LoL.... Ok that was funny

I grew up in small town Canada. RCAF F-104's were fairly common overhead as we weren't far from the Cold Lake airbase. I remember visiting a huge hole in the ground that had scraps of metal around it. My dad said it was a bad F-104 landing, lol. The pilot had safely bailed out, apparently.

In Belgium, they were called "the widowmakers".

I think Canada bought 200 of them, lost 111 of them to accidents, they weren’t called “Lawn Darts” for nothing!

Funfact: Spain lost 0 planes in accidents. Must have done something right

I came here to say that! I always enjoy these, but this had me on the edge of my seat.

@Karl with a K Considering Russian aviations current performance incompetence is quite accurate.

Their pilots dont have soviet communist superpowers anymore

@@lordllewellynofdarkdelight2613 lol

Roger, will add Nike to game soon.

And Vulcans from the UK walked through the defences two years running.

@@charlestaylor9424 I was going to say 😂 - New York did not do well….

They used nukes to destroy the nukes

A lot of those old Nike sites are still around. There's one outside of Washington, DC that I have visited on several occasions.

Yes. Plus the English Electric Lightning's Firestreak IR missile was designed for rear aspect shots only. The later Red Top missile, also IR, had limited all-aspect capability.

Let's not forget the Lightning's obscenely quick climb rate...

And true period AIM-9s were also rear aspect too. IIRC the guys were using AIM-9L which is an all aspect version and wasn't produced until the 1970s.

thx

I recall Spock saying that the plane had nuclear tipped missiles, I wonder if that would have been possibly true?

​@@LonesomeTroubadour If it was running AIR-2A Genies or a variant of the Falcon, I believe it could have done just that

Not the F-104 as far as I know. F-89 and F-106 I believe could fire the nuclear Air-2 Genie missiles.

@@slowhornet4802 Thanks for the clarification on that, I appreciate it 👍

@@arthurhucksake2665 I guess the writers of Star Trek were clueless about the typical armament of the Starfighter. Perhaps they were thinking, it has missiles? They must be nuclear. lol

Not quite accurate. The 104 was intended as a quick reaction interceptor, especially during a sudden and very hot conflict. It certainly was not designed as turning dogfighter! The wing at George AFB in particular was tasked with acting as the cavalry, deploying quickly in the interceptor and air superiority roles wherever needed all over the world when and where airpower was suddenly required. Yes, they'd be supplanted by F-4s or whatever was in the pipeline over time, as the larger and slower mainline airpower deployed to the conflict zone, but they were doctrinally intended to be used in that role at the very start of a conflict. Remember, Kelly Johnson designed the 104 to be simple and easy to maintain and support for that era, so the perfect quick reaction interceptor. They'd hold the line, intercepting intruding enemy aircraft until the regular fighter-bomber wings could arrive, like F-4s, F-100s, F-102s, or whatever the Air Force deemed necessary. The wing at George was quickly deployed all over the world at times, and 104s were deployed to South Vietnam fairly early in the conflict in the interceptor/air superiority role. The 104's range is misunderstood. It actually featured a very early form of supercruise, and could get on station extremely quickly. In other words, the alleged lack of range was offset by its exceptionally fast cruise to the combat zone which is also a hallmark of most interceptors, by the way, like the E.E.Lightning and others. The addition of an aerial refueling probe helped matters somewhat. In terms of the scenario in this video, you are correct - Delta Darts and Daggers would have been more apt, but the Starfighter could have been used in the role quite easily.

Fuck me fella, just enjoy the video.

@Jeffrey Wall Voodoos as well, yes they were kind of a stopgap but they served for a long time with interceptor sqaudrons.

Outside of the USAF it was absolutely intended for and used as an interceptor a long time after 1960.

I was hoping I wasn't the only old person who remembered MST3K. I can't get the movie's music out of my head now.

Poopie Suit!

@@steamr0ll Lol. Came to remind about that. :)

@@susanmontgomery7121 Well I don’t remember saying I was an old person lol, but that’s ok 😉. I 💯 agree on the music: all I’ve heard in my head all day was the 🎶”Baaaahm, bum bum, baaahm…”🎶 theme that was played on the many occasions they showed F-104 stock footage. I don’t think I’ll ever get that out of my head 😂

@@steamr0ll I still don’t know why they called them that 😆

Yepp.... Seen it as a boy about 50 years ago and thought it was a space rocket....😂😂😂😂

Of course! The F-104 was the coolest Cold War fighter of all.

Tomorrow Is Yesterday Season 1 Ep 19

@@jyralnadreth4442 that's it, bro

A great Revell bundle kit

Ah yes I didn;t think of that...

This isn’t the role it was designed for, but a role it could fill if needed.

AIM-9D was also produced in limited numbers 1000 or so, AIM 9C was SARH too

@@jyralnadreth4442 : Neither of those are in DCS though

I prefer Tent Peg, it doesn’t sound quite a fatalistic:-)

I read that recently. Defies logic.....

Curious, the Me-262 was also primarily used for ground attack...maybe because against the Russians, high speed interceptors weren't really needed against the Soviet Union on a daily basis.

“Purpose built interceptor” no

well if you look at the competetion for the contract for germany for example it was for multirole fighter ,they were sold as multirole fighters so they were uswd as such

Not only that, Lockheed bribed and politicians, scum that they are, accepted. A shame because it seems like a really good interceptor.

The aircraft with its weak radar and loadout could not do much except climb like a rocket. 😂 There were other and better interceptors

YES!

@@vanguard9067 I well remember my Matchbox toy Starfighter. Not a model of course, but I played with it over and over.

The unit was deactivated around 1992 unfortunately, long before the events of 9/11 and was designated redundant after the fall of the Soviet Union. I retired at NAS Oceana, one of 7 military bases in the area around Langley.

And they trained the German pilots in the sunny clear desert Southwest USA. Then deployed them in Northern European weather.

@@lordllewellynofdarkdelight2613 : Plus, the quality of German fighter pilot training wasn't up to USAF standards in the 1960's. Simply put, the German pilots couldn't handle such a high performance aircraft at the time. The USAF required Starfighter pilots to have at least 1,500 flight hours of experience prior to flying the F-104. West German pilots had around 400 hours. The Luftwaffe would IMO have been better off going for the Vought F-8E Crusader (as used in relatively small numbers by the French Navy). The F-8E was actually a competitor for the F-104G in the Luftwaffe competition. It had much more lift, and much slower landing speed than the F-104.

@@timonsolus I am pretty sure Lockheed had better political connections than Vought or bribed better. The Starfighter contracts were numerous. Luftwaffe F-8s would have been interesting. The Crusader served the French for a long time. I'm curious if the Italian Air Force had as much trouble. From what I've read the Italians love the 104 and basically built a super 104.

Welcome back!

Roger noted.

The F104S had the Italian Sparrow equivalent( can't remember what it was called). Italian 104 interceptors were kicking ass against later aircraft during NATO exercises until replacement.

​@@rodneypayne4827 Aspide.

@@rodneypayne4827 - Yes, they carried the ASPIDE which was a much improved Sparrow variant but that showed up late in the F-104S service life. The F-104G could technically carry the Sparrow but few thought it was worth the trouble due to poor reliability. Early F-104 models could also carry the AIM-4 but it was a poor match.

There was an "Super Starfighter" designed by the codename CL-1200 Lancer that fixed most of Starfighter's issues by giving it a more of a delta wing design that was over 50% larger, also moving the wings higher on the fuselage and ailerons lower right next to the engine to eliminate downwash problems, plus the plane was made considerably longer to allow it to carry about 30% more fuel but it wasn't greenlit because it wasn't an enough of a generational leap that the airforce wanted and it lost out to F-5.

@@Laerei - The Lancer never went beyond the mockup stage so how much of an upgrade it was is debatable. In reality, the F-104 never lived up to its full potential because without microprocessor technology its avionics couldn't match its performance. An F-104 with the F-16s avionics would have been a world-beater but there were twenty years in between the two.

agreed

This is why we made the GR versions of 25 mods, we have created our own flight models for them to keep them roughly true to the real aircraft.