Not crazy, just human.
I am taking a SIA A330 from Singapore to Brisbane at Christmas, and it crossed my mind that I’m taking the same aircraft type as AF447 across a stormy over-water equatorial region while no-one knows what caused the loss of AF447 in those circumstances.
As an aviation enthusiast and a very rational person, I was a little angry with myself; but I thought it just the same!

I think it is totally human to be somehow reluctant, but as aviation insider one should force oneself to take the flight irregardless of such considerations. There are other considerations that are totally valid: I for example recommend anyone not to use Turkish registered airlines as I see their miserable safety record and the common causes in all of the accidents.
For a time I would also have declined to use MD-11, as I regard them as not-so-good aircraft. However, the passenger version is operated safely by the two remaining operators.

I’m going to respectfully disagree on some of your points, and here’s why:

Take Robert Shaw’s book on “Fighter Combat – Tactics and Maneuvering”, he would generally say the same.

You say the MiG-21 would be superior when F-104 pilots aren’t well trained, yet that statement could apply to any airplane. If MiG-21 pilots aren’t well trained, then the F-104 is superior. Just a blanket statement that doesn’t really do anything to make a good point. Training is always the most important factor in any duel.

No, the tendency for a duel of not well trained pilots is general drop in energy state, the fight ends low speed and low altitude. As soon as the speed drops, the MiG pilots would have easy game versus the Starfighter. The Starfighter pilot – in order to win – would need a training advantage.

The USAF had many tactical short-comings in the early years of the war, but that is largely directed at Phantom crews, who became reliant on the aircraft’s radar and BVR missiles and lost the art of close-in fighting. Who’s to say the F-104 force would have been the same way? Built with an internal gun and short-range AIM-9’s, the F-104’s way of fighting was the dogfight, and though I have no proof to back up my opinion, I feel like F-104 pilots were probably fairly well trained in dogfighting, especially in comparison to the Phantom guys.

The USAF had a general shortcoming in consistent dogfighting training. Most air forces at that time didn’t teach that, the Russians didn’t start until just before the end of the cold war. Many details about that can be found in the stories about John Boyd.

As for the F-104 vs. MiG-21, yes the F-104 has high wing loading, but that’s certainly not the only performance parameter that matters. The F-104 has top-notch acceleration, its faster than the MiG-21 by a fair margin (especially at lower altitudes), it has a better endurance, and a better avionics setup. The MiG-21 wouldn’t really get a comparable radar set until the later MiG-21bis variant. Though the early AIM-9’s weren’t the best, they were better than their Soviet counterparts. Like the Fishbed, the Starfighter is small and hard to see. It also has a very impressive rate of roll which is important in that it allows a pilot to change direction very quickly.

Radar doesn’t really count, the engagement is purely visual. I said that the F-104 had some systems advantage like the better gun, better cockpit view and more responsive engine. The missiles, the AA-2 was a copy of the AIM-9B, so the difference was limited. In the end, you need a rear hemisphere shot and some luck.
The wing loading difference would really kill the F-104 as soon as it gets slow and not immediately exits the engagement.

I think that the F-104 is so well-known for being a strike aircraft with so many nations that people tend to underestimate it as an actual fighter. It has many qualities that make it a good fighter, and it’s performance was even comparable to later aircraft such as the MiG-23 and F-4 in some ways. Speed is life and the F-104 has plenty of it. It was by no means perfect, but certainly better than most give it credit for in my opinion.

The F-104 can be a fighter, but it is a tricky one. As I said (and you apparently ignored) the F-104 needs better trained pilots. You cannot just try to point your nose on your opponent, you need to consider your energy status well, and plan ahead. When doing this, the F-104 can be a nasty surprise as it has some qualities. But it is certainly no genuine air combat design (apart from interception).

Doesn’t mean it was a superior fighter to the Starfighter though. Besides, the -21 has its own set of quirky handling characteristics. The delta wing allows good agility, but it bleeds speed quite rapidly, whereas the F-104 is able to easily get lost energy back due to its superb thrust to weight ratio.

I’m not saying the F-104 is superior to the MiG-21, but rather I think they are on fairly equal terms with the F-104 having advantages in some areas, the MiG-21 in others.

For the average pilot, the MiG-21 was better. It had its shortcomings. The energy bleed for a set g-load was actually comparable. The Starfighters small wings result in very large lift coefficients, resulting in large induced drag.

The most likely scenario (for pilots without dedicated DACT) would be a quick initial turn of both aircraft into each other, costing both a substantial amount of their airspeed. Then the MiG has substantial advantage, and will get a fire position if the F-104 doesn’t break away under usage of a good amount of altitude (potentially using its better handling at high airspeeds and low altitudes). The F-104 would need to use the vertical plane and/or use team tactics.

Air combat between MiG-21’s and F-104’s in Vietnam would have been interesting. F-104 pilots were no doubt trained to dogfight as they were armed with short-range missiles and they had the cannon.

The tactics matter. The F-104 pilot should keep his airspeed up and make hit&run attacks. If the opponent tries to lurk him into a turning combat, he should disengage.

I would say that the MiG-21 would be superior especially when the F-104 pilots are not well trained, while the F-104 can maintain an advantage if he executes his tactics well. Considering the tactical shortcomings of the USAF crews in the beginning of the campaign, air combats in Vietnam would have been a disaster for USAF.

The Starfighter is disadvantaged by high wing loading, a big issue versus the nimble MiG-21. Advantage are its probably better acceleration and the much better view. The early MiG-21s also had shortcomings in system solutions and a very sluggish engine response. Also the MiG-21 has a very limited combat endurance.
With 1st generation IR-AAM I guess most combats would end as draw, except one surprises the other.

I’m quite sure that the well-documented $1.4bn “grant” the Japanese government made towards the B787 programme has nothing whatsoever to do with the extent of this patience threshold. 😎

I wonder how the “risk share partners” finance all the risk they are generously sharing with Boeing at the moment.
Caring is All About Sharing :confused:

I wasn’t ignoring the weight. You said there was a significant difference, and then later said it was easy to find via google. It looks to me like you haven’t supported your claim.

Damn, why are you so pedantic about specific numbers? You follow the typical tactic of the looser: attack one specific argument out of a whole line and imply thereby that all my arguments are flawed.

Wider fan diameter increases engine weight (at similar technological level) [it also increases wetted area and therefore zero-lift drag). That is common knowledge in aviation engineering. Maybe you should work on the latter, then you wouldn’t use misplaced buzz-words like “game changer” for such a config, especially when you have nothing to back up that claim.

Can you please provide a linky with weights of GEnx and CF-6-80C2? I am unable to find GEnx weight.

The “base” GEnx produces about 54,000lb of thrust, the next one up the line, the 1B64, produces 63,800. It seems to me that this is right in the ballpark of the CF6-80 series.

Am I Google? Go, find it yourself!

But that a larger fan for a similar and potentially higher thrust engine is heavier, that is something people might know.

It’s ironic that so many people seem to be “proving” that the Germans and Japanese were very advanced WRT radar, yet they don’t seem to have been able to field tactially useable sets in the during the war.

It has been widely recognized for many years that the Axis lagged far behind the Allies WRT radar. For example, USN submarines were radar equipped very early in the war, yet Japanese destroyers were never so equipped on a wide scale, and only a few were ever equipped at all. Alternatively, the U Boats never had radar, yet the destroyers and aircraft hunting them did.

The Germans used radar receivers to detect British bombers.
I don’t think they were lagging behind, lack of resources maybe prevented the widespread use. But from the technology point of view, Germany was in many fields far ahead.
Japan was different, it really had a huge technological gab towards USA.