How the F-104 Starfighter Terrified the World – MiG-21’s Worst Nightmare.

Video from the channel Jet Focus about Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 7:13. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

A look back at the history of the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, the missile-shaped fighter the United States unveiled in 1958 that ended up carrying the nickname "Widowmaker." The video covers its design, its hazards, its operators and its retirement, with testimonies from former pilots who describe it as fast across the whole flight envelope but reluctant to turn and able to carry little payload.

In the depths of the Cold War, facing increasingly fast Soviet bombers, Kelly Johnson and Lockheed's Skunk Works team designed an interceptor capable of exceeding Mach 2 and climbing to high altitude; it entered service in 1958. The United States Air Force retired it in 1969, but NATO countries kept it in service through the 1980s, with Italy the last to retire it, in 2004. In the 1970s Lockheed became embroiled in an international bribery scandal linked to F-104 contracts in Germany, Japan and the Netherlands.

Wings only 4 inches thick at the root, a General Electric J79 engine with afterburner and a T-tail; it broke speed, altitude and time-to-climb records in a single year. Its high wing loading demanded very high takeoff and landing speeds, the T-tail could put it into a deep stall, and early examples had a downward-firing ejection seat. West Germany received 916 aircraft, of which 292 crashed and 116 pilots died; even so, Luftwaffe pilots called it "the Ferrari of the skies." It was flown by more than 15 countries; in the 1965 Indo-Pakistani war the Pakistani air force used it to shoot down an Indian Vampire. NASA used it as a chase plane and testbed, and it served to train Mercury and Gemini crews.