Sorry but I find it amusing that early F104's ejected downwards. If an issue on takeoff you had to roll inverted before you could eject.

 

 

F-111 did too.

 

The U.S. Air Force pilots called the F-104 The Widowmaker. In Germany it was known as The Flying Coffin. Well deserved titles.

If I remember....the pilots were concerned about being sliced in two by the tall tail! 😳

2 hours ago, kfd said:

F-111 did too.

 

 

Nope. In the F-111 the entire cockpit ejected upward. Otherwise at those speeds the crew would be pate. 

I think that's right Charlie. At the time the 104 was designed there wasn't a powerful enough set of ejection rockets to get the pilot clear of the tail. That's why it was designed to eject the pilot downward. And the downward ejection was the reason they had to invert the aircraft because at low altitude the ejection force would blast the pilot straight into the ground. They finally changed it to eject upward as the rocket technology developed.

46 minutes ago, charliearon said:

If I remember....the pilots were concerned about being sliced in two by the tall tail! 😳

 

In the video he mentioned how a friend of his got 14 stitches in his head doing the walkaround, hit his head against the wing. I had a close up look at an F-104 at the Coventry air museum in the UK, sure enough, leading edge was razor sharp. 

Yep, it was the tail they were trying to avoid. Until they fitted a Martin Baker seat and then there was enough thrust to clear the tail.

Fantastic video by the way, best of seen on the F-104. Some fascinating stuff revealed.

Apparently the speed brake works all the way up to Mach 2, no speed restriction at all, but they warn the pilots that popping the speed brake above Mack 1.6 is like slamming the brakes on in a race car. 

My father was in a B-26 in WW2. It also earned the name widowmaker.  It required considerable skill to land.

 

 

Bill W

This is still one of my favorites!

 

Beam me up Scotty....

1 minute ago, W2DR said:

Beam me up Scotty....

Is that a plain beam or a Jim Beam me up?

It's a plain beam. Everyone knows that Capt. Kirk only drinks Johnny Walker Blue. As a friend was told when he ordered a Canadian Club on our last cruise..."we don't serve cheap liquor here" (true story).

18 hours ago, charliearon said:

This is still one of my favorites!

 

Nice video. I like the one I posted because it goes in depth with the mechanical systems.