The legendary Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson created the F-104 Starfighter as part of the secretive Lockheed “Skunk Works” engineering team during the Korean War. During a visit to Korea in 1951, Johnson learned that combat pilots needed a lighter, better performing airplane than the North American F-86 Sabre they were using against the MiG-15. Skunk Works got to work, and the new design was flying by 1954.The end product was heavier—14,000 pounds empty and 29,000 pounds max gross takeoff weight as compared to the F-86 at 11,125 pounds empty and 18,152 pounds max takeoff. This resulted in a wing loading of 105 pounds per square foot, nearly twice the F-86 at 58 pounds per square foot. In other words, it was a real big engine (the General Electric J-79) with small wings or, as Lockheed liked to say, “A missile with a man in it.”

The F-104 had about twice the power—10,000 pounds dry thrust and 15,600 pounds with the afterburner as compared to the F-86’s 5,910 and 7,950 pounds for takeoff. And it was fast: About 1,300 mph and mach 2.2 (up to 2.4 with an inspection after each flight due to high engine inlet temperatures). It was also high, with a service ceiling of 50,000 feet. To deal with the nature of such high and fast flight, Lockheed developed the first generation of electro-mechanical stability augmentation. And then there was the ZELL, or Zero Length Launch. Just like it sounds, a catapult shot the 104 into the air from hidden sites, quickly getting a nuclear weapon airborne from the German countryside. This actually worked, despite the high stall speeds and takeoff weights, using 126,000 pounds of thrust from a North American Rocketdyne, jettisoned after launch. This was the rocket motor used on the Martin TM-61 Matador cruise missile, making the F-104 even more of a “missile with a man in it.”

The 104 was known to have a fairly high accident rate, although the F-100 actually had a much worse rate. The Starfighter was a slippery machine in some conditions, with a tendency to pitch up uncontrollably at high angles of attack and enter an unrecoverable flat spin. A stick-kicker system was added to lower the nose when approaching this pitch-up condition. Unfortunately, the stick kicker also tended to activate inadvertently at low altitudes and high speeds. Some early losses were caused by the variable guide vane system for the engine compressor section misreading temperature changes on takeoff, suddenly and severely reducing power. The afterburner blowing out or not lighting had a similar result, as did opening of the tailpipe nozzle due to loss of engine oil pressure. The latter was corrected with a manual closure system for the nozzle. Lockheed\'s downward ejection seat—designed to avoid the T-tail—did not work so well for low-level takeoff related incidents, for obvious reasons. Many of the NATO operators later went to the Martin Baker zero-zero ejection seats, capable of ejecting safely with zero altitude and zero airspeed. The losses became a big issue in Germany, when the airplane was nicknamed “widow-maker,” “flying coffin” and “ground nail.” Negative public attention also came from the Lockheed bribery scandal surrounding the sale of 104s to NATO countries. But the accident rates varied widely—Spain never lost a single 104—and the accidents didn\'t always cause public disfavor. The Starfighter was very popular in Italy, where it was operated and upgraded until 2004, despite the ongoing high accident rate.

The Famous Flat Spin

Speaking of accidents, the 104 is perhaps most famous for Chuck Yeager's crash, depicted in The Right Stuff. I talked about the incident with David Gemas, of Starfighters—call sign “Picard”—the F-104 demonstration team currently operating three of the only four Starfghters still flying. Gemas explained: “It was the NF-104 AST aerospace trainer. They added a 6,000-pound thrust rocket motor to the root of the vertical stabilizer, extended the wing tips by two feet, and they embedded into the wing tips and nose a hydrogen peroxide-based reaction control system.The intent was to climb to altitudes of 125,000 to 130,000 feet, above 99 percent of the atmosphere. It’s high enough that they no longer have aerodynamic forces on the control surfaces, so it’s a ballistic trajectory. Once they’re up there, the Reaction Control System (RCS) allows them to point the vehicle, analogous to how a spacecraft is controlled,” he continued.

“What was previously known as the Air Force Test Pilots School, was renamed the Aerospace Research Pilots School, or ARPS, and Chuck Yeager was the commandant. Coming up on an anniversary of the Wright brothers’ flight, Chuck wanted to set an altitude record. The previous day, one of the other research projects set the record for the F-104 of 120,800 feet. Chuck\'s goal was to best that. Some other test pilots established the trajectory and procedures; they needed to reach an inertial climb angle of 70 degrees, and hold it there, to get maximum altitude. They started around 35,000 feet and mach 2.2 for their run-in, and then they pulled the stick back into their lap to start this climb.

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