Yeah, they were called Witwenmacher (widow maker) for a reason. For those who do not know: Of more than 900 F104G bought a solid third crashed, with 116 pilots being killed. Seems like the ejection system was in perfect condition.
@@sealioso To my knowledge, it was. The new avionics package of the G series changed the flight characteristics, iirc. Also, the engine was changed. I remember reading an article claiming that we basically got a complete new and largely untested aircraft looking like a F104.
@@MarkusMahlbergNach meiner Information, lassen sich die Unfälle auf den Einsatz als JaBo und der daraus resultierenden niedrigen Flughöhe zurückführen
@@johnscanlon2598 actually it does. space has little to no air pressure from which drag can be produced. the atmosphere does. and since oxygen is somewhat flammable and offers drag. (idk what happens next but it creates heat with friction)
My stepfather was the engineer who developed the flap guard! Worked for Lockheed back in the day out in California. He told me they had ground crew getting cut and they told him to solve the problem lol...
When I was a kid, this was new and very exciting. I remember building a model of it. Guys that built remote control planes complained thar it was very hard to make a flying model because the wings were so short and needed serious speed to fly. It truly was a rocket with wings!
Military aero engineer here, sharp leading edge is used on aircraft that spend most of their flight time in supersonic speeds. On supersonic aircraft, the wings are very short. You could say they have very low aspect ratio. That makes them very rigid, so there isn't much material inside of them. Still they seem to be too thin for much fuel to be fitted there. Instead, auxiliary fuel tanks are located on the wing tips, and inside of the wings there are mechanisms for flaps and other aerodynamic surfaces. One of the main reasons of the main landing gear retracting into the body instead of the wings is the wings' thickness, or rather lack of. Also there is nothing more dangerous about this plane as there is about others. Every plane has hundreds of razor sharp edges on all kinds of panels AND all kinds of rods and needles sticking out in every direction. You can bang your head, you can slip, you can damage some parts just by putting your spanner on them.
@@Demopans5990 take-off speed will always be a few % above stall speed. Though the stall speed on these low AR wings with supersonic profile is always very high.
@@domesticonion8026 It's unlikely any F104 ever carried a Hellfire while in service. Certainly no NATO country did. Hellfire wasn't deployed until 1984. I don't see a missile in the video.
I volunteer at an aviation museum where we have Neil Armstrong’s F-104, and we had an incident once where a toddler ran into the wing root (but not the wing itself) and had to leave after being tended to by his parents who were firefighters.
In 1956, in 3rd grade, I checked a book out of the school library about modern aircraft. It had a pic of the Star-fighter and said a few words about the leading edge of the wing. I thought, "No way!" 65 years later, I visited the museum at Edwards AFB and saw my first real F-104. Naturally, the first thing I checked out was the wing. It had no leading edge guard. After a few minutes of careful inspecting, I thought, "Damn! you could shave with this thing." Just touching the edge wouldn't cut you, but moving your fingers over it or inadvertently walking into the wing most certainly would. I was much impressed.
Fun fact: there's an American military film about this plane from back in its heyday, and they actually did a very similar demonstration with the leading wing edge cutting the paper too.
It had extremely low tolerance for stall warnings on landings. It's landing was extremely fast compared to many other fighters, and turning with up elevator at low altitude made it extremely dangerous for the inverted nose roll.
@@rikal.830it's a fucking machine not a horse you weirdo. If you design a plane and people die trying to land enough times to earn a reputation for that same flaw then it's a shit design.
Many of those were because Germany used a RATO system. Additionally, US pilots flying this had an average of 1,500 flight hours while German pilots had an average of 400 flight hours. Risky take-off system coupled with less experienced pilots.
The German media did, but not the pilots. They undoubtedly had other derisive names for it, but not Widow Maker. A large part of why German pilots faired so poorly in them was because of a combination of a lack of sufficient training and using a high altitude interceptor built to be the aerial embodiment of the phrase "I am speed" as a ground attack aircraft.
The last F104 I saw flying was sometime in the late 80's above Sembach AB before I left Germany. I was stationed at Sembach for 6 years. We had CH53's,😂 EC130's, EF111's, OV10' and A10's as the main aircraft. Seeing an F104 streak overhead low and fast was exciting. Tho the EF111's were pretty awesome also. I laugh now thinking back to the early 80's when I was on the flightline at Nellis AFB and a buddy of mine saw a flight of 5, F111's flying overhead on approach and he said those are bombers and they aren't supposed to be here, as Nellis was a TAC base at the time. I guess he didn't think about the multi rolls the F111's preformed. I now live close to Edwars AFB and you never know what you will see fly over. A few weeks ago I saw 2 B52's making circles around the area for quite a long time. Not long after that 2 F18's
I can see why so many nations ordered…. Once you see one up close…… it really is a beautiful little interceptor. I'm retired now but flew with quite a few pilots at the airlines who spent time in an F-104. It was lot of airplane for pilots coming out of trainers and older pilots commong out of F86’s or F-84’s.
>I can see why so many nations ordered.. Well the real reason is Lochmart were caught bribing government officials millions of dollars! But yeah they're very pretty.
Actually had the chance to talk to a 104 pilot. His summary was that the amount of accidents attributed to the plane was due to lack of experience and training.
Pretty much, the 104 was made because US pilots after Korea wanted something better than the 86, even when they were racking up wins in them. So it was a plane designed for veterans, given to an air force that was recently rebuilt full of new guys.
Yes and kind of no; The main reason for the accidents was because of this wing design. A rounder leading edge is more aerodynamic and stable. So these planes had lots of stability issues when flying fast; so yes it was because some pilots weren’t trained but also because some simply couldn’t control it.
I think this is the point he tried to make. The other planes had completely different aero dynamics. Many of the pilots he trained with came into the program flying post WW2 planes (his words). The 104 was completely different and not forgiving. @@Black23Hawk
@@realkacyAnother factor was it being forced into a fighter bomber role. This was done despite experts' vocal misgivings at the time. Eventually a huge corruption scandal was uncovered. The West German defense minister Franz Josef Strauß had received millions from Lockheed Martin to force the deal. Tragically, the son of his successor in office was a fighter pilot and would eventually die in a Starfighter accident.
Shall we also remember the G was overweight after adding too much crap in it. A typical case of modifications to they original concept resulting in an unsatisfactory result. The early Starfighter was an epic aircraft.
I do find myself checking out F-104s at museums to check that leading edge. Not literally razor sharp, but I can easily see myself ducking under the wing and smacking my head into it by mistake. I've seen a fellow get a bad head cut from a well thrown roll of masking tape (don't ask), so this wing would be very dangerous. Maybe the USAF should have adopted the "bone dome" helmets that naval carrier deck crew use??
One thing I was taught as groundcrew working on CF-104 was to put my hand on the leading edge before ducking under the wing. We generally wore leather work gloves during the start & recovery procedures.
Masking tape not that weird. I have a scar from a shipping box of cheerios falling from the top in the back ofva semi trailer. I also currently have 7 cuts all relating to plastic drink cups. Bojangles restaurant cups to be exact. Don't worry if you eat there I followed all food safety guidelines and didn't bleed in your cup. 😂
Having worked on restoring a TF104, I used to take sheets of paper to show museum guests how easy it is to cut something on the leading edge. Have yet to be dinged by it
Heard a story from a retired Canadian Air Force airframe mechanic about a 104 touching down up north in poor conditions and filleting a moose on the runway with its wing. Nasty.
I went tot eh Kalamazoo Air Zoo one day when I was much younger and it was a very slow day, so the docent gave me a guided tour. At the F-104, I remember rapping the top of the wing with my knuckle and it was very noticeable how HARD the metal was.
Circa 1960 I was in elementary school at China Lake, CA. Some of my classmates were the children of test pilots. Others were the children of scientists working on the Sidewinder missile. EVERYBODY knew the F-104 was the hottest jet around. If you wanted to beat it you needed to drive down to Edwards AFB and hop on an X-15.
So many copy paste comments blaming the plane: The plane was quite ok for its time, it was the miss use of it what killed. In Spain was flown for 17.000 hours with no incidents at all.
That fighter was said to have the weight of a DC3 and the wing surface are of its tailplane and thats why it was so difficult to fly, the Germans called it the widow maker. It was said to have been designed by Kelly Johnson himself but i cant believe it.
My grandpa refueled those. He said because the wings were so sharp, they had to use a special fuel cable that was half the thickness of the standard hose because the wings would accidentally cut the hose when they were refueling sometimes.
I happen to know that an F-4 Phantom’s leading edge of its wing is exactly right above my eye because I accidentally walked into one and gave myself several stitches. 👍
Hartman hunted Biplanes from a ME109 and half his kills were probably false positives because of conditions on the front leading to smoked up aircraft diving into fog or clouds and making it home. He was an excellent pilot but he's no Chuck Yeager or Johnnie Johnson who're qualified to opine on the characteristics of Jets.
I used to work for a museum that operated an F'-104. I got three flights in it, which I cherish, and received the notorious "Starfighter Kiss" on my forehead. However, he is exaggerating the sharpness of the leading edge. It will not cut you just by running your finger along it. Think about what a maintenance nightmare that would be.m if true. It is about 1/16-1/8 of an inch in diameter at its sharpest.
Lots of pilots killed ejecting from that thing. First model ejected out the bottom of the plane. Eject normally you get shot into the ground. They fixed it so it ejected normally, but pilots were trained to invert.
My teacher was an F16 operator, he once cut is forehead real bad on the flap of the plane, had real bad bleeding. he survived thanks to a doctor who happened to be very nearby
Two F-104 instructor pilots beat 2 F-15 pilots in DACT when the F-15 was brand new. They knew their plane. Amazingly enough the Italians flew them until October 2004. Many nations had generally safe experiences with the aircraft. Use it in a role it wasn't intended for you will have problems, especially if the pilots have low numbers of hours.
The plane that tried to kill Chuck Yeager. Well, technically it was the NF-104, but still, it was the same airframe, just with an additional rocket motor.
I went to school with people who used ti maintain these beauties for the Italian air force. They are on the statement "that's simply a manned rocket"😂😂.
