Introduction The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter was one of the most controversial of the legendary line of Century Series fighters. The F-104 had its origins after the Korean War when fighters were getting bigger, heavier, and more expensive, a trend that still continues today. The legendary Kelly Johnson saw what was happening with fighters and persuaded Lockheed to try and build what would be the ultimate fighter, a small, light, fast and maneuverable aircraft. Although there was no official Air Force bid for such an aircraft, Lockheed designed a protoype, convinced the USAF to open a competition for such an aircraft, and then proceeded to win the contract for what would become the F-104. The F-104 was a very sleek aircraft with tiny, sharp edged wings, a long slender fuselage, and a T-tail. The Starfighter was originally fitted with a downward firing ejection seat among fears that a conventional upward firing seat would hit the tail at high speeds, although it turned out that the downward-firing seat was not a very good idea. The F-104 had stunning performance and although the production aircraft were capable of exceeding Mach 2, the prototype was able to fly supersonically despite an underpowered temporary engine installation. The F-104 served with the USAF, but would find its biggest success in Europe. Although the F-104 only served in a limited capacity in the USAF and had a largely unsuccessful and very short combat career in Vietnam, it seemed the perfect aircraft to oppose the new Soviet fighters and bombers appearing in Europe. More than half of all F-104’s built were of the G model which was the primary export model. The F-104 also served in Canada, Italy, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Pakistan, and several other nations. Although the F-104 sold well overseas, it suffered from a high accident rate at first as the European pilots tried to adapt to flying a tricky aircraft in often-poor western European weather. The F-104’s reputation as a “widowmaker” came primarily from the fact that it was built about thirty years before computer aided flight controls, which would have made it into a much safer aircraft for inexperienced pilots. The Starfighters’ tiny wings, high speed, and unforgiving flight characteristics when stalled meant that the F-104 was a very capable aircraft in the hands of an experienced pilot, but a potential deathtrap for an unwary or inexperienced flyer. Despite getting a bad reputation, the F-104 served well in Europe, and the last military models were only recently phased out in Italy. The F-104 has a very interesting history, the majority of which is too long to write here. I highly recommend taking a look at this website for a well-written, detailed history of the F-104. Installation and Documentation The Cloud9 F-104 is available as a set of four downloads consisting of a base pack, two livery packs, and a service pack. Together the files total about 130MB, which isn’t unreasonable on a high-speed connection, but dial-up users will be in for a long download time. In a bit of a break from the norm, the first thing you do is actually install the F-104 and then purchase it. Although unconventional, this system has the benefit of allowing easy re-downloads without jumping through all of the hoops some other companies present. After installing, you boot up MSFS and start a flight with a default aircraft or something that isn’t the F-104. Once the flight boots up, you go to the newly added “addon manager” pull down menu, select the F-104 as the product and click “buy”. After purchasing the product and giving it the appropriate password, you can almost begin flying. The manual for the F-104 consists of a 79 page PDF file that gives a brief history of the aircraft as well as a very detailed explanation of all of the features that the F-104 makes use of. Since a lot of the features of the F-104 are quite complex, reading the manual is very important and will save a lot of hair-pulling frustration later. 3D Model and Textures Visually, the F-104 is absolutely stunning. The F-104 includes over a dozen separate models and over forty textures. Cloud9 has chosen to cover the CF-104 and F-104G models and offer numerous variations on each version. Whereas most military aircraft for MSFS might come with an “armed” and “clean” option, the Cloud9 F-104 comes with models representing almost all of the tasks F-104’s performed. Some of the models are clean, two drop tanks, four tanks, sidewinders (with varying numbers of drop tanks and mounted on various places), reconnaissance pod, anti-shipping missiles, bombs, and rocket pods. Each model has textures that are unique to it, so all of the textures aren’t available for all of the models.
The external models are nothing short of amazing in both their variety and quality. The sleek shape of the F-104 has been perfectly captured and all of the various loadouts look equally convincing. All of the normal moving parts are present, plus some unique parts like the RAT and the exhaust nozzle are also faithfully reproduced. Despite the presence of a lot of detail on the models, I noticed no reduction or stuttering in my framerates. The textures are also up to the same level of perfection as the 3d model. The textures range from bare metal, camouflage, and ghost gray military schemes used in the height of the cold war to the exotic, brightly colored paint schemes worn by Italian Starfighters as their retirement neared. The textures span the wide range of nations that operated the Starfighter and liveries are present for nations from Canada to Pakistan. The textures
are all very high quality and display some weathering and varying degrees
of reflectivity, which is a nice touch. The only thing
some users
might complain about is the lack of any US military liveries, but this
is accurate
since the US didn’t fly the CF-104 or F-104 G.
2D
Panel Although the 2d panel is starting to fall out of favor as virtual cockpits become more sophisticated, Cloud9 has nevertheless included a superb 2d panel that is an essential part of the F-104 package. The panel consists of two forward-looking panels as well as several side sub-panels and a GPU. The forward panel is divided into a small panel that gives a good view for flying around, but only has basic instruments available and a “look down” panel that represents the lower part of the cockpit with the radar, fuel gauges and other important information. The side panels represent the sides of the cockpit and contain the majority of the switches and dials on the aircraft. The side panels actually are represented sideways on screen and although this results in a fair bit of neck-craning to read labels, I think it is better than having the panels upright, but appearing horribly squashed on most monitors Although the panel bitmaps are very well done, the gauges and systems are the most impressive part of the 2d panel. Everything from the radar to air conditioner is modeled and most of the systems work like their real world counterparts. The navigation system is quite basic and consists of a VOR/NDB/TACAN receiver that can be slaved to the autopilot.
The autopilot is very basic and has a mach hold, altitude hold and heading hold feature with no autoland or approach mode, which means that the F-104 requires a lot of hand flying. One aspect of the F-104 panel that I was pleasantly surprised by was the GPU. Real F-104’s lack a battery, and as such, require a ground power unit to provide the necessary “juice” to start the engine. In FS, it works much the same way. On the ground, to start the F-104 you have to first bring up the GPU window and turn the key to start it. After the GPU starts and the air pressure has built up, you can turn on the power to the aircraft and then start it up much like any other jet. The F-104 also has a working (and very realistic) radar which makes intercepting AI traffic much more fun. The radar in FS works very similarly to the real-world one with rage, antenna tilt and other controls that actually work, except for the fact that the FS version can only display ten targets at once.
Framerates in the 2d panel were unaffected as far as I was able to tell. VC Given the high quality of the visual model and 2d panel, the VC is somewhat lacking. I am not saying the VC is not well done, but it fails to attain the same high standards that the other parts of the package display. The basic model of the VC is of very high quality, with all of the controls and switches animated and almost all of the controls can be worked from the VC with the exception of the GPU. The VC textures are of uniformly high quality, but some of the switches on the side panels look flat and not terribly convincing. The other issue with the VC textures is that there is no night lighting whatsoever inside the VC.
The area of the VC that breaks from the high quality displayed elsewhere is the gauges. The gauges themselves are well modeled and hold up to close zooming without blurring or becoming jagged, and they all function as they should. Although all of the gauges work properly in the VC, the VC refresh rate is very slow, which creates problems. Since the F-104 is very sensitive to many parameters in flight (AOA, airspeed, engine status, etc…) a lot of decisions are made on the trends of the instruments (which way they are moving, and how fast they are doing so) and the sluggish refresh rate means that a lot of “hunting” is required to get a specific flight condition since the VC gauges don’t do a very good job of indicating trends. Furthermore, precise flying, such as an ILS approach in bad weather is very difficult, and I found the fact that I had to swap between the VC for flying and the 2d panel for landing irritating. Although the VC has a definite weak point, Cloud9 has addressed that there is a problem and they are currently working on a service pack that will revamp almost the entire VC. Flight Model The F-104 wasn’t an easy aircraft to fly and had many quirks that could be lethal to a new or unaware pilot, and Cloud9 has done a phenomenal job of replicating this for Flight Simulator. Takeoff is usually a fairly straightforward matter of adding power and rotating at the appropriate time, but this isn’t the case in the Starfighter. On takeoff, the F-104 will lurch to one side as power is added, and will then accelerate like a bullet from a gun. Around 190 KTS (which takes under ten seconds to reach) the aircraft has to be gently rotated into a shallow climb, but if the pitch exceeds 15 degrees, an unrecoverable pitch up and subsequent crash will occur. Once the aircraft is cleaned up and climbing, the fun can begin.
Since the F-104 was a light, aerodynamic aircraft with a lot of power, it climbs like a rocket. In a full power climb, the Starfighter can accelerate while climbing at over 10,000 feet per minute. Flying at very high speeds is what the F-104 was built for, and the aircraft is rock steady at any speed from 400 KTS to over Mach 2. At high speeds the F-104 can fly faster than Mach 2 (speed is limited not by the engine, but by heat buildup from friction) and at low level, it can reach about mach 1.2. At high speeds, the flight model is very stable, but for some odd reason the pitch trim is very touchy unless the keyboard keys are used. Maneuvering at high speeds isn’t exactly difficult, but care does need to be exercised not to overstress the airframe or pitch limits. Although flying at more than twice the speed of sound is fun, it also uses over 12,000 lbs of fuel per hour which gives a very short range on internal fuel. At a more sedate pace in the high subsonic region, the F-104 has a range of over 1500NM. Landing is probably the most difficult part of any flight, and the F-104’s stubby wings add to the difficulty of the maneuver. The difficulty begins with trying the get the gear and flaps down to land as the gear and flaps will both jam if lowered above their maximum extension speeds, and a no flaps landing in the F-104 needs a huge amount of runway. Because the F-104 uses a system that blows engine air over the wings, throttle position is paramount after the gear and flaps are down. With the flaps in “land”, the engine RPM needs to be above 83% in order to maintain airflow over the wings. If the RPM falls below this, the Starfighter will roll sharply to one side and the roll, although completely recoverable by adding power, can be fatal at very low altitude. The approach speed of the F-104 is about 170-180 KTS and the landing is made at about 150KTS (depending on weight) with no flare. Once on the ground, the braking parachute can be deployed to reduce the landing roll, but a long runway is still required.
The design of the F-104 meant that although it was very fast and could maneuver at high speeds, it had a nasty tendency to get into unrecoverable situations if pushed too hard, and this too is modeled in FS. One of the most crucial parts of flying the F-104 is paying attention to the Angle of Attack (AOA) gauge. If the AOA gauge exceeds five, the Starfighter will enter into an uncontrollable rolling and pitching motion that necessitates ejection (which restarts the flight) The real F-104 had a system that warned the pilot as the AOA neared the critical value and then would physically push the nose over if ignored. In FS, the warning part of the system is present, but the pitching system is not modeled at present (it is planned in a later update). Another quirk of the F-104 is that at low speeds, the engine has a tendency to experience a compressor stall if the aircraft is at extreme bank or pitch angles. In FS, this is simulated quite well and recovery consists of merely leveling the aircraft out and retarding the throttle. If the compressor stall isn’t caught fast enough, the engine can flame out and will only air start within the proper speed range. One of the most impressive parts of the F-104 flight model is the fact that each version has accurate drag and performance for its load. Whereas the clean models easily reach Mach 2, models carrying bombs or drop tanks have longer takeoff rolls, less sprightly acceleration, and a reduced top speed.
In addition to control loss, Cloud9 has also modeled random failures and limitations related failures. Almost anything that could possibly break on a real F-104 can also do so in the sim. Everything from a simple generator failure to a complete engine failure (or just a partial one) is possible and will occur if you fly long enough. In most FS aircraft, speed limits can be exceeded at will with no consequences, but this is not the case with the F-104. As was mentioned earlier, the gear and flaps will sustain damage if their respective speed limits are not adhered to. If you fly to fast, the intake air temperature will skyrocket and if the subsequent “slow” light is ignored, the engine will fail and cannot be restarted. If the tire’s maximum speed is exceeded, the tires will blow out which makes takeoff or landing interesting to say the least. Much like Icarus, flying too high also has its consequences. If the ceiling of 63,000 ft is exceeded, the engine will flame out, but it can be restarted at a lower altitude. Hydraulic and electrical failures are present, and in such situations, the working RAT is very useful.
Although failures add a nice level of realism to the sim, they can be a bit overwhelming when mixed with the advanced flight model. To counter this, Cloud9 has given each aircraft three separate flight\failure models. On the easiest model, some of the loss of control situations are removed to make the aircraft easier to fly (reducing the realism sliders in FS doesn’t affect the failures or loss of control) and random failures are removed. On the normal model, all of the limitation failures are present as are random failures. Using the “unreliable” model makes the F-104 much more interesting to fly as it has all of the limits and random failures present, but the random failures occur much more often than on the normal model. Sounds and Support When the F-104 was designed and built, noise and environmental regulations for aircraft were unheard of, and the Starfighter, like most military jets of its era, was loud and smoky. The sound set was recorded from a real F-104 and is something that must be heard to be believed. The sound set captures both the inside and outside sounds very well with no looping or distortion present. Cloud9’s sound set also includes the howling sound characteristic of the F-104 at some throttle settings which sounds like someone blowing across a soda bottle (the real sound actually comes from a similar effect). The F-104 also includes a nice set of effects that compliment the rest of the aircraft. The highlight of the effects (no pun intended) is the afterburner effect. It ranges from a glow in the tailpipe at lower power settings to a tail of flame at full ‘burner. At lower power settings, the Starfighter a leaves a trail of black smoke, and vapor trails appear during high G turns. Support for the F-104 has been nothing short of superb. Already, two additional livery packs have been released, along with a pair of service packs that have fixed known issues and added new features to expand the package. The support forum, although not terribly busy (which is an indicator of the quality of the package), is inhabited by some of the most helpful and knowledgeable people in the FS community. One of the best aspects of the support is the fact that the F-104 is a product that constantly evolves in response to customer input. Although there are already tow service packs, Cloud9 have plans to add more features to the F-104 in the future.
Summary Overall, the Cloud9 F-104 is one of the most impressive military aircraft available for FS. There are a massive variety of models and liveries included, and even after flying the product for several weeks, I am not completely sure I have flown every single version included. Although there are a couple of flaws (albeit minor ones) most of this package is of very high quality and I highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a good simulation of a classic fighter. |
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