what is exactly an F-104E

[r16]

now it has to have existed somehow . ı know the modelling spoof made by Terry Moore ( ı think he is also a member , as ı have seen the link

http://www.internetmodeler.com/2004/april/aviation/f-104e.php

on USN versions here as well ) . Anyway , between D and F there should have been a 'E . Any ideas on what or for whom it is ?

 

[TomS]

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/f-104d.htm

This claims the F-104E was essentially a D with upward-firing ejection seats -- 30 were procured by the USAF for MAP transfer to Germany for pilot training. That sounds very much liek the usual description of the F-104F, however, and other sources disagree rather uniformly. Given that Global Security has no entry for the F-104F, I think this is a transcription mistake.

 

[r16]

ı would tend to agree . What is the rationale for the 'F anyway ? ı have read they had avionics of the 'G , but ı think Germans had a couple hundreds of TF-104Gs . Did they buy Ds for early pilot building ?

 

[Michel Van]

before you go deeper discusion on F-104E

is April fool joke by Terry Moore (aka braincells37 in this forum)
more here http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,6583.0.html

the closed thing to a "Navy" Starfighter
was SATS program (Short Airfield for Tactical Support) in 1964-65
a join venture project German Luftwaffe and U.S. Marine Corps
use of steam catapult launch from normal Airfield
jep there was ones a "NAVY" version of F-104G, only it never see a aircraftcarrier ;D

German source
http://www.bredow-web.de/Luftwaffenmuseum/Kampfjets/Starfighter/F-104_Geschichte/f-104_geschichte.html#Zell

 

[Just call me Ray]

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/f-104d.htm

This claims the F-104E was essentially a D with upward-firing ejection seats -- 30 were procured by the USAF for MAP transfer to Germany for pilot training. That sounds very much liek the usual description of the F-104F, however, and other sources disagree rather uniformly. Given that Global Security has no entry for the F-104F, I think this is a transcription mistake.

Could it be that the "E"s were USAF designations for the Fs?

EDIT: Meant "E" when I said "D"

 

[Andreas Parsch]

A USAF nomenclature sheet (http://www.designation-systems.net/usmilav/original-docs/mds-sheets1.pdf , PDF page 18) lists "F-104E" as allocated to the Air Force on 6 March 1959. Other than that, I have no further data on "F-104E". I should add that these nomenclature sheets sometimes contain entries which are not much more than informal reservations of designations, so the F-104E entry doesn't necessarily mean that there was an actual F-104 design/project behind it.

 

[r16]

so the venue seems clear for me to hypothesise . Not that ı will accept what ı am about to say , as this is the devil's advocacy .Let's contribute to aviation history once in a while ...

how about taking E as a twin ventral straked F-104 that got studied and refused in the 50s only to come back as an unofficial proposal as related in

http://www.nf104.com/ab/ch_4/vi.html

in the early 60s . It is above my head to fully follow but ı can clearly see the test pilot in the link opposed the scheme . But it finally became , figuratively speaking , real in the form of S . The trainer would be TF-104E .

though the end result would probably turn out to be a marketing ploy ; G is Germany just like Northrop got a new designation instead of F-5G , which of course had to be the F-19 . Naturally this must be viewed under the light of the operational need to hide actual combat equipment that might be polished time to time in case it has to drop things in anger . You never know when you need stuff .

 

[tonkaboy]

It is above my head to fully follow but ı can clearly see the test pilot in the link opposed the scheme . But it finally became , figuratively speaking , real in the form of S .

I've worked with the Bob Hoey mentioned in the link. In layman terms the proposed strakes were an attempt to raise the maximum angle of attack before stall (the pitch up the test pilot mentions) The F-104 is has an unstable stall break and pitches up getting further into the stall and can be incredibly dangerous and difficult to recover from. A stable stall pitches nose down and is pretty much self recovering like a Cessna 172. From the test pilots description the strakes did nothing to change the stall behavior.

I haven't looked for a source, but I would guess the strakes on the F-104S were primarily to improve directional stability at high speed and had nothing to do with angle of attack. Strakes were introduced on later versions of the F-8 for the same reason.

 

[r16]

this layman thanks for the explanation . ı have been always enjoyed planes , but actually understanding what they do is also interesting .