come into mass production.
54:07The proposal would appear to have not been taken very seriously,
54:10and no Lancers were built.
54:13Johnson maintained that the Lancer would have run rings around the F-15,
54:17and there is a considerable body of opinion that agrees with him,
54:20that even suggests that in an aerial combat,
54:23the starfighter itself might give the F-15 trouble.
54:27The problems of the 104,
54:29right from the unavailability of powerful enough engines for the prototypes,
54:33and then the unreliability of the J-79 when it did become available,
54:38had continued throughout its early career.
54:48The testing scrutiny of the plane had been without precedent,
54:51and the methods and technology of such testing has never been the same since.
54:58The development phase had seen some major troubles,
55:14like the problem of pitch-up,
55:16overcome in a test process that refined the ideas relentlessly,
55:20and polished the plane into a powerful and reliable,
55:23though still eager, skittish and restive weapon.
55:27Despite being saddled throughout its lifetime with an odious reputation,
55:44and seemingly never being free of controversy,
55:47the 104 vindicated the decisions of its creators.
55:50In its long career,
55:53it has carved its own very special place in the story of aviation.
56:20There are the four sets
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