Thank you Alfakilo, it is always useful reading first hand accounts, it helps to make a more “spherical” opinion. About dropping the bombs before coming back to base, i believe he intends the conventional live ammunition, not the smoke bombs. Unfortunately i understand that reading my translation must be frustrating, making the translation was even more frustrating for me, not just because of the language, but also because often i had to deal with terms that i can’t translate faithfully to english.

The unfamiliar procedures, from what i understood, where part of the “drastical measures” that the airforce adopted after they had the first accidents, until they can figure out a more technical solution (which came later with the several modifications that were done on the aircrafts as he says, up to 1970). In another part of the article (it’s too long to translate everything), he mentioned exactly that they adopted “drastical measures” that helped keep the crash rate to acceptable levels (or in any case to acceptable compared to other operators) and in the first period without having to ground the fleet, because normally the flaps assymetrical problem would require to ground everything, but since it was a new aircraft and hence precious, the airforce command wanted at all costs to avoid grounding the fleet, while avoiding at the same time that more pilots being killed by same situations.

For example, Germany did ground the fleet:

In 1966 Johannes Steinhoff took over command of the Luftwaffe and grounded the entire F-104 fleet until he was satisfied that problems had been resolved or at least reduced.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_F-104_Starfighter

This is another example of the flap problem that i found just by a quick search:

JF-104A (56-0749) with ventrally-mounted Air Launched Sounding Rocket (ALSOR). NASA test pilot Milton O. Thompson ejected from this aircraft on 20 December 1962, after an asymmetrical flap condition made the jet uncontrollable.

http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/photo/F-104/HTML/E-6511.html

And later:
operated by the 4510 CCTW at Luke AFB (German shadow serial number 2556) coded 13274 (FG-274)
crashed August 5, 1968 at Gila Bend range after encountering asymmetrical flap condition

http://www.916-starfighter.de/Large/Luke/63-13274.htm

If 4-5 pilots had been killed in the F-104, then it’d be easy to say it was pilot error. But over a 100 deaths on the type? Might want to take a look at the aircraft itself, and at the end of the day, these F-104 pilots were top-notch. Sorry but, it just says what kind of aircraft the Starfighter was, not a very good one.

The one pilot i had talked years ago, who was in the first wave of F104 pilots and saw the “worst” of it, never trusted it. The one of the article, was more gentle with it. But, by reading some accident occasions, the idea i formed, was that it had some serious design flaws (as well as technical at least initially) and operational difficulties that were killing the pilots more easily than other aircrafts.

Here another part of the narration:

The wing of this aircraft was particularly small. As a result, in order to produce lift to stay in the air, it had to fly at high speeds. The speeds that had to be reached during take off and sustained during landing would be prohibitive without the curving surfaces on the leading and trailing edge of the wing. The flaps of the F104 were in deed huge in comparison with the total wing area. They were about 1/3 of its surface. So in take off, we were using them to increase the curve of the wing and during landing, they were serving as air brakes. And i will explain to you why i say this: The position of the flaps was in the forward sector of the left side of the cockpit panel, right next to the engine throttle. This lever had 3 positions: Up, Take off and Land. In Up position, the forward and rear curving surfaces were alligned with the chord of the wing. In “Take off” position, the forward were going 15 degrees up and the rear at 30. While at “Land” position, the forward were going down 30 and the back 45! But here there was a particularity. As soon as the flaps were being secured at 45 down, a series of holes was being revealed from their base, from which compressed air was being released, which on its turn, was coming from the 17th grade of the engine compressor. The creation of an additional current of air on the flaps, was helping to the smoothing of air flow globally, so it was delaying to a certain degree, the stalling. So the LM engineers managed to limit the landing speed at 175 knots. A number very high for the aircrafts of the era, but also for modern aircrafts. I remember that we were watching in awe the new aircraft and telling at each other when we first went to the F104G that “here is the human limit”. Of course after some hundred hours of flight we didn’t have the same opinion anymore. We had adapted. Anyway back to the flaps. Every flap was moving to one of the 3 positions that i mentioned, independently from the other, by an electric motor through an axis. Initially there had not been noticed problems. But in the summer of 1965, probably due to the use or material fatigue things changed. So one day a technical guideline came to Tanagra, mentioning some accidents that had occured in Canada and USA. These accidents had been caused by assymetrical movement of the flaps during their extension or contraction, by failure of one of the electric motors. This guideline was ending, saying that all aircrafts should be subjected to a modification: a relatively simple mechanism that would block the movement of a flap, if the other flap had stopped moving and the difference was about to exceed 2 or 3 degrees if memory serves me. A few days later, a second guideline arrived from the Tactical Air Command, saying that we should delay raising the flaps and slats after take off until we arrive to a safe for ejection altitude and to be on alert for a technical problem eventuality and it “alert” was also being proposed during approach. To be precise, as soon as we were bringing the lever to “Land” we should count “1001,1002,1003” and at 1004, we should have our hand to the ejection handle, in order to be ready to eject in the occasion a violent inclination was to appear. Also, it was proposing to lower the flaps during approach to as high altitude possible and at level flight so that we could have a margin of reaction. In other words, we couldn’t make a “careless” use of the flap lever. All this, in order to avoid grounding the fleet. Because all this was limiting the operational reliability of the aircraft since we were putting the flaps to “take off position” also during manouvering in the air. Another important detail is that, according to the manufacturer’s reccomendations, we should lower the flaps to “land” position and then to raise them again to “take off”. This to make sure that the electric motors were working and the entire moving mechanism of the flaps, but also because the inclination of the flaps when moved from the “Up” position to “Take off” position was lower – by some degrees – than the inclination from when they were being moved from “land” to “Take off” position.

Narration of the accident of his Wing Commander, Efstathiou, who was the 3rd instructor that had returned from USA:
“The right flap of the aircraft of Efstathiou was “stuck” towards the move to “up” position, while the left one continued its course and as soon as the assymetry appeared, the aircraft immediately rolled to the left and nailed itself to the runway. It transformed into a big ball of fire. I repeat, because it’s difficult to believe, that i hadn’t realized what had happened. Everything had happened within seconds. Efstathiou had take off as No.1, with Heracles Vrettos as No.2 for an instrument trainning flight. They climbed to “Hi-cone”, did the “holding pattern” and started descent for Tacan approach. They lowered the flaps to “Land” position and arriving over the airfield, put the lever to “up” position, finishing the “missed approach” procedure for circling back and landing. That’s where the problem came up and at the altitude he was and with his great speed, he had no time to react. And he didn’t have the time to react exactly because he didn’t follow the guideline’s limitation that had arrived from the Tactical air command. If he had selected the retraction of the flaps while at higher altitude, the result wouldn’t have been the same. What he was himself stressing during briefing every morning during briefing, unfortunately he didn’t follow.

Mr. Marinos and Anagnostu (the 2 first instructors that had returned from USA) were returning for landing to Tanagra in a TF104. During approach, the engine failed. Despite it was close to the airfield, the aircraft had to be abbandoned in this case. And this, because it was immediately diving, contrary to all other aircrafts which in the specific case would glide to the start of the runway. The result was unfortunately for both to lose their lives. Anagnostu didn’t have the time to eject. Marinos ejected, but was killed, before even to have the time to separate from his seat. He was found strapped to it on the asphalt of the nearby highway. It took quite some time before before people started to trust the aircraft again. There were many modifications done, including those to the flaps, pilots and mechanics started to adapt and gradually things took their course with the result that by the end of the 60s we weren’t confronting some particular problem with the aircraft and its “particularities”.

I am not a pilot, but i noticed some points:

1) The unusually small wing, was forcing to high speeds always, even in landing. In case of problem, this kills you easier.

2) Again, due to the small wing, the flap’s functionality was becoming crucial. If they failed for mechanical reasons, or if the pilot “forgot” one of these “flap tricks”, he was dead (like the one that never managed to get out of the dive mentioned before or his Wing Commander).

3) The tendency to dive immediately instead of gliding without engine power, was again probably fatal, especially in combination with the initial C2 ejection seat (the case of the first 2 instructors that had C2 seats).

4) Add the psychological factor to the pressure on the pilot. What kind of psychology and concentration one has when he gets “guidelines” to be on alert on take off, on alert on landing and to have one hand on ejection lever and after a while see your instructors get killed one by one?

5) The “unusual” design, was probably somewhat “cancelling” the experience of the pilots on other aircraft types. Because when even a Wing Commander (who must have many flight hours and for this was sent to USA to return as instructor) get killed, there must be something “weird” with the aircraft too, that “helped” him underestimate the importance of the timing of the flap change.

So especially the batches of pilots that were the “pioneers” of the type, were proven by facts “guinea pigs”. No wonder why some never felt comfortable about it.

I think Marcel Dassault, once said “if an aircraft looks good, it will fly well”. From my point of view, the F104 looks like an aircraft that some chopped its wings. Or like a missile with oversized fins. And it had to fly fast all the time, exactly becuase it couldn’t fly well. It’s the same as going with bicycle. When you ‘re new to it or if they give you a very heavy for your age bicycle, if you don’t want to fall, you have to go quick.

If it was a gun, i would call it the “anti-Kalashnikov”, in the sense that the Kalashnikov is a friendly rifle and can endure any kind of bad treatment and bad user. And that’s why it’s a successful rifle and all its users love it. People do mistakes all the time. If your weapon kills you every time you make a mistake, then it’s the weapon’s problem too. That flap thing sounded so tricky that i am not sure i translated it to a degree that one can understand half of it. Thank God rifles don’t have flaps.

But that’s just my opinion of an “amateur”.

Sorry but, it was just a heap of white elephant dung! Read what Commander Ade Orchard RN thought of it on the Harrier thread.

Do you refer to this?

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showpost.php?p=1680806&postcount=34

It made me curious to see if i can find some greek source on the subject, and i did and agrees with Mr. Ade Orchard.

http://www.defencenet.gr/defence/media/CO_89_F-104.pdf

Most of the article (in greek) is from narration of ex F104 pilot. If i have time maybe i will translate all of it some other day. I pass directly to the operational part he mentions (free translation):

It was proven all these years in facts, that the F104G was ideal for roles of nuclear strike and reconnaissance thanks to its performance, but it was ensuring limited to zero capabilities as interceptor or aircraft against ground targets. The reason is against explained to us by Mr. Katsilierakis (the ex pilot):

“I can say that the F104 never proved itself as weapons machine. What i mean… We put it in interception and very soon we realised that it wasn’t fit for the role for the very simple reason that it wasn’t agile at all. At first we relied on the radar for target acquisition in a cone of 60 degrees more or less in front of the aircraft, but it wasn’t easy task. Because, on the one hand, the search range of the radar was small, so with the speed you had like it or not you were approaching to the target very much, to the point that you could see it and on the other hand, you had to actually approach him to the point you could see him because you had no medium range missiles. You had only GAR-8 and the machine gun. So you had to enter in dogfight and for such a fight, the F104 was simply not done for the job. Because if the target was aware of your presence and turned abruptly and in great degree, you couldn’t follow it. You were losing him because you couldn’t keep up with his turn ratio. The only thing you didn’t have to fear though, was that he could take your six o’ clock. You were putting the throttle at full speed, bringing back the stick and you disappeared. There was no chance that other fighter could match your climb rate or acceleration. Initially we had both roles in the 2 squadrons, that is, both interception and striking.

As far as this last one (striking) is concerned, the real capabilities were for tears. I remember that when i was serving at 336, i had as target the AB at Eski Sehir (Turkey). I was supposed to go there with 4 external fuel tanks and an iron bomb of 750 lbs and my “deadly” M61 gun of course. But, what damage could i really do with 1 750lbs bomb? Minimal i believe and the same for the other aircrafts in my formation. We had in other words, extremely limited weapons load ability. And as for the CAS missions, because we had been trainned for those too, it was the same story. Simply there we had the opportunity to carry more weapons load, but the flight characteristics of the aircraft weren’t helping us. Of course later we bought multiple bomb and rocket pods, so our ability to carry ordnance was improved. But here too, the aircraft was demanding the maximum of the pilot’s ability and performance. In attack runs with low level penetration flight path it would not forgive any mistakes or forgetfulness. I remember characteristically the Papastavru case, outside the Arta firing zone in 1980, who died because during the dive that he had made to align himself with the target and make the drop, he forgot to lower the flaps to “take off” position, with the result that he never managed to disengage, that is, to exit from the dive.”

He is actually more forgiving about the accidents on the type, “once HAF took drastic measures about it” as he says. He also describes some original accidents which had to do with some weird flap problems. Anyway, the start was disastrous. 4 HAF pilots went to USA to return as instructors for the rest of pilots. On 6 May 1964 the last 2 return. On 8 May, on a TF104, the first 2 instructions get killed by engine failure. On 19 June 1965, a single seated crashes again. On 15 July, the 3rd instructor gets killed. Also the initial ejection seat, was good only for 2000ft and above, in level flight. If you were below that or during dive, you were dead.

This as brief summary of the rest. But he is more “gentle” about that compared to the pilot that i had met personally once. For example, he says that “soon enough, the press adopted the nickname “Flying coffin” with not too much consideration”. Anyway 16 pilots dead in 29 years, although as i found in a forum, there were probably 40 crashes out of 149 aircrafts (i can’t find exact ratios), which at least as percentage was “good” compared to others.

Interestingly, the spanish i found had no accident, but also the most brief career of the aircraft in their airforce (only 7 years!) and the US instructor of the Spanish, was a bit later killed in a F104… One can’t help ask himself, how come the Spanish got away like this… Because all others flying in “good weather countries” also got their share.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_F-104_Starfighter_operators

Is it fast turnaround, and VTOL in rough airfields, F-16 class MTOW then Gripen is your choise.

But if both fits youre requirements, i would go for the cheapest, and fit the budget. To du anything else would be spending taxpayers money on things thats not needed. That extra cash can allways be better used elsewere.

No need to insist further on that, you have me convinced. Please, i would like 40 of them in an economy pack. Did i mention that i want Gripen NG for HAF? 😀

You have your opinion and I have mine, since neither of us have access to the target system theres little point in debating it 🙂

No, i haven’t access to the target system, but i do have access to google (without having to translate from greek magazines). I am sure you can easily find that it is pre-programmed before flight and can’t be updated during flight. Once this is taken as fact, it is understandable, that hitting a moving target becomes very problematic. You need a) real time information about the ship’s initial position, speed and course and an image of it, b) you much hope that this ship will continue to the same course and speed, so to arrive to the exact coordinates you expect it to be and set these coordinates in the missiles computer before flight.

So the RAF has no dedicated anti-shipping missile, though they do have missiles which are capable of performing an anti-shipping role, namely Storm Shadow. The Storm Shadow should be fine given a comparison to a new dedicated anti-shipping missile like NSM, both are high-subsonic, and both use GPS/INS and infrared seeker for guidance, the main difference between them being that Storm Shadow is longer ranged, and the Storm Shadow’s warhead weight (~1000lbs) is the same as the weight of the entire NSM missile (~1000lb). The RAF doesn’t seem particularly interested in ASuW at this point in time though.

Storm Shadow in anti-shipping? First i will see it and only then i will believe it. Unless the ship is anchored in port. The NSM can be updated with new data during flight. The Storm Shadow can’t be. It depends exclusively on the target data you input before flight. As a result, it will be a VERY difficult task to make sure in pre-flight time, when and where an enemy ship will be by the time that the Storm Shadow will arrive to the target area. Moreover, the NSM, uses the IIR seeker to autonomously recognise and engage targets from a database in its library. The Storm Shadow, uses the IR image, to compare it with the GPS data and the satellite imagery about its target. If it can’t correlate the imagery with the pre-programmed area, it aborts. This is why the NSM can be used in anti-shipping, while the Storm Shadow can’t.

Aspis do you know what HAFs oppinion/experience of the F-104 was? Good, bad?
And what about the F-5?

I can’t claim to be able to say HAF’s opinion on the subject, because i would need a large pool of pilots to make a poll out of them and defence magazines weren’t so widespread in the old days. Today magazines, in the -rare- occasions where they speak of them (youngsters want to read about the new aircrafts, not the old ones), are IMHO a bit unreliable, because about everything they add the adjective “the legendary”. Legendary this , legendary that… In one Defencenet’s article that i remember, they were using a phrase about the F104, which was more or less “no other aircraft was so much deeply loved and at the same time hated than the F104”. If you visit HAF’s “historical” page for the F104,the “official story” says “They are retired in 1993, having registered one of the lowest accident rates, for an aircraft that in many NATO countries became notorious for the accidents in peace period”.
http://www.haf.gr/el/mission/weapons/historic/1951_1973/f-104g.asp

Now an “unofficial” story:

I did have several years ago, the occasion of a brief talk with a retired HAF pilot of F104. He started with North American Harvard and then he was sent to the F104s. He graduated 1st or 2nd from HAF’s accademy and ended up in very high ranking in HAF’s hierarchy. Anyway, as far as he was concerned, there was no “deep love” in him about the F104. He said that it was “fast and with good acceleration, but apart this, there wasn’t anything you could cheer about”. He also said, that if he could have given the choice, after HAF’s academy, he would fly with… Spitfire (about which he had spoken with older piltos than him and he had a high idea of it). He said that the F104 was “extremely unreliable”, “erratic”, “difficult to fly”, that he lost many friends who were good pilots in that aircraft, that it was a matter of time before a pilot had a minor or major problem with it during flight and that the only reason that they didn’t have more crashes, is that all pilots were speaking with their colleagues extensively about the minimal problem they were encountering in flight and then with the mechanics, who were on their part double and triple checking everything before take off. He also said that for the same reason, the mechanics hated the F104 more than the pilots did. He also told me that especially when in low altitude, they were “religiously careful” on the aircraft’s behaviour, because if something went wrong with it, chances were that it wouldn’t give you time to correct the situation.

I had asked him about the F5 and he had said that although he hadn’t flown in it, “it was surely better than the F104” and that “for its time it was good aircraft”. I think in HAF there were more deaths in the F5 than in F104, but you don’t read bad comments about it. I suppose pilots enjoyed it more…

Anyway, the opinion i formed about him, was that he was more interested in safety, friendly handling of the aircraft and agility and he wasn’t happy about any of these with the F104…

The one for which i read on magazines and in internet much regret about its retirement was the Mirage F1.