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NAE™Classroom:
Basic History of the F-104
Starfighter Aircraft

For Rod "Stickmaker" Smith's History of the F-104 see bottom of page.

During the Korean War, Kelly Johnson, chief designer of Lockheed, traveled to American Air Bases in South Korea and interviewed with many American "F-86 Sabre" pilots, asking them what they desired most in their fighter "ideal" jets. The answer was the same from everyone: speed and altitude. Thus the concept for the F-104 "Starfighter" was born. Returning to the US, Kelly Johnson "Borrowed" some 460 Five inch rockets from the US army, modified them with different wing designs, remote control equipment and cameras to test and observe the effects. This type of testing was necessary since Kelly Johnson was determined to build the first Mach 2 jet fighter, but in the 1950s there was not one single air tunnel in US at the time that was capable of generating that speed.

Finally the "Starfighter" took shape. It had a long pointed fuselage with a large T-tail and unswept, trapezoid shape wings which was only 10.5 cm at the thickest (0.41 mm at the edge of the slats) and it was joked that you could slicesteak with it. The wings pointed downwards, 10 degrees from horizontal, to cancel out a combination of pitch and yaw known as the Dutch Roll. The "Starfighter" was one of the first planes in the world to use the Boundary Layer Control technique - also known as blown flaps - designed by John Attinello. Basically the problem was that since dropping the flaps down would cause turbulence on the upper side of the flaps, efficiency was lost. Boundary Layer Control technique compensated for this by using titanium tubes to redirect some of the pressure from the powerplant to where the flaps and the wings joined and blow pressurized air over the flaps, "smoothing" out the turbulent air and thus regaining the flap's efficiency. Using such a design, the "Starfighter's" stall speed was reduced by 15 knots. This design did not appear on the "Starfighter" prototype since development was slower than estimated. Because of the large T-tail and the high speed of travel, it was believed that if the pilot ejected up, he would hit the tail. The solution was to eject down. However, this meant that it was impossible to eject during take off, landing and low level flight. After a few casualties, it was realized upward ejection was necessary, and with larger, powerful rocket motors on the ejection seat, Lockheed designed an ejection seat capable of going upward and over the T-tail; known as the C-2 ejection seat. The ejection seat had two steel wires at the bottom which was hooked on to the rear end of the flying boots and is used to pull the pilot's leg back and away from under the instrument panels in the event of an ejection. Some other countries, including West Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium used Martin Baker MkGQ7(F) ejection seats rather than Lockheed C-2. The Martin Baker ejection seat did not have any methods to pull the pilot's legs back in an ejection.

The USAF signed a contract with Lockheed for manufacture of a prototype airplane, the XF-104, in March, 1953. It was made and flown in less than a year, taking to the air for the first time in February, 1954 at Edwards AFB, California. Although the F-104 was designed to use the General Electric J-79 engine, the XF-104 was initially powered by a Wright J-65 Sapphire engine. This was because the J-79 engine was not ready in time for the prototype XF-104 airframe. Major redesign of rear fuselage and air intake was done to accommodate this weaker engine on the prototype. It could only achieve Mach 1.79 with the J-65 Engine.

Using the J-79 engine, the "Starfighter" finally achieved Mach 2. Designers eventually utilized the J-79 engine because of its thrust-to-weight ratio, small frontal area, afterburning and specific fuel consumption advantages. To accommodate the larger engine and increased fuel supplies, the fuselage was lengthened. All models starting with the YF-104 also incorporated the spiked cone engine air inlets, multi- shock intakes whose bleed and bypass systems match all flight regime airflow requirements. This intake design was considered as top secret at the time, and early "Starfighter" photos had intake covers fitted over it.

The first production model was the A model. Entering service in 1956, it could only carry two AIM-9B sidewinder missile on the wing tips. The J-79-GE-3 gave 14,800 lb of thrust. A total of 610 F-104As had been programmed, but only 153 were built. They were phased out in the US in 1960, but were recalled during the Berlin and Cuba crisis of 1961-62. Likewise, instead of the planned 112 F-104B twin seaters, the Air Force only received 26. The second seat replaced the Vulcan cannon.

In 1958 the more advanced C and twin seat model D entered service. The C model had some limited ground attack capabilities, together with a refueling probe, uprated engine and two underwing pylons added, increasing the total number of pylons from two in the A model to 5 in the C model. The new J-79-GE-7A gave 15,000 lb of thrust. Only 77 Cs and 21 Ds were ever built, but two groups of F-104Cs saw action in Vietnam in 1965-67. One of the many things which makes the F-104 Starfighter unique as an aircraft is that it was flown by Jacqueline Cochran in the early '60s to set one of her many records; traveling over 1,400 mph. The link provided on her name will take you to a site which gives you all the details about one of the great women in aviation history.

Back in 1956, Lockheed had begun the development of a F-104 which aimed to capitalize on the small wing and compact shape and ignore the poor dogfight maneuver capability. The F-104-7, known as the "Super Starfighter", was to be primarily an attack and reconnaissance aircraft, able to penetrate hostile airspace faster than any other aircraft, and benefiting from a very small radar cross section and small visual appearance seen head on. Lockheed recognized that USAF would not be a customer, and from the start it organized powerful sales team to try and persuade foreign customers that, even if the USAF didn't want it, the improved Starfighter would be the greatest thing in the sky. West Germany was the largest potential customer, who wanted to replace the aging F-84 and F-86 "Sabre" with approximately 1,000 advanced supersonic tactical aircraft. The new avionics on board the G model promised it to fly full throttle, at tree top height without tell-tale forward emissions and yet with precision navigational accuracy. Also part of this new aircraft was the stick steering autopilot, weapons delivery computer, new radio, IFF and gunsight, Infra-red night sight, and a new multimode radar. Soon the F-104-7 was renamed F-104G, and sales came from Germany, Canada, Japan, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, and USAF for MAP (military assistance program) aircrafts. Thus, whereas Lockheed had originally hoped to sell about 1,000 F-104s to the USAF, it actually sold 2,439 F-104s; but only 296 of which went to the USAF!

For a history of the F-104 by Rod "Stickmaker" Smith, click here for his article. (Opens in MS Word.)

View a video of the flight of a UF-104 by clicking here! (Will open in a separate window.)

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