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kanyiko — Reaching for the sky
#aircraft #airplane #eyecatcher #f104 #fighter #gateguardian #jet #jetfighter #starfighter
Published: 2017-09-24 12:16:36 +0000 UTC; Views: 699; Favourites: 34; Downloads: 1
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Lint, Belgium, September 22nd 2017Wearing false Belgian colours, a former Luftwaffe F-104G seems to reach for the sky.
Lockheed (Fokker) F-104G(FB) Starfighter c/n 683D-8113 was built by Fokker at Schiphol, the Netherlands, for the West-German Luftwaffe. Configured as a reconnaissance version (RF-104G), she originally served as KG+213 before being reserialised as 23+94. It ended its Luftwaffe career as instructional airframe C045, used for Aircraft Battle Damage Repair purposes at Hopsten Airbase. In 2003 she was acquired by PMG-Dresden Gmbh, an aerospace company which used the Starfighter for airframe research. Eventually, the airframe was acquired by PS Aero of Baarlo, the Netherlands, which restored 8113 to display status and sold her to AED Studios in 2016, where she is displayed in front of their studios.
Originally, 8113 carried only a small fin-flash and the codes RG 001 when she was installed, but she has since received full Belgian colours in the livery worn by Belgian Air Force F-104s between 1963 and 1970.
While "FX 007" is a registration which was never carried by an active F-104 in Belgian service, the closest equivalent was "FX-07": c/n 683D-9022 "FX-07" was a SABCA-built airframe, which entered Belgian Air Force service on June 6th 1963, originally serving with No. 350 Squadron, before being assigned to the 1st Wing (349 & 350 Squadrons). Stored on July 7th 1983 after a mostly uneventful career of 20 years and 1 month, she was sold to Radcomm Enterprise and struck off charge on January 1st 1987. She was delivered to the Taiwanese Air Force in November of 1990 as a spares source to maintain their F-104 fleet, which was only phased out of service in 1997.
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Comments: 22
I thought the Starfighter was such an exciting aircraft, Sad that it had so many accidents with the Lufwaffe. It was awesome though......
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I remember seeing the Italian Air Force's F-104S at their last appearances on the Belgian airshow circuit - a sight and sound sorely missed!
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It's an unforgettable sound...
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Beautiful plane! Love how they display it pointing up.
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It somewhat beats the "OMG WAY TOO LOW" attitude of the Koksijde AB Hawker Hunter gate guardian...
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia…
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Nice! Glad they were smart enough to keep it high off the ground.
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It's also in the middle of a guarded and fenced private parking space.
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Ohhh good. . .It just reminded me of Larsen Park here in the States. . .Where old Navy planes went to die became "playground equipment".
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It's probably one of the best represented aircraft in terms of preservation over here in Belgium.
Belgium had 100 F-104G's and 12 TF-104G's - of these, 38 have been preserved (37 F-104G's and 1 TF-104G), including 18 F-104G's in Belgium, 6 F-104G's in the USA, 5 F-104G's in Turkey, 3 F-104G's in Germany, 1 F-104G and the TF-104G in France, and 1 F-104G each in the Netherlands, Greece, the Czech Republic and Canada...
Added to that, two ex-Luftwaffe F-104G's in turn have been preserved over here in Belgium (this being one of them) - so yeah, 20 F-104G's preserved on Belgian soil is pretty good for an aircraft with a reputation of being a 'lawn dart'...
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Not the easiest aircraft to pilot.
Most of the issues the Germans had with it came from the fact they had a huge technology jump (from no air force in 1955, to an air force flying T-6s in 1956, F-84Fs in 1957, F-86Fs in 1959, and F-104s in 1962) Added to that, unlike other NATO countries, there had been no continuation following the War in terms of its pool of air force pilots (for obvious reasons) - so they either had pilots that hadn't flown for ten years, or pilots that hadn't flown at all before. This compared with - for instance - their Belgian and Danish counterparts, who in the same ten-year gap had gathered experience flying the Spitfire, Meteor, F-84G and Hawker Hunter.
Compounding it all, the F-104 was deployed in a role for which it never had been intended (fighter-bomber rather than high-altitude interceptor); most telling of this is the fact that of 116 pilots lost in German service, half were Marineflieger pilots, who mostly operated as low-altitude fighter-bombers.
As if that wasn't enough, most of the maintenance crew were in fact conscripts, who had been signed up for a year or two of service - by the time they had finally mastered the complex maintenance of the F-104, they were already demobbed, replaced by a new batch of inexperienced conscripts...
A final blow was the complex geographical and meteorological environment in which the aircraft was tasked to fly - poor weather and high terrain resulted in an awful lot of otherwise avoidable CFITs. In all, the Germans lost 292 out of 916 Starfighters, an attrition rate of nearly 32%
Compared to this, the Japanese, who solely flew their F-104Js in the Air Defence (high altitude) role for which the aircraft had been designed, only lost 3 out of 230 F-104s in 24 years of service... (1.3% attrition)
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... Spot on! ...
... Designed as a perfect interceptor and used as an attack bomber! ...
... The main factor I guess! ... Low level, high speed, and mountains! ...
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They did a massive job on her. When she was collected from Dresden, she had sat outside for over a decade. Her wings, canopy, nosecone, and tail surfaces were missing, and her fuselage was a collection of patches from numerous battle damage repairs from her time as an instructional airframe.
P.S. Aero bv is a company which acquires and sells airframes for display purposes - and just looking at the company on Google Earth is a bit of a mind-blowing experience of its own...
www.google.be/maps/@51.3258161…
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