Better F-104
- Thread starter oldironside
- Start date
To be honest, that's probably the main reason a lot of NATO countries purchased the plane. I like the F-104 as an engineer, but to be honest, something like a Mirage would have been a better fit for most nations.
The number of crashes is four. One lost on the ground due to fire. In war, 2/3 lost to MiG-21, one to AAA.
More important than their losses was what they achieved.
Is that much worse than the other aircraft of the Century series? Everything I've read has said all the century series aircraft had nasty accidents early on.
Fearless Leader
Donor
In OTL, when the Canadians procured a licence to manufacture the F-104 they modified the design in a few subtle ways to make the CF-104 more suitable to the needs of the RCAF.
Obviously, they didn't go far enough, but could they have gone further I wonder? Perhaps have some particularly ambitious people notice the deficiencies of the F-104 and then try to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear? Would it have been within the rights of their licencing agreement to alter the initial F-104 design to the point where it resembled a CL-1200? Assuming this is legally possible, how would a radically different and demonstrably superior CF-104 affect the sales of OTL and the service life of the F-104?
Here are some of my initial thoughts. I think that had a vastly superior CF-104 came out in the early 1960's, Lockheed would've jumped at the idea. After some testing a similar version would be produced in the US and sold to the USAF and other foreign nations. Though Lockheed would get the lions share of the profits, Canadair would likely also be compensated to a lesser degree. All told, the *F-104 has a much better reputation and is consistently upgraded, remaining in service far longer than OTL (though due mainly for economic reasons).
Obviously, they didn't go far enough, but could they have gone further I wonder? Perhaps have some particularly ambitious people notice the deficiencies of the F-104 and then try to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear? Would it have been within the rights of their licencing agreement to alter the initial F-104 design to the point where it resembled a CL-1200? Assuming this is legally possible, how would a radically different and demonstrably superior CF-104 affect the sales of OTL and the service life of the F-104?
Here are some of my initial thoughts. I think that had a vastly superior CF-104 came out in the early 1960's, Lockheed would've jumped at the idea. After some testing a similar version would be produced in the US and sold to the USAF and other foreign nations. Though Lockheed would get the lions share of the profits, Canadair would likely also be compensated to a lesser degree. All told, the *F-104 has a much better reputation and is consistently upgraded, remaining in service far longer than OTL (though due mainly for economic reasons).
Paul MacQ
Donor
Though the F104 is a sexy machine, it was really a terrible peace of junk forced on European air forces by some rather criminal activity on the part of Lockheed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_bribery_scandals
The Wiki has the most polite reply on Hartmann's comments regards it. Up to and including " Why do our politicians want to murder our young pilots "
Erich Hartmann, the world's top-scoring fighter ace, commanded one of Germany's first jet fighter-equipped squadrons and deemed the F-104 to be an unsafe aircraft with poor handling characteristics for aerial combat. To the dismay of his superiors, Hartmann judged the fighter unfit for Luftwaffe use even before its introduction.
German Air Force lost about 30% of aircraft in accidents over its operating career, and Canada lost over 50% of its F-104s.
The List of problems that could kill you on this thing was amazing. Want an F104 replacement that is better, Get a totally new plane and call it a F104.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_bribery_scandals
The Wiki has the most polite reply on Hartmann's comments regards it. Up to and including " Why do our politicians want to murder our young pilots "
Erich Hartmann, the world's top-scoring fighter ace, commanded one of Germany's first jet fighter-equipped squadrons and deemed the F-104 to be an unsafe aircraft with poor handling characteristics for aerial combat. To the dismay of his superiors, Hartmann judged the fighter unfit for Luftwaffe use even before its introduction.
German Air Force lost about 30% of aircraft in accidents over its operating career, and Canada lost over 50% of its F-104s.
The List of problems that could kill you on this thing was amazing. Want an F104 replacement that is better, Get a totally new plane and call it a F104.
I agree with that more or less and I'm surprised that more Lockheed executives and European politicians didn't serve time over this. I would also not be surprised if money wasn't changing hands in Washington at the same time...
Archibald
Banned
At some point in the 60's the Germans had a running joke - something like "is there a corner of Western Germany not littered with a F-104 crater ?"
I heard two different stories about the German Starfighters.
The first says "they modified it for the fighter bomber role, making it unstable"
The second says "the germans pilots were too young an unexperimented (flying only 20 hours a month ?) ; add to that central Europe contrasted weather, and low level flying resulted in very heavy casulaties."
I never found which story was closer from the truth...
I heard two different stories about the German Starfighters.
The first says "they modified it for the fighter bomber role, making it unstable"
The second says "the germans pilots were too young an unexperimented (flying only 20 hours a month ?) ; add to that central Europe contrasted weather, and low level flying resulted in very heavy casulaties."
I never found which story was closer from the truth...
I think it was probably a bit of everything, to be honest. It's pretty obvious with hindsight that the F-104 was totally unsuited to the fighter bomber role (poor load, poor handling, etc.), and the Wikipedia article is quite convincing about the enforced break that German military aviation took between 1945 and 1955 which affected both pilot and ground crew quality. As for the weather, when I look out of the window now, I can tell you that it's bloody miserable in Hamburg.
NothingNow
Banned
It's much, much higher than the rate of class-A mishaps for the rest of the century series.
The F-102 averaged about 14.2 write-offs per 100,000 flying hours, and the F-100, which had a deserved reputation for lethal handling, ran an average of 16.25 write-offs per 100,000 hours.
Of course, the F-102 and F-105 had pretty docile handling characteristics, while the F-101 and F-106's problems were quickly remedied.
Just a note so others don't have to look it up the F-104 in USAF had 26.7 write-offs per 100,000 flight hours as of June 1977, (30.63 through the end of 2007). (From Wikipedia so take your chances if those numbers are right...)
Change it that much, you've got a whole new design. IIRC, that's more/less what the Israelis did to get Kfir. IDK if Nesher was strictly legal, tho...Fearless Leader said:
If the design originates with Canadair, why does Lockheed get anything?Fearless Leader said:
(Tho there might be a deal cut with Lockheed to share, knowing how timid Canadians are about this sort of thing...) There's also the question of who supplies spares.