Wolfs Shipyard Forum

And yet almost every country that adopted the F-104 used it an attack plane and thought it had enough maneuverability for the role.

Also, we have seen the Viper use its RCS thrusters in an atmosphere to good effect.

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Kurt

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No, we don't see any Viper land like that on planets in the RDM series. That's one difference there between it and TOS BSG, instead of the heroes landing their Vipers on planets and having adventures all the time, they just used Raptors.

I always figured on magnetic repulsion on ships. Basically flip the maglocks from...hah, I was about to make a Spaceballs reference there. But yes, that's likely how they maneuvered the planes around. They could do something similar on airbases, with the runways usually used for emergency landings, combat landing practice, etc.

And don't forget, the Italians used the F-104 in the air superiority role (not just interceptor) until 2000. I was living there at the time and I remember seeing them fly over a few times. As cool as those were (and I love the Starfighter), that can't beat seeing an Italian Harrier hovering over their Naval Academy, which was about a block away from my apartment, at roughly eye level with me or seeing the Frecce Tricolori practicing for a show, though.

From suck to blow?

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Yes...that would be the one!

If you will do a little reading on the subject, many of those countries that adopted the F-104 did so due to HEFTY pay-offs to politicians by the Lockheed Aircraft Corp. - not because the aircraft was the best for what they needed. All that didn't come out till just a few years ago. Many were looking harder at the Mirage III at the time.

In other words, Lockheed pulled a BAE.

Regardless of how, the fact remains that it was used. If it was so crappy, then why did the Italians continue to refine the airframe (when others were available) and then when others were available (F-16, F-1C) did they instead decide to continue with the F-104?

There will always be politics involved in any big ticket purchase, but I think the aircraft's operational history does paint it as successful given the longevity and the new versions/variants developed by user nations after Lockheed had ceased production.

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Kurt

Click the link to read Lady Hecate off line in PDF, .epub, or Kindle formats: http://www.bsg94.org/downloads/index.html
Click here for the Colonial Warbook for Lady H: http://www.photobucket.com/colonial_warbook

Well, that and the sheer number of Gnats, F.91s and Sabers meant no one was really looking all that hard. The F-104s adoption was largely because they were pushing to modernize, while no one wanted to spend much money on newer fighters at that point.

I now have 3 different variants of the Cobra (4 if you count the unarmed one), mostly associated with the nose armament, there is the original nose turret model which I label as a 3 barrel 20mm Gatling, there is also a fixed 3 barrel 20mm or 25mm Gatling as well as a big 5 barrel 30mm Gatling.

I don't want to post these up yet again so here's a link to the small craft section.

http://s733.beta.photobucket.com/user/50stone/library/BSG/Small%20Craft

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All of the Cobra's are good concept's.

Nice work on those 50.