The Cyprus peanut scale twin engine F104

THE BLACKBIRD wrote: That enormous hound you refer to is my boy Eric lol, yes its the new fangled phone, :evil:

Do you want them removing Tony, or shall we leave them in as a reminder for you to spend some time learning how to use your new fangled phone? :lol: :lol: :lol: :silly:

Pol.

leave them Pol

The first bit of white paint on the F104, primer on the tip tank and rudder

With no flying because of the high wind winds I thought I would spray the F104 just got started now it's chucking it down with rain
I called it a day at 1400 and went yo bed for the afternoon

Just been looking for information on the f104 and found that the German airforce lost 298 pilots killed flying the star fighter :ohmy: who needs an enemy with planes or pilots like that
I think a lot of it was down to the pilots

It was never intended as a combat aircraft, just a hit and run interceptor.

The story is even worse than that!
As designed by "Kelly" Johnson the F104 was a day interceptor fighter. As Eric said "straight up, fire a missile at a bomber and down again".
It was a complex plane with blown flaps to keep the landing speed within bounds (but still 200+- mph!) which required significant engine power to work effectively. To make matters worse its engine and afterburner (absolutely necessary for take off) had a number of problems. Dead stick landings were considered impossible, indeed for many technical issues the only practical option was to eject.

With very limited and short use by the USAF, Lockheed were given permission to sell it to US allies and modified it to become an all weather multi role fighter. A role for which it was totally unsuited but by some dubious but huge transactions to senior politicians sold it in substantial numbers. In addition its already tricky handling was made worse by the inevitable increase in weight and the addition of under wing stores.
Interesting that the Spanish air force, who tended to fly in better weather conditions had a much better safety record than in German service.

I also read that the German pilots were trained in America in the desert bases,
This resulted in the pilots not being able to cope with the inclimate weather of Germany and resulted in a lot of their deaths

She is all primed up first coat, now I suppose I sand it down and do it again
I though grey was the colour to show up the faults
White also makes a great job of it

Looking good, I think grey primer has lots of solid bulk in it to fill up blemishes, it'll also push the weight up!

I used grey primer filler for a start then sanded it all off except for the low spots
I bought white primer for the glider as it will be white, thought I may as well use it on this one as well as the underneath is light grey also some of the top, the fin is white with blue diamonds on it
Tonight trying to set up the tip tanks to fit the fins

Fins fitted to both wing tanks
Realised it needed a dorsal fin under the fuselage so I cut some 3mm lite ply and laminated 3mm balsa each side
Cut some steel plate and silver soldered it to a 3mm bolt to make a hatch lock

Got the dorsal fin fitted, as it is going to be very vulnerable to getting knocks iv made it removable, held by one bolt and 3 carbon pins
It also needs an arester hooks had a go at one but it was way to small so did a larger one [attachment=21425]20181107_210100.jpg[/attachment
Also got the turbine hatch and canopy hatch locks finished

Got the arester hook fitted, also made it so I can remove ky
Getting fed up with the filling and sanding lark, think I will look for something else to finish of for a while
Maybe the Lanc

After such a negative week with the Lancaster I thought I would do something positive today so I started on the transporter for the 104
1/2" marine ply