Articles Wanted For 2012, Holdin the line but reinforcements ?

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Send to: gordon.birkett@optusnet.com

Best
Gordy

One type that should have graced the skies of Oz with a red rat on it in the early sixties

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I do love the shape of the Lightning.... but prefer to see the F-104 much more in Aussie skies!!! Here that howling sound of those J-79's :rolleyes:

Cheers!

Yeah, but we were on the RR Avon trail for awhile,.....Canberra/Sabre/Mirage O

Then again both had a terrible attrition rate, though the "Window Maker" did lead by a mile or a hundred

:D

As much as I love the shape of the F-104, there used to be a saying that went:

"The cheapest way to aquire an F-104 is to buy a small plot of land in Germany and one will eventually fall on it!"

This was of course a bit unfair, the high attrition rate could not be attributed to the type's design alone.

The reformed Luftwaffe was pretty much a new air force taking pilots trained on T-6's almost staight through to the latest double supersonic F-104.

I know I'm over simplying the argument.

Cheers

BC

Brendan

The 104 was designed as a high-altitude supersonic interceptor. The Luftwaffe used it as a low-level "strike" (i.e. nuke) interdictor. They would zip around in the weeds all over West Germany with their little highly loaded wings carrying underwing and tip fuel tanks (so they could get out of their airfield boundary) and presumably "shapes" (to be representative of a nuke, which wasn't carried for training).

Such a loadout on a high wingloader could lead to a superstall condition, and made many smoking holes in the West German landscape. I believe in excess of 300 were crashed. <_<

Well one good thing came out of the GAF use in the 60's,...and I wear them on my nose today,........transitional lenses,.......though mine wouldn't survive a nuclear flash!,..err maybe my body wouldn't and they would!

I think the final count,...maybe only to the mid 80's, was 187 GAF F-104Gs speared in. I think the fleet total was circa 700-800. This compares to our Mirage Fleet of 116 (though it never made it to the total all at once) with 37 or so hull losses,.......about the same at 25% over 25years

Thinking on; our active F-111 fleet at its highest with 24C/4A/8Gs was 7/0/1 hull losses at around 20% overall. Whether to add A8-136 belly landing to make 8/0/1 which makes it again 25% over 37years, though it reached 16.66% in just 5 years when we had only 24 Cs,.....when by 1979 the hulls numbered only 20

Our F/A-18A/Bs have been good:57A/18B with 2/2 Hull losses which brings us in at around 6% over 27years with the last in the early 90's. Though from a human prospective, shocking, with they being all fatal

One will wonder what the F/A-18F and future F-35 Fleets ratio will be, hopefully nil.

Cheers
Gordy


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