On Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:31:49 -0500, "Walter Hamler" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: > I have seen these Starfighters twice now this year. The amazing thing > I heard about them is that they are brand new. Made in 2006. It seems > that Canada is the only country still licensed to make the > Starfighter.
Interesting. Who on earth do they sell them to? If memory serves (and that's a bit of a worry these days) I think Australia had the F104 among its short-listed Sabre replacements back in the early 60s. Eventually we went for the Mirage instead. Cheers Brian ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Brian Walters Western Sydney Australia http://members.westnet.com.au/brianwal/SL/ > There is another team of Starfighter pilots, both retired Air Force > Generals I believe, who have restored two older versions. > I had a chance several years ago at Oshkosh to hear General Chuck > Yeager talk about his experience with the F-104. He is the one who set > an altitude record with it back in the 70's of almost 120,000 feet. Of > course, it did have an extra rocket engine strapped on! He said the > biggest problem with the German versions was the engines they put in > them. They had a much higher thrust and the compressor blades kept > shattering resulting in cutting the plane in half. If that happened at > low altitude you don't have much time to punch out! The other thing I > never understood about the German 104's.... you could fly from one end > of the country to the other (East/West back then) in less than a few > minutes! > > Walt > > On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 1:54 PM, Adam Maas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 10:24 AM, frank theriault > > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> On Sun, Nov 9, 2008 at 3:57 AM, Brian Walters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> <snip> > >>> No. 6 is my favourite. I always thought that the F104 was a beautiful > >>> piece of machinery. > >> > >> I've always loved Starfighters, too. I always thought they were just > >> so cool and sleek looking - even if they had a propensity to fall from > >> the sky every so often. > >> > >> cheers, > >> frank > > > > Note that's a CF-104 being flown by Starfighters in that shot. > > > > And there's nothing unsafe about the Starfighter, it was a superb > > high-altitude interceptor and was quite safe in that role. The problem > > was the crazy idea that the Canadians and Germans had of using the > > things as low-level strike platforms that caused most of the crashes. > > heck, the CF-104's were air-to-ground only (and actually, Nuke-only > > until 1972) having no air-to-air capability whatsoever. We shoulda > > bought F-105's instead. > > > > -- > > M. Adam Maas > > http://www.mawz.ca > > Explorations of the City Around Us. > > > > -- > > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > > PDML@pdml.net > > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and > > follow the directions. > > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and > follow the directions. -- -- http://www.fastmail.fm - Same, same, but different... -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
