Tuesday, May 21, 2019

A rocket with wings


9 comments:

  1. The men who flew it, loved it

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    1. Yes I did, a lot! To win a bet I sliced an apple on the leading edge of the wing of 703 last summer at the dedication of the CF-104 museum in Winnipeg Manitoba.

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  2. Having done some maintenance on these long ago, I'll agree, man in a missile. But to raise a finer point, this is the penultimate definition of a F-104:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_NF-104A
    One of these can be seen sitting on a pole outside the USAF Test Pilot School at Edwards AFB.
    Men who flew it loved it - those who survived the experience! FTFY
    Wandering Neurons

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  3. The Puerto Rico ANG flew these in the early 70's.....the people called them "Los Bandidos"....

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    1. The Germans called 'em something else:

      https://www.spangdahlem.af.mil/News/Commentaries/Display/Article/730527/f-104-germanys-widow-maker/

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    2. Oddly enough, on this day in 1991, the Luftwaffe retired its last Starfighter.

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  4. Jackie Cochran set her Mach 2 records in one.

    In a biography of her there is quite a bit of information about the plane. It could be a real handful to fly, due to the small wing and control areas -- a pilot could quickly get himself into trouble.

    The pilots who learned how to fly it, though, loved it.

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  5. When I was a kid, my dad was assigned to do geological field work at Edwards AFB. He took the whole family. Us kids used to hear sonic booms all the time. I guess it was a combination of the X-15 and these babies.

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