Lockheed F-104 Starfighter: The Flying Coffin

hello everybody welcome to a brand new episode of megaprojects this one all about the f-104 star fighter a gloriously named aircraft but before we get into this well this video is brought to you by keebs did you know that two out of every three guys will experience some form of male pattern borders by the time they're 35 yes i did keeps indeed i lost my hair by the time i was 25 so that was brilliant i wish keeps a bit around when i was younger because advances in science have meant that there are now treatments that can combat the symptoms of hair loss and help you keep the hair that you have look it's too late for me my hair's not coming back but you didn't have to be like me you can stop your hair loss early thanks to keeps keeps off as generic versions of the only two fda approved drugs treating hair loss so you may have tried them before but never at a price this loan and so now you might be thinking oh my god simon this is medicine it's gonna be real expensive but you couldn't be 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interceptor aircraft was a thunderous piece of military hardware but below its sleek facade laid numerous problems which became apparent once the united states started exporting the f-104 around the world the first combat aircraft capable of sustained mach 2 flight was a plane that traded at searing acceleration and top speed for slack maneuverability and poor range the f-104 was both a record breaker and an absolute liability sometimes an aircraft comes along which redefines aviation many of which we've covered here on mega projects but the f-104 starfighter was not one of those aircraft it was the equivalent of putting an f1 engine on the back of a small go-kart and taking it out for a spin insanely fast yes but also a vehicle that ramped the likelihood of death up just a notch or maybe 12. the story of the f-104 is a bumpy ride with plenty of collisions and while it won't go down in history it's still a fascinating tale to tell in the early 1950s u.s pilots were engaged in combat in the skies above korea one of the few instances during the cold war when american and soviet soldiers actually went head to head in real combat the soviet pilots along with their north korean and chinese counterparts typically flew the new mig-15 tenacious agile little plane that has since gone on to become one of the most produced aircrafts in history the americans counted the m15 with their north american f-86 sabre the country's first swept wing fighter but while the f-86 was no slouch a series of interviews with pilots by clarence l kelly johnson vice president of engineering and research at lockheed skunk works revealed that the american pilots predominantly favored having a smaller faster aircraft with a higher altitude limit than the f-86 in short they needed something more like the mig-15 to successfully tackle the mig-15 [Music] once back in the u.s johnson and his team set about designing this new aircraft after studying over 100 different aircraft layouts the team went for a light 5400 kilogram 12 000 pound design with a single general electric j79 turbojet engine the us air force liked what they saw and invited three other companies republic aviation north american aviation and northrop corporation to submit designs for a lightweight fighter but lockheed was well ahead at this point and a contract to build two prototypes was signed on the 12th of march 1953. things moved really rapidly and just shy of a year after the contract was sealed the first x-104 took to the skies on the 4th of march 1954 at the edwards air force base in california at this point the j-79 engine wasn't ready so the two xf-104s were instead fitted with a right j-65 engine until the more powerful engine was completed the first flight lasted just 21 minutes which was less than planned after the aircraft experienced landing gear retraction issues and look you'd better get used to the words issues and problems because well there's plenty more to come today the second prototype was destroyed soon after during a gun-firing trial when the hatch to the ejector seat blew out as the cockpit depressurized the pilot ejected believing the aircraft to be a lost cause apparently that was not the case though but let's not be too critical of the pilot sitting inside a faulty metallic experimental rocket okay and let's be honest early testing had been patchy and along with the j79 engine swap out the new xf-104s came with modified landing gear modified air intakes while also being 1.68 meters that's five feet six inches longer than the original to accommodate the new engine a further 17 aircraft were ordered for testing and began flying on the 17th of february 1956. between then and the 28th of january 1958 when the first aircraft was delivered into service they had their airframe strengthened a ventral fin to improve directional stability at supersonic speed added along with a boundary layer control system or blcs to reduce landing speed and with that this futuristic speedster was ready for takeoff [Music] when the f-104 burst onto the scene it immediately broke several records and was the first aircraft to simultaneously hold the world speed and world altitude records on the 7th of may 1958 an f-104 broke the world altitude record for a jet aircraft by flying to 27 811 meters that's about 91 000 feet while on the 16th of may 1958 the world flight airspeed record tumbled when a starfighter hit 2259 kilometers an hour or 1404 miles an hour above edwards air force base in 1959 the altitude record was again smashed with an f-104 climbing to 31 513 meters that's 103 000 feet followed by several unofficial flights over the following years where the aircraft was said to hit a final height of 36 800 meters or 121 thousand feet and by the way that's 270 empire state buildings stacked on top of each other at that height you're also well into the atmospheric zone known as the stratosphere add to this some quite astonishing time to climb records culminating in a 30 thousand meter 98 400 feet record of 904.9 seconds in 1959 and you might be forgiven for thinking that the greatest aircraft the world had ever seen had finally arrived but as we'll come to see in just a moment speed is definitely not everything this merciless speed demon came with an airframe constructed of dura lumen along with some stainless steel and titanium it had a rather radical trapezoidal wing design a straight edged and tapered wing layout that was swept back 26 degrees the tips of these wings ended in a razor-sharp 0.4 millimeter edge that proved so dangerous for ground crews that the u.s air force mandated that protective guards be installed as soon as the aircraft landed the thickness of the wings was also the reason that the fuel needed to be carried within the fuselage and why the plane's landings were initially at speeds that would terrify even the most seasoned of pilots around 287 to 296 kilometers now that's about 178 to 184 miles per hour it wasn't until the addition of the blcs that this monster was brought under some resemblance of control while landing it had a wingspan of 6.63 meters that's 21 feet 9 inches and a total length of 16.6 meters about 54 feet 8 inches making it considerably smaller than modern examples the general electric j79 turbo jet came with 10 000 pound force of thrust and 15 600 pound-force with afterburner which is much less than what we have today but as we've seen easily enough to shatter speed records left right and center thanks to the aircraft's excellent thrust to drag ratio the f-104 was capable of exceeding mach 2 2 459 kilometers an hour and 1 529 miles per hour but it had a nasty habit of overheating the engine so its operational speed was limited to mach 2. the f-104 was the first aircraft to use the 20 millimeter m61 vulcan auto cannon with a 6 000 rounds per minute firing rate meaning the f-104 would be out of ammo after just seven seconds of continuous fire the aircraft could also carry two aim-9 sidewinder air-to-air missiles on the wingtip stations that was later modified to include underwing pylons for additional armaments and a centerline pylon capable of carrying a nuclear weapon another radical design feature of the f-104 was the ejector seat now i don't know about him but i've always assumed that an ejecting pilot would fly upwards but not with the early versions of this revolutionary little aircraft its downward firing ejection scene did exactly as it sounds which as you might imagine caused all manner of problems for low level ejections so bang straight into the ground this fallout was used because there were limitations of the available ejection seat catapults at the time and an astonishing 21 usaf pilots failed to escape safely because of this including ivan kincheloe jr the first person to perform a suborbital space flight when his bell x2 rocket plane reached 38 470 meters less 126 thousand feet in 1956 before being killed after ejecting from an f104 in 1958 not long after the aircraft was fitted with the lockheed c2 upward firing seat instead and the concept of downward ejector seats fell completely out of fashion for good reason when the f-104 entered full service in 1958 it immediately experienced problems namely with the j79 engine and the m61 cannon these were deemed so significant that the entire fleet was grounded just three months into their fledgling careers new j79 ge3b engines and three additional adc units were installed these small air data computers were used to compile data from the aircraft systems to determine the calibrated airspeed mach number altitude and much more while these upgrades didn't fix all of the f104's problems they certainly made the aircraft easier to fly but while the f-104 was receiving a much-needed structural facelift the u.s air force was already having second thoughts just to show how quickly the times changed regarding military technology the trend was already beginning to shift towards aircraft with much longer range that could carry considerably more weapons the f-104 with its fairly limited arsenal and poultry combat range of 680 kilometers 420 miles had neither and before it had even had a chance to dance it was being ditched for younger better models the initial usaf order of 722 was slashed to just 170. while after less than a year in service the f-104s were transferred from the fighter interceptor squadrons to the three squadrons of the air national guard this is the equivalent of playing for the yankees one day and the next day the scranton wilks bar rail riders if you've never heard of them well that's exactly my point despite the f-104 appearing to be on the brink of an early extinction it was used in several roles sporadically until 1969. in 1958 they were used during the taiwan straits crisis when several 104s flew back and forth between taiwan and mainland china as a way of flexing u.s marshal and also lending support to the breakaway island three years later they were once again used as a deterrent when they took part in maneuvers during the berlin crisis of 1961 in which soviet leaders delivered an ultimatum for all nato troops and aircraft to leave the german capital not one to back down from a fight jfk ordered more aircraft to the city with the usaf said to be pleasantly surprised with the performance of the f-104 which outmaneuvered every aircraft in the vicinity suddenly there was a bit of hope for the starfighters the performance in berlin led to a call-up a few years later during the vietnam war where they were used in air superiority and air support roles essentially they were there to protect other aircraft in particular the f-105 thunder chief and the ec121d warning star airborne early warning aircraft the f-104s performed admirably in southeast asia but were rarely involved in aerial combat and left vietnam without any recorded air kills with a loss of 14 starfighters this was the last u.s comet operation that they were involved in and in 1967 the units began to be replaced with the mcdonnell douglas f4 phantom 2. two years later the last f-104 left the u.s air force 11 years after their introduction while the use of the f-104 under the stars and stripes had been fairly limited it saw considerably wider use when it was exported abroad and considerably higher levels of controversy a consortium of germany belgium the netherlands and italy along with manufacturers within each country signed a contract to begin constructing a modified f-104 for the european crowd this new aircraft the f-104g consisted of a more powerful engine additional skin panels and reinforced landing gear with larger tires and improved brakes it also came with a more advanced radar system electronic de-icing equipment for the air intake inlets a larger drag chute and an increased weapon capacity now at 1 400 kilograms 3 000 pounds in total 17 separate companies were involved in manufacturing the f-104 g in europe and well this is where the story of the f-104 begins to take a bit of a nosedive things started out as bad as they possibly could in germany when in june 1962 four f-104gs crashed in formation while practicing for an air display destroying all the aircraft and killing all four pilots and sadly that was just the start much has been said about just why the accident rates in europe were so high was it because of the bad weather compared to the frequent clear sky climates that many pilots trained in in arizona was it because european pilots had not kept pace with jet fighter developments or was it simply because the f-104 could be a maniacal bucking bronco the reason was almost certainly a combination of all three which led to a staggering 292 crashes and 116 german pilots lost to f-104 accidents germany belgium and canada all experienced between 32 and 46 losses of their f-104s during their decades in service which is shocking but they were the extremes denmark japan and norway suffered losses of between 14 and 24 while the spanish air force came out with a perfect record of zero losses it's not immediately clear why there were such disparities between loss rates but what was clear was that the starfighter had the ignoble honor of having some of the highest loss rates of any aircraft in history and here's the final kicker in 1976 news broke that lockheed had paid 22 million at around 119 million dollars today in bribes to foreign officials as part of the f-104g deals in europe things worsened when it was revealed that in 1962 documents relating to the transaction had all been destroyed in germany where officials were said to have taken 10 million 85 million today in bribes in return for signing contracts for 900 f-104gs in 1961. as the scandal erupted officials in japan italy the netherlands and saudi arabia were also implicated leading to lockheed chairman of the board daniel horton and president karl kocchian resigning on the 13th of february 1976. the aircraft that the german public had dubbed the widowmaker for quite obvious reasons now found itself at the center of one of the largest scandals in aviation history so what can you say about the f-104 if you just started watching this video in the last couple of minutes you might well assume that this was the worst aircraft of all time but that would certainly be going too far the f-104 was incredible with certain aspects of flying namely acceleration top speed and altitude limit but far from exemplary when it came to its large turn radius short range small armament capacity erratic pitch behavior and the requirement for it to remain at full speed while landing this was a combination of positives and negatives that didn't particularly fit well together and when you take into consideration the huge demand often placed on inexperienced pilots it's not hard to see why this ferocious little plane caused so much carnage the f-104 seemed to have different problems throughout its life from oscillations causing uncontrolled dives t-tail fluttering which occasionally tore off the tail and problems with the brand new engine in the early days to issues with the variable thrust nozzle that could cause a sudden loss of thrust afterburner blowout and problems integrating into different air forces later on this was an aircraft that was just plagued from the very start but as we saw earlier this was also an aircraft that shattered records when it broke onto the scene the f-104 may not hold a place in the hallowed aviation hall of fame but it unquestionably played its role in the development of aviation sometimes you need to learn what not to do before the right path becomes clear so i really hope you found that video interesting if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below if you've got a suggestion for a future mega projects video please do leave it in the comments below i often look to those for new ideas so please have a go at that and thank you for watching you

Channel: Megaprojects

Views: 494,608

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Id: DeNTAPPmwnk

Length: 17min 46sec (1066 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 23 2021