Luftwaffe F-104G's

[Dawes]

Much has been written about the F-104G in German service, and it's rather high loss rate. What did the pilots themselves think about the aircraft? 

[Ssnake]

Loved it.

[shep854]

As often repeated, rookie pilots and hot planes often don't mix well.  The same with the early Harrier in USMC service.

Edited March 12, 2022 by shep854

[seahawk]

And rookie maintenance crews. A lot of the crashes were simple errors on the ground. A fuel line not correctly fitted, a fuel gauge not correctly wired...

[bojan]

1 hour ago, Ssnake said:

Loved it.

Would not surprise me, locally MiG-21 were adored, as were F-86s before, while both were widowmakers.

Edited March 12, 2022 by bojan

[TrustMe]

The meteor when it entered service in the UK 1945 was called "Meat Box" by its pilots for the amount of crews that died in it, supposedly at a rate of 500 a year.

[Sardaukar]

Fouga Magister was considered as "pilot killer" in Finnish Air Force.

It was used 1959-1986 with 21 crashes. Only 2 persons survived (since many times there was pilot and instructor/observer in same plane, more than 21 were killed)

Edited March 12, 2022 by Sardaukar

[bojan]

Fouga had very nasty flat spin tendency.

 

[Dawes]

Italian F-104S models had the AIM-7 -based Aspide missile. Haven't read much about how effective that really was.

[glappkaeft]

21 hours ago, TrustMe said:

The meteor when it entered service in the UK 1945 was called "Meat Box" by its pilots for the amount of crews that died in it, supposedly at a rate of 500 a year.

I'll think if you think about that number or research it a bit you'll find that the "per year" bit is incorrect...

Edited March 13, 2022 by glappkaeft

[TrustMe]

I got the information from www.pprune.org  I think its correct.

[R011]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloster_Meteor#Performance

"A total of 890 Meteors were lost in RAF service (145 of these crashes occurring in 1953 alone), resulting in the deaths of 450 pilots."

Five hundred aircraft lost per year would be more than were produced.

 

 

[shep854]

All this blood (and money)-shed led to a revolution in pilot training that really started kicking in during the '70s.

[TrustMe]

2 hours ago, R011 said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloster_Meteor#Performance

"A total of 890 Meteors were lost in RAF service (145 of these crashes occurring in 1953 alone), resulting in the deaths of 450 pilots."

Five hundred aircraft lost per year would be more than were produced.

 

 

I must of got the per/ year mixed with the per/ history.

No matter, the plane was a death trap. 

[R011]

1 hour ago, TrustMe said:

I must of got the per/ year mixed with the per/ history.

No matter, the plane was a death trap. 

Many of the early jets were.  For that matter, most propellor driven planes of the era didn't have a stellar safety rcord either.

[Dawes]

The US "Century Series" jets had a crash rate that would be considered horrendous by today's standards.

[Ssnake]

Pictures on a wall in a bar out in a remote desert come to mind.

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

6 hours ago, Dawes said:

The US "Century Series" jets had a crash rate that would be considered horrendous by today's standards.

Catch some more DCS Baby, then we show you.

[Perun]

At the end of 1980s, did Luftwaffe stored their F-104's or they were scraped immediately

[Ssnake]

Given to other NATO allies (Italy mostly, I think) to squeeze a few more years out of the airframes, or to strip them for spare parts.

[RETAC21]

19 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

Given to other NATO allies (Italy mostly, I think) to squeeze a few more years out of the airframes, or to strip them for spare parts.

I think they ended up in Greece and Turkey mostly, who used them as spare parts sources

[Yama]

On 3/12/2022 at 6:39 PM, bojan said:

Fouga had very nasty flat spin tendency.

...and no ejection seats 

Folland Gnat was another example. One old-timer said of the Hornet: "This is like flying the Gnat, except I don't have to constantly worry about the plane trying to kill me."

[Yama]

On 3/13/2022 at 11:29 PM, R011 said:

Many of the early jets were.  For that matter, most propellor driven planes of the era didn't have a stellar safety record either.

Even many of the trainer aircraft often had deadly 'snap stall' characteristics. Amazingly, this was considered a good thing, since it was better that a trainee crashed an inexpensive training aircraft, than an expensive fighter.

[Dawes]

Which aircraft was better regarded in Luftwaffe service - F-4 or F-104?

[Ssnake]

What's your metric?

Different planes, different mission profiles, similar generation of jet fighters. Fighter jocks loved the pure Starfighter in its interceptor role. Pilots respected the robustness of the Phantom especially in the Wild Weasel role. The Starfighter in the bomber role wasn't a great idea as everybody admitted when the whole adventure was ended, but then again, it wasn't such a clear-cut case when the original decision was made. Maybe one should have abandoned the experiment earlier, but then the question would have been with which plane to replace the multirole Starfighter, and at what cost. Eventually the Luftwaffe got the Tornado as the much better bomber, and the F-104G could finally be decommissioned. Not that, objectively speaking, its loss rates were dramatically higher than that of other military jets at the time. It simply was a period of transition. The technology had to evolve, as  organizations, the training schedules, safety procedures, flight rules.