Lockheed F-104 Starfighter - A Short History (US Air Force Aircraft History)

Video from the channel A Short History about Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 5:33. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

A short history of the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, from its conception to its service in the United States and in other countries.

In the early 1950s, USAF pilots asked for a small, simple, fast aircraft capable of flying high, able to match the MiG-15. Lockheed Skunk Works formed a team in March 1952, presented the concept in November, and secured a contract in March 1953 for two XF-104 prototypes, which carried a Wright J65 because the General Electric J79 was not yet ready. The first flew on 4 March 1954 at Edwards; the second was lost weeks later during gunnery trials. 17 YF-104As followed, already with the J79, and the first production F-104A reached the USAF in January 1958.

It had a very thin, swept-back wing with boundary-layer control to reduce landing speed, an operational limitation to Mach 2 due to J79 overheating, and a 20 mm M61 Vulcan cannon. The downward-firing ejection seat of the early versions cost 21 pilots their lives. It served in the Taiwan Strait Crisis (1958) and the Berlin Crisis (1961), when 60 aircraft were deployed to Europe, and in Vietnam: 2,937 sorties and 5 losses in 1965, and a further 2,269 sorties and 9 losses between 1966 and 1967. In Germany, with the F-104G, 116 pilots died, and Erich Hartmann considered it an unsafe aircraft. Pakistan used it in its wars with India.