Lockheed F-104 Starfighter: the Mach 2 "missile with a man in it"

The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter is a single-engine, single-seat supersonic interceptor built around a radically thin, short wing for high-speed and high-altitude performance. Lockheed Corporation designed and built it, and licensed partners in Canada, Italy, West Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and Belgium produced it for their own air forces. It flew first as a United States Air Force interceptor and fighter-bomber, then went on to much longer careers with NATO and allied air forces in Europe and Asia, and it is retired from military service, with a handful of examples still flown by civilian operators as warbirds¹.

Design and development

Lockheed engineer Kelly Johnson drew up the design after interviewing United States fighter pilots in Korea in 1951, who asked for a small, simple aircraft with excellent performance rather than a more complex one. The resulting shape was unlike other fighters of its era: a wing with a thickness-to-chord ratio of only 3.36% and an aspect ratio of 2.45, mounted well aft on the fuselage, with a drooped nose and a high tailplane. Lockheed signed the design contract on 12 March 1953, and the XF-104 prototype first flew on 4 March 1954, less than a year later. It became the first production aircraft capable of sustained flight at Mach 2, and the first production F-104A entered USAF service on 26 February 1958¹.

The thin wing that gave the Starfighter its speed also gave it a reputation for being unforgiving. Its leading edges, just 0.41 mm thick, were sharp enough to injure ground crew, and the aircraft needed a boundary layer control system to keep its landing speed manageable at over 200 knots. In a tight turn it could sustain 7g below 5,000 feet on full afterburner, but burned through its fuel quickly doing so, leaving it a poor dogfighter despite its straight-line speed. Early aircraft also used a downward-firing ejection seat that caused 21 USAF pilot deaths in low-altitude emergencies before Lockheed replaced it with an upward-firing C-2 seat; later export aircraft were retrofitted with Martin-Baker Mk.7 “zero-zero” seats¹.

Specifications

The definitive F-104G variant is 16.66 m long with a wingspan of 6.63 m and a maximum take-off weight of 13,170 kg. A single General Electric J79 afterburning turbojet powers it to a top speed of about Mach 2, roughly 2,459 km/h; Wikipedia’s specifications table does not give a separate cruise figure. Ferry range is about 2,620 km, though its combat radius with external stores was far shorter, around 680 km. A single pilot flies the combat versions; two-seat trainer variants carry an instructor in a second cockpit. In 1960 dollars, the F-104G’s flyaway cost was about $1.42 million¹.

Variants

The first production model, the F-104A, used the J79-GE-3 engine, and the F-104C added a centreline pylon, underwing weapons stations and an M61 cannon firing linkless ammunition. The F-104B and F-104D were dual-control trainer versions without the cannon. By far the most common variant was the F-104G, a redesigned airframe with 96 new forgings, a larger tail, powered rudder and improved avionics including NASARR radar and an LN-3 inertial navigation system, built for West Germany and NATO allies. Italy flew its own all-weather interceptor version, the F-104S, fitted with FIAR/NASARR F15G radar and the ability to carry AIM-7 Sparrow missiles¹.

Licensed production outside the United States ran through four European manufacturing consortia: ARGE South and ARGE North in Germany and the Netherlands, the West Group in Belgium, and an Italian group led by Fiat, alongside Canadair in Canada and Mitsubishi in Japan. In total, 2,578 Starfighters were built¹.

Operators and service

The Starfighter’s first operational use came not in combat but as a deterrent: the USAF airlifted F-104s to Taiwan during the 1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis, assembling and readying them within 30 hours of arrival, and it later sent 60 F-104As to Europe during the 1961 Berlin Crisis without seeing combat. In Vietnam, the 479th Tactical Fighter Wing flew 5,206 combat sorties between 1965 and 1967, mainly escorting EC-121 early warning aircraft, for 14 aircraft lost and no confirmed air-to-air kills. American frontline use was brief: the USAF retired the type from active service in 1969, after grounding it for three months early on over J79 engine accidents¹.

The Starfighter’s longer and more intense service came with other air forces. The West German Luftwaffe flew it as its main Cold War fighter from 1961 to 1989, and it saw sustained combat elsewhere too. Pakistan’s No. 9 Squadron flew F-104As in the 1965 war with India, claiming a disputed first Mach 2 air-to-air missile kill and several other victories over Indian aircraft, before retiring the type in 1972 under US spare-parts sanctions. Taiwan’s air force fought the last direct Cold War air battle between the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China on 13 January 1967, when its F-104Gs shot down two PLAAF MiG-19s over Kinmen for the loss of one Starfighter, and flew the type until 1997. Other operators included Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, Japan, Turkey, Jordan, Denmark, Greece, Norway, Spain and Portugal. The Italian Air Force was the last military operator, retiring the F-104 on 31 October 2004; it is now retired from military service everywhere, with civilian operators flying surviving examples as warbirds¹.

Safety record

The Starfighter’s safety record varied sharply by operator. The West German Luftwaffe lost 292 of its 916 Starfighters between 1961 and 1989, a loss rate of nearly 32%, killing 116 pilots; the German press nicknamed it “Witwenmacher,” the widowmaker. Early American losses included a May 1957 YF-104A crash caused by an aileron malfunction¹, and ejection-seat problems added to the toll until Lockheed fixed them. The thin wing, demanding handling and the aircraft’s unforgiving speed envelope were recurring factors across the fleet, though loss rates among other operators, such as the United States and Italy, were considerably lower than West Germany’s.

Similar aircraft

• Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21: the Soviet delta-wing contemporary, named as a comparable type of the same era.
• Convair F-106 Delta Dart: an American supersonic interceptor developed alongside the F-104 for a similar high-speed interception role.
• Republic F-105 Thunderchief: a contemporary single-engine American fighter-bomber that, like the F-104, served heavily over Vietnam.