AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 139 / 174

Plate 139 of 174 · Cold War · Strike fighter

Lockheed F-104G Starfighter

F-104G, painted as R-756, the Midland Air Museum’s Lockheed F-104G Starfighter, built by Canadair in Montreal (c/n 683D-6101) under the US Military Assistance Program as 64-17756 and shipped to Denmark in 1965, flown by the Royal Danish Air Force’s 723 and 726 Squadrons from Aalborg until a heavy landing in September 1984 ended its flying, and airlifted to Coventry by C-130 in April 1987, its restoration completed in 1997: Lockheed’s Mach 2 interceptor turned NATO strike fighter, a single-seat fighter of 21 ft 11 in span with one General Electric J79 afterburning turbojet, a long needle nose with a pitot boom, a tiny, razor-thin trapezoidal wing with 10 degrees of anhedral, half-cone shock bodies in D-shaped intakes, a T-tail with an all-moving stabilator on top of the fin and a ventral fin, shown standing level on its tricycle undercarriage with the canopy closed, tip tanks with fins, two pylon tanks under the wings and a pair of white AIM-9 Sidewinders on a centreline launcher: the Danish scheme it wears at Coventry, dark olive green overall with red intake lips and dark grey shock cones, Danish roundels on the forward fuselage and on top of the wing tips, a low-visibility grey ‘R-756’ on each side, a Danish flag high on the fin, a thin red line along the wing leading edges, yellow rescue markings and red warning triangles below the canopy and the names of the pilot and crew chief in white under the starboard cockpit (no photograph shows the undersides flat, so they are left plain green).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as R-756, the Midland Air Museum’s Lockheed F-104G Starfighter, built by Canadair in Montreal (c/n 683D-6101) under the US Military Assistance Program as 64-17756 and shipped to Denmark in 1965, flown by the Royal Danish Air Force’s 723 and 726 Squadrons from Aalborg until a heavy landing in September 1984 ended its flying, and airlifted to Coventry by C-130 in April 1987, its restoration completed in 1997: Lockheed’s Mach 2 interceptor turned NATO strike fighter, a single-seat fighter of 21 ft 11 in span with one General Electric J79 afterburning turbojet, a long needle nose with a pitot boom, a tiny, razor-thin trapezoidal wing with 10 degrees of anhedral, half-cone shock bodies in D-shaped intakes, a T-tail with an all-moving stabilator on top of the fin and a ventral fin, shown standing level on its tricycle undercarriage with the canopy closed, tip tanks with fins, two pylon tanks under the wings and a pair of white AIM-9 Sidewinders on a centreline launcher: the Danish scheme it wears at Coventry, dark olive green overall with red intake lips and dark grey shock cones, Danish roundels on the forward fuselage and on top of the wing tips, a low-visibility grey ‘R-756’ on each side, a Danish flag high on the fin, a thin red line along the wing leading edges, yellow rescue markings and red warning triangles below the canopy and the names of the pilot and crew chief in white under the starboard cockpit (no photograph shows the undersides flat, so they are left plain green). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (744 KB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (F-104G, F-101B); engine, crew and dimensions are for the F-104G modelled here.

History

The F-104G Starfighter

Clarence “Kelly” Johnson of Lockheed’s Skunk Works visited Korea in 1951 and came away convinced that fighter pilots wanted speed and height above all else. His answer was a small, light fighter built around the new General Electric J79: a long, slim fuselage, a needle nose, a T-tail and a tiny trapezoidal wing only about four inches thick at the root. Tony LeVier first flew the XF-104 at Edwards on 4 March 1954, and the press soon called it the missile with a man in it.

The F-104A joined Air Defense Command in 1958, and that year Starfighters set world records for speed (1,404 mph) and height (91,243 ft), the first aircraft to hold both at once. The US Air Force bought relatively few, but in 1958 West Germany chose a strengthened, multi-role version, the F-104G, with a stronger structure, bigger tail, NASARR radar and an inertial navigation system for low-level nuclear strike. It became the “deal of the century”: Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy built it in Europe, Canadair built the CF-104 and further F-104Gs in Montreal, and in all more than 2,500 Starfighters were built.

In Europe the F-104G flew low and fast in weather it was never designed for, and the Luftwaffe lost almost a third of its 916 Starfighters in accidents, earning the type the nickname “Widowmaker”. Denmark received Canadair-built F-104Gs under American military aid in 1964–65 and flew them with 723 and 726 Squadrons at Aalborg until April 1986, later adding ex-Canadian CF-104s; many of the survivors went on to Taiwan. Italy’s F-104S, the last Starfighters in front-line service, were retired in 2004.

This airframe

F-104G R-756

R-756The airframe modelled

R-756 was built by Canadair in Montreal (c/n 683D-6101) as 64-17756, one of the F-104Gs paid for by the US Military Assistance Program, and first flew on 21 January 1965. It was shipped to Denmark that spring and served with 726 and then 723 Squadron from Aalborg, returning to 726 Squadron in 1984. A heavy landing in September 1984 ended its flying career after 3,747 hours, and in April 1987 it was flown to Coventry inside a C-130 for the Midland Air Museum, where its restoration was completed in 1997. The model shows it as displayed: dark olive green overall with red intake lips, Danish roundels and a Danish flag on the fin, tip tanks, pylon tanks and a pair of Sidewinders.

See it at Midland Air Museum

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the F-104G Starfighter in one UK collection. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 174 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.