Why F 104 And Not F5 Tiger ?

[lucklucky]

Mach 2 glamour? Government support for F-104 and almost none for F-5? Lockheed had more friends?

 

Question is also valid for German and Italian air forces.

[BabyOlifant]

The F-104 was first?

 

And they did adopt the F-5?

Edited February 25, 2013 by BabyOlifant

[R011]

Why F-104 for who?

[lucklucky]

Well everyone that got F-104s

[RETAC21]

F-104 was first, was a superb high altitude interceptor, was available, Lockheed was able to grease the skids, and many users also got the F-5 for tactical low level work (Spain, Greece, Turkey, the Netherlands, Norway, Taiwan, Denmark used F-100s), so they weren't in competition.

[RETAC21]

Incidentally, I didn't know about this one

[alejandro_]

If you need a Mach 2 interceptor with good climb rate the F-5 is not your aircraft*. European countries did not have much choice for that class of (US) aircraft because competitors were not fully developed or were not available:

 

- F-106 was an interceptor without A-G capability.

- F-8 variants available did not have A-G capability.

- F-105: opposite capabilities to what Germans and other countries were looking for.

- F-11F: it is said that it was one of the best candidates, but never fielded.

 

The scandal in Germany ended the career of a rather famous pilot:

 

 

* And also some A-G capabilities, like F-104G.

[RETAC21]

IIRC, he shot himself on the foot with his open and unremitting criticism, which then was proved to be right...

 

Other options would be the Lightning (too short ranged) or the Draken, but neither could be delivered under MDAP.

[baboon6]

Well there was a couple of British Aircraft that might have been suitable.

 

EE Lightning. Limited air to ground capability. If the ground attack and VG version had made it to development they would have been competitive, if a rather expensive option.

 

A more likely option was the Saunders Roe SR177, which remained an option, right up to the point when the West German Government lost interest (How do you say 'kickbacks' in German?)

http://en.wikipedia....ders-Roe_SR.177

 

So its not entirely a closed field. It was just rigged that way.

 

Re Album, Retac thats a very interesting find. Ill have to look and see if they ever did a CD of that it sounds interesting. There was a lot of 'concept' albums like that in the 70s, im think of 'War of the Worlds'. The producers of that were apparently working on a follow up about the crash of the R101.

 

About the SR177- not much ground attack capability there either. Were any other versions planned?

[DougRichards]

If you need a Mach 2 interceptor with good climb rate the F-5 is not your aircraft*. European countries did not have much choice for that class of (US) aircraft because competitors were not fully developed or were not available:

 

- F-106 was an interceptor without A-G capability.

- F-8 variants available did not have A-G capability.

- F-105: opposite capabilities to what Germans and other countries were looking for.

- F-11F: it is said that it was one of the best candidates, but never fielded.

 

The scandal in Germany ended the career of a rather famous pilot:

 

 

 

* And also some A-G capabilities, like F-104G.

 

F-11 was half as fast as the F-104, even the F-8 didn't hit that magic Mach 2.

 

The other alternative airccraft was the Mirage III, which Israel and Australia chose over the F-104.

 

Mind you, RAAF pilots reported that whilst the Mirage III was 'on paper' a mach 2 aircraft it could not sustain it, and that the 'slower' FA-18 was a better high speed aircraft,

Edited February 25, 2013 by DougRichards

[T19]

There was always the Avro arrow. Oh yeah it was replaced by bombard missiles.

[RETAC21]

 

The other alternative airccraft was the Mirage III, which Israel and Australia chose over the F-104.

 

Mirage III was expensive and was not helped by Dassault selling spares in packages that may include things that broke a lot and others that hardly ever broke.

[alejandro_]

F-11 was half as fast as the F-104, even the F-8 didn't hit that magic Mach 2.

 

Hi Doug, I was referring to the F version, which did have that capability.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_F11F_Super_Tiger

[baboon6]

There was always the Avro arrow. Oh yeah it was replaced by bombard missiles.

 

I think you mean Bomarc missiles? Also the F-101 was adopted by the RCAF as an interceptor.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIM-10_Bomarc

 

Again though the Arrow wasn't designed to have any air-to-ground capability though looking at its size I suppose it could have been modified to do so. As Doug pointed out the F-104 and Mirage III were the only real choices for the specification.

 

ETA: and maybe the Super Tiger.

Edited February 25, 2013 by baboon6

[swerve]

The original F-5A was called the Freedom Fighter, not the Tiger. The improved F-5E was the Tiger - and that wasn't available until the 1970s.

 

As for why - well, the reasons already given. Timing first of all. It flew fice years after F-104, & couldn't have met the schedule for the first F-104 export customers. Then performance.

 

Several countries bought (or in some cases, were given) both F-104 & F-5, but all of them operated the F-5s as lower-end strike-oriented complements to the higher-end Starfighters.

 

 

The SR.177 strikes me as a reaction to the poor performance of some early British afterburners, & rapidly obsolete. Delete the rocket & build it round a single afterburning Avon, instead of the dire Gyron Junior, & it might have been a decent aircraft. De Havilland should have got out of jet engines after the Ghost.

[swerve]

Because the competition was serious. The 'so little competition' line is the post-facto justification, "the bribery didn't matter because it would have been picked on its merits anyway, so everyone should shut up & stop complaining, we won fair & square".

 

It would have been very interesting if Mirage or Draken had won. The German order alone would have been larger than domestic purchases of either of them, & with Belgian, Dutch & Italian orders, it would have turned the winner into one of the most produced jet fighters. The European licence-builders would have become the mainstay of the winning manufacturers military aircraft business, With the extra money & customer base, there'd have been huge scope for (1) more development of the original aircraft & (2), co-production of a successor. A "Euro-Draken" or "Euro-Mirage" couldn't have remained the property of SAAB or Dassault: the NATO customers & licence-builders would have been able to insist on a say in how it developed.

 

The SR.177 would have been a bit different. Saunders-Roe couldn't have built many, IMO, & the RAF wasn't interested, so the licence-builders would have become the business, with SARO in the UK being their design office. One can envisage the UK arm withering away apart from hovercraft, as historically, & it ending up as effectively a German/Dutch/Belgian/Italian aircraft. But I find it hard to see a future for the SR.177. I think it was the weakest of the contenders. It was certainly the furthest from production.

[RETAC21]

Note, though, that the bribe allegations revolve around 2 contracts mainly, the NATO first fighter of the century competition* and the JASDF contract, all other clients got their F-104s as MAP or as hand me downs from first hand users.

 

* Which was huge, but note that Lockheed didn't need to bribe the Canadians: http://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_fighters/f104_11.html

[Ivanhoe]

Force of habit, I imagine. American defense contractors got used to "pay for play" at home, to the point where you weren't going to make it to the executive ranks if you stayed clean.

 

And it wouldn't surprise me a bit if the bribery flowchart was triangular, connecting manufacturer, buyer, and legislators and/or regulators in the US gov't.

[Mike Steele]

One point I ought to throw out there. If the F104 had such little competition, why did Lockheed feel the need to resort to widespread corruption to make it sell?

 

It's the American Way!

[baboon6]

We covered a lot of the same stuff in this thread:

 

http://208.84.116.223/forums/index.php?showtopic=36849&hl=phantom&st=0

[BabyOlifant]

So, what's the verdict on F-104 safety? Were they outside of acceptable safety margins, or just tricky to fly?

[CaptLuke]

So, what's the verdict on F-104 safety? Were they outside of acceptable safety margins, or just tricky to fly?

 

I think everyone agrees it could be tricky to fly but accident rates varied widely. Germany and Canada lost a ridiculous proportion of their jets and in the USAF it had the highest accident rate of any of the Century series of fighters by far. The other extreme was Spain which operated F-104s for years and never had a crash (though admittedly only about 20 of them). Presumably the Italian experience was good enough that they built more of a custom model (F-104S); their loss rate dropped the longer they had the had the F-104 in service and I believe was very reasonable the last couple decades, when experienced crews were flying newer S models. I haven't heard of the Turks or the Japanese having big problems but that doesn't mean they didn't . . .

Edited February 26, 2013 by CaptLuke

[lucklucky]

Italians lost 24 starfighters in first 5 years. In 1973 already 50. 137 in the end (1997). 38% of all Starfighters. Rate of 15 per 100000 flying hours.

In last years there were no losses.

The opinions varied if the pilots liked the plane or not and if journalists picked the case or not.

The Italians pilots seemed to appreciate it.

 

For me it is clearly a bad plane, and it's formula was not repeated

 

http://it.wikipedia....104_Starfighter

Edited February 27, 2013 by lucklucky

[alejandro_]

I think everyone agrees it could be tricky to fly but accident rates varied widely. Germany and Canada lost a ridiculous proportion of their jets and in the USAF it had the highest accident rate of any of the Century series of fighters by far. The other extreme was Spain which operated F-104s for years and never had a crash (though admittedly only about 20 of them).

 

Spain's situation was different to Germany's. As you mentioned, the Spanish Air Force only acquired a limited number, and was able to assign very experienced technicians and pilots. The new Luftwaffe had a large number of recently trained pilot, and the weather in Germany was certainly worst than in the sout of Spain. They were also used in anti shipping and ground attack, with more complex mission profiles. For the Luftwaffe yuo might say that it was a case of "too much too early".

 

Spanish pilots were critical of certain aspects of F-104: it's maneouvrability was not that great due to the small wings... and in case of engine failure it dropped like a brick.

[RETAC21]

I think everyone agrees it could be tricky to fly but accident rates varied widely. Germany and Canada lost a ridiculous proportion of their jets and in the USAF it had the highest accident rate of any of the Century series of fighters by far. The other extreme was Spain which operated F-104s for years and never had a crash (though admittedly only about 20 of them).

 

Spain's situation was different to Germany's. As you mentioned, the Spanish Air Force only acquired a limited number, and was able to assign very experienced technicians and pilots. The new Luftwaffe had a large number of recently trained pilot, and the weather in Germany was certainly worst than in the south of Spain. They were also used in anti shipping and ground attack, with more complex mission profiles. For the Luftwaffe yuo might say that it was a case of "too much too early".

 

Spanish pilots were critical of certain aspects of F-104: it's maneouvrability was not that great due to the small wings... and in case of engine failure it dropped like a brick.

 

?? Torrejón is smack in the middle, and in winter there's bad weather. The reasons were different mission profiles (high altitude interceptor vs tactical low level flight) and fewer flight hours due to lack of spares. The experience factor is a bit overrated, both countries' pilots transitioned from the F-86, but in the 7 years they operated they logged 17.000 hours only, with the first 2 years having pilots that flew 4-5 hours per month and then having the highest rate of non-operational aircraft of all Starfighter squadrons worldwide.