Talk:Lockheed F-104 Starfighter/Archive 3

Radio
The F-104 Starfighter UHF radio was a AN/ARC-66 not the ARC-34. The ARC-66 was designed around the ARC-34 but mounted in a integrated rack on top of the back behind the cocpit. 75.150.124.154 (talk) 20:50, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Time to Altitude Records
Conversions from metres to feet are a bit off - 300 to 400 feet at times. 68.148.93.15 (talk) 20:30, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Old Discussions of an experienced F-104 Pilot
WaltBJ has not edited in years but below is a very relevant discussion that got archived years ago and he shares much insight. I wish I could speak with this guy if he is even around anymore. What a treasure trove for an interview. 208.54.40.188 (talk) 03:48, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Do not add to leave as is. Open new discussion below it please.

Comments
I could have sworn that the F-104 saw extensive service in VietNam as a specialized radar jammer for B-52's. Not true?
 * Never heard of that. I'd be surprised -- the F-104 is TINY, not much space for a complex avionics suite. - Emt147 Burninate!  01:52, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

WaltBJ: I believe this is confused with the F4 which was used in such a manner, usually dropping chaff to screen the B52s. F4s also flew escort about 3 miles behind the B52s. An event mentioned in this article is a May 18 selected anniversary Almost all the F-104s in the fighter-bomber version, assigned the letter C, were used in Vietnam, for 21 months, during which time they performed important, far-ranging work. The first fifteen Starfighters arrived in April 1965, with the 476th Tactical Fighter Squadron and the 479th Tactical Fighter Wing: from April 20 to November 20 of the same year they carried out 2,927 missions of machine-gunning, bombing and escorting strike aircraft, sometimes in North Vietnamese air space, before returning to the United States. The 476th was back, however, in June 1966, operating from the Udorn base in Thailand. The F-104Cs were now camouflaged in accordance with operational needs and in July were handed over to the 436th TFS and in October to the 435th, still belonging to the 479th TFW. From June 1966 to July 1967 the F-104Cs carried out escorting and bombing missions on North Vietnam, with over 5,290 sorties. The last Starfighter left Thailand before the end of 1967, its duties being taken over by the Phantom F-4D. Although not much has been written and said about the F-104C, it seems to have given a good account of itself, but the shortage of machines obviously limited its use. see: http://www.gruntonline.com/US_Forces/US_Aircraft/us_aircraft5.htm This article, unfortunately, repeats several myths about the F-104. For one thing, it is an excellent dogfighter when flown by someone who knows to work the vertical. Pilots of other fighters in dissimilar aircraft exercises often accused the F-104 of cheating, since it kept going up and down instead of making turns like a real airplane. One F-8 pilot reported following a smoke trail to track down an F-4 (which used the same J-79 engine) and realizing he was in trouble when the F-104 flying close formation with the F-4 pulled up into a climb the F-8 couldn't match. He was still trying to spot the smaller plane when it made a diving attack from behind and scored a simulated kill. WaltBJ: With the G-model takeoff flaps the F-104A could outturn an F4. T/O flap limit speeds were then M1.8 or 550KIAS, whichever was reached first. As for climb, an strictly standard F104A/J-79-19 in combat configuration could reach 45000 90 seconds after brake release. Additionally, ferry range with 4 drop tanks is around 1500 NM at best-range cruise. Remarkably, by climbing to high altitude and accelerating to Mach 2 the plane could achieve almost the same range, due to the inherent low drag in those conditions. Walt BJ: I flew one cross-country at M2.0 and 73000 with a fuel burn of 3000lbs/hr. The F104A/J79-19 combination was obviously capable of higher altitude and speed from the way it handled up there. None of the nicknames listed were actually used by F-104 pilots, especially "Widowmaker." This was given to it by others, largely due to the unfortunate German accident rate early in the plane's deployment there. (Note that during this same period Spain lost *none* of its F-104s.) Once Germany changed its training program their accident rate for the F-104 dropped to well within the same range as that for other jet fighters of the period. What pilots of the F-104 prefered to call it is "Zipper." I actually wrote an article on this aircraft. A copy is posted at: http://www.dcr.net/~stickmak/JOHT/joht12f-104.htm Rod (Stickmaker) Smith
 * Well then, get your hands out of your pants and fix the article! :-) But seriously, you'd likely do a better job than anybody else on some of these details. Stan 05:27, 13 May 2004 (UTC)


 * I think you'll find that it was not the German Democratic Republic (DDR, a.k.a East Germany) that bought the Starfighter, but in fact the West German Airforce. Such a glaring error in this external article does tend to throw the credibility of the rest into some doubt, at least for me. Graham 02:47, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

Air does not "think," and cannot be "fooled!"
 * Fixed Graham 02:47, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

I don't think the high crash rate of the German Starfighters can be blamed entirely on pilot training. As i recall, Luftwaffe wanted an all-purpose jet (which the Starfighter was not designed to be) which resulted in a large number of extras being put into the F-104G. The result was a jet that was significantly heavier than the original and consequently harder to handle. An example that was given was the increased take-off speed. That speed was in fact so high the pilots had no more than two seconds after take-off before theit landing gear would rip off. Also, the F-104G was constantly updated with new equipment and new procedures. Sometimes those came so fast that pilots had no more than a day to learn a new procedure before the next one arrived. Another reason for decreased crash rates in later years were changes in maintainance. Once Luftwaffe started using spares from domestic production instead of those imported from the US, reliability improved significantly. --Qualle (talk) 10:39, 2 November 2005 (UTC) I challenge the statement that the landing gear would rip off within 2 seconds. What would actually happen is that retracting the gear at much over 250KIAS would result in the main gear doors being trapped open by the airflow, necessitating slowing down and cycling the gear. The problem with the F104G and the Luftwaffe was a combination of shorter runways (8000 ft) than the pilots had trained on at Luke AFB (11000 ft), much worse weather (Luke is in the desert), and lack of experience of the pilots and of the mechanics. At this time the economy of Germany was swiftly improving and many LW mechanics separated from the service to go to work in industry at much higher levels of pay. Note that the Belgians seldom had an accident although their weather is generally as bad as Germany's.  Walt Bjorneby, 730 hours of F104 time.

Quality
In this article i dont see anything about the corruption scandals where some people accepted bribes. also i think this article is too positive about the starfighter, everything i read about it (granted, main infosource is discovery channel) states that it was a crap plane (tricky to fly) and was quickly replaced in the USA 104-owner: Take the Discovery Channel's expose' with a grain of salt. If the aircraft was "a crap airplane" as you call it, then why did so many countries build it and even more flew them? Italy last flew them in 2004! Not bad for a 50 year old design! Like every aircraft, especially military aircraft, have their quirks. And military aircraft are designed to be unstable as it allows them to depart normal straight and level flight to perform maneuvers that are not to be done on regular aircraft. And if the aircraft are so tricky, then why are three flying in the US and you don't see any other century series flying?


 * End of Old discussion 208.54.40.188 (talk) 03:48, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Ejection seat
The article mentions the early, downward-firing ejection seat. "This presented obvious problems in low-altitude escapes, and 21 USAF pilots failed to escape from their stricken aircraft in low-level emergencies because of it" - there's a strong implication that the 21 pilots died, but did they? The article doesn't explicitly say so. 87.114.151.60 (talk) 17:45, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

West Germany info removed from Lead
I removed the following information from the Lead of the article (twice):
 * The Federeral German Republic ordered first 700 (insted of French Mirage), and later another 216, a total of 916 aircraft . Delieveris started in early 1962 and already before January had come to its end, did the very first of no less than 262 German F-104's crash. In June 1962 crashed four F-104 on the same day. 116 German pilots died during peacetime between 25.January 1962 and 11.December 1984. Grieving widows sued Lockheed already in 1969, and by 1975 did more than thirty of them a recieve a sum of 3 million DMs each

As stated in my edit summary, new information should not be introduced in the Lead, as it is to be a summary of the article as a whole, per WP:LEAD. Instead, such information should be covered in the relevant section of the article which deals with this topic, Lockheed F-104 Starfighter. I actually was going to integrate this information into that section, but it requires rewriting for grammar and other issues. Also, the sources aren't in English, so I'm at a disadvantage there. I'm also not certain about using a film as a source in this case. - BilCat (talk) 04:13, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Leads in optimal articles
When an article reaches a good state, then the lead should be a summary of what's written in the article. And preferably should the lead be free of all inline refereces. That's not my idea, but I agree in principle. This article needs improvements if it should come up to "good reading" level. Boeing720 (talk) 11:11, 27 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Inline references are permitted in the Lead in general. In most cases in articles such as this one,citations are there because the information has been or is likely to be challenged. Whether or not that's acceptable in a "Good article" is irrelevant to me, as Good article guidelines aren't policy. What all this has to do with the previous section,which involves your edits, is a mystery to me, but apparently you mean something by adding this here now. - BilCat (talk) 11:21, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

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Replacing infobox image of F-104G with XF-104?
I noticed that recently replaced the F-104G image that was previously in the infobox with an improved image of the XF-104 (which was then removed from the XF-104 section). If we've got a better quality image then I am all for it, but I would not have thought the experimental version of the plane (of which only two copies were built, and substantial structural changes were made to the YF-104 and beyond) would be representative of the type as a whole. Given that there were more than a thousand F-104G constructed (over 40% of all F-104s), that would seem to me to be the top candidate for the infobox. What do others think?

As an aside, I do like the new XF-104 image, but my personal opinion is to put it back in the XF-104 section and work on a better F-104G image for the infobox. Cthomas3 (talk) 21:19, 4 September 2017 (UTC)


 * The main image should reflect article subject, and I believe an image is able to show a better perspective (overall side and top view) then that's what the page should start with. - regardless of the in service or prototype. (just my opinion) - FOX 52 (talk) 22:04, 4 September 2017 (UTC)


 * I can see both sides in this, and it is a better image. But it's not a production Starfighter and I can't believe that we don't have an equally good and clear image that is a production Starfighter. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:17, 4 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Yeah they are hard to come by - FOX 52 (talk) 22:24, 4 September 2017 (UTC)


 * We have an article for the Lockheed XF-104. Guess what photo is in the infobox? - BilCat (talk) 22:32, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I can't believe they're not out there, but I can't find one (a clear air-to-air showing the planform). Here are some File:F104G.jpg File:Luke AFB - F-104 Starfighters.jpg File:Lockheed F-104G cn 6013 62-12314 Helliniki Aeroporia (mfr LA 5515 via RJF) (16949644488).jpg File:Lockheed TF-104G cn 5519 61-12274 Helliniki Aeroporia 1 (Greek AF via RJF) (16516735133).jpg File:479th Tactical Fighter Wing - F-104s 1960.jpg but they're either less clear, beneath or behind.
 * I'd be happy (pending an ideal image) to use the XF-104, provided that we also have something like this nearby: File:Lockheed F-104A 56-0737 HQ ADC Colorado Springs (USAF via TJF) (21232351628).jpg, showing the J79 afterburner nozzle. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:50, 4 September 2017 (UTC)


 * For the record, the XF-104 was powered by a J65 engine, not a J79. Also, I'd rather we use a regular F-104 image n the infobox, even if it's not "perfect". I happen to like clouds in an image, as I don't find them distracting at all. - BilCat (talk) 23:26, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I wanted to make sure that I emphasized I am very thankful for the work FOX 52 did on the XF-104 image; I think it looks great. And I think we do need a new image for the infobox. But if possible I would prefer to be a production aircraft. I've sent an e-mail to Lockheed Martin to see if they have any images that they will let us use, but that may take several days for a response (or not at all). I had good luck contacting Northrop Grumman for images of the N-102 Fang, though, so who knows. Cthomas3 (talk) 00:49, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
 * that would be awesome - FOX 52 (talk) 01:01, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Just wanted to give an update here. I'm still asking around for images from Lockheed, the USAF, the Luftwaffe, and basically anyone else who might have one, but no luck as of yet. However, I was just poking around Wikimedia Commons today and found some potentially interesting images already out there. would any of these work? None are really exactly what I am looking for, but I just wanted some other opinions.  C Thomas3   (talk) 03:48, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Update: added a few more that I found in civilian livery.  C Thomas3   (talk) 19:23, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Number 3 looks pretty good to me - FOX 52 (talk) 04:37, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
 * No. 4 is superior to 3 for showing distinctive 'missile' shape of Starfighter, but both are flying in wrong direction. GraemeLeggett (talk) 06:37, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Agreed that it would be preferable to have an image with the aircraft facing left. And I will definitely keep looking for one; I actually got a response this morning from the National Archives and Records Administration, and hope to have something back from them in the next few weeks. But if we can find a reasonable image that's just facing the wrong way, I'm okay with that too.  C Thomas3   (talk) 22:29, 23 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Why does it have to be facing left? F104G (talk) 10:54, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Generally it's preferred to have the aircraft facing the text. See Images under WikiProject Aviation/Style guide/Layout (Aircraft). - Samf4u (talk) 12:13, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Improvement to Good Article
I just wanted to let everyone know that I am making an attempt to improve this article to Good Article status (and maybe even beyond, if all goes well). I have a draft that I have been working on over the last several weeks here; it is taking quite a bit longer than I expected due to troubles obtaining some of the listed sources. Many of the books listed are are either unavailable through interlibrary loan or require a fee, and while I'm willing to do that one or two times, I'm not inclined to spend over $100. :) In the meantime I am attempting to keep my draft current with the changes being made to the main article. Feedback is most welcome, as is any advice! Cthomas3 (talk) 02:02, 16 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Why not incorporate improvements into the article as it stands? GraemeLeggett (talk) 06:54, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I suppose I could have. Given the length of time this is taking, though, I figured that it would give me the freedom to leave things a bit "undone" as I continued my research. I certainly wouldn't want to make those types of edits to the article itself.  C Thomas3   (talk) 16:02, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

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Not used in the Luftwaffe
The Luftwaffe was disbanded in 1946 (see Luftwaffe), after WWII and thus could never have used the F-104 Starfighter. To avoid confusion please say "German Air Force", especially in the article itself, where it states "Luftwaffe" in the lead. 131.220.220.247 (talk) 12:14, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The Luftwaffe was re-established in 1956, and then operated the Starfighter. WP's convenience choices of article name are not defining, and "Luftwaffe" is the correct German-language title. Also see WP:COMMONNAME. Also note Luftstreitkräfte for the warpac counterpart. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:22, 11 April 2018 (UTC)