While the F-16A had proven a success, its lack of long-range missile and true all-weather capability hampered it, especially in projected combat against the Warsaw Pact over Central Europe. General Dynamics began work on the upgraded F-16C/D version, with the first Block 25 F-16C flying in June 1984 and entering USAF service that September.

Externally, the only ways to tell apart the F-16C from the F-16A is the slightly enlarged base of the tail and a UHF radio antenna at the base of the tail. The intake is also slightly larger, though later marks of the F-16A also have this feature. Internally, however, the F-16C is a significantly different aircraft. The earlier APG-66 radar was replaced by the APG-68 multimode radar used by the F/A-18, which gave the F-16C the same capability to switch between ground-attack and dogfight mode and vastly improved all-weather capability. Cockpit layout was also changed in response to pilots’ requests, with a larger Heads-Up Display and movement of the radar display to eye level rather than between the pilot’s legs on the F-16A. The F-16C would also have the capability to carry the AIM-120 AMRAAM, though it would not be until 1992 that the missile entered service. Other small upgrades were made throughout the design, including the engine.

The Block 25 initial production was superseded by the Block 30 F-16C in 1987, which gave it better navigation systems, and the capability to carry the either the General Electric F110 or the Pratt and Whitney F100 turbofan. The Block 40/42 “Night Falcon” followed in 1988, equipped with LANTIRN night attack pods, followed by the Block 50/52, which was a dedicated Wild Weasel variant. In USAF service, the latter are semi-officially known as F-16CG and F-16CJ variants.

The F-16C had replaced the F-16A in nearly all overseas USAF units by the First Gulf War in 1991, and as a result, the aircraft was among the first deployed to the theater in August 1990. During the war, the F-16C was used mainly in ground attack and strike sorties, due to delays in the AIM-120, but it performed superbly in this role. USAF F-16s finally scored kills in the F-16C, beginning in 1992, when an Iraqi MiG-23 was shot down over the southern no-fly zone; the victory was also the first with the AMRAAM. Four Serbian G-4 Super Galebs were shot down over Bosnia in 1994. F-16Cs had replaced the F-16A entirely in regular and Reserve USAF service by 1997, and further service was seen over Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya by 2012. Subsequent upgrades to USAF F-16Cs with GPS allow them to carry advanced precision weapons such as JSOW and JDAM.

Whatever the variant, the F-16 is today the most prolific combat aircraft in existence, with 28 nations operating the type (17 of which operate F-16Cs). Over 4450 have been built, with more in production; the F-16C is also license-produced by Turkey and South Korea. It also forms the basis for the Mitsubishi F-2 fighter for Japan, though the F-2 is significantly different, with a longer nose and larger wing. Though the USAF projects that the F-16C will be replaced by the F-35 beginning in 2020, it will likely remain in service for a very long time.

This is an aggressor F-16C with the 64th Aggressor Squadron, operating out of Nellis AFB, Nevada, in support of the Red Flag training program. These aircraft are meant to simulate advanced enemy aircraft, namely the MiG-29 Fulcrum, and as such are flown by arguably the most skilled pilots in the USAF. Unique among USAF F-16 units, they have different camouflage schemes to differentiate them from regular USAF F-16s; this particular aircraft carries a mint green over light gray scheme similar to that carried by MiG-29s. As it is essentially a training aircraft, it carries only an inert Sidewinder training round and an ACMI datalink pod, which allows Red Flag trainers to track and record the aircraft’s movements for subsequent review.

The fourth of the 1950s era “Century Series,” the F-104 Starfighter was designed around one single element: speed. Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, head of Lockheed’s famous “Skunk Works” factory, had interviewed US Air Force pilots during the Korean War, seeking their input on any new fighter. Since the pilots reported that they wanted high performance more than anything else, Johnson returned to the United States determined to deliver exactly that: a simple, point-defense interceptor marrying the lightest airframe to the most powerful engine then available, the superb General Electric J79.

When Johnson offered the L-098 design to the USAF in 1952, the service was so impressed that they created an entire competition for the aircraft to be accepted, ostensibly as a F-100 Super Sabre replacement. The Lockheed design had the clear edge, though both North American’s and Northrop’s design went on to be built themselves—the North American F-107A Ultra Sabre and the Northrop T-38 Talon. The USAF purchased the L-098 as the F-104A Starfighter. The design changed very little from initial design to prototype to operational aircraft, which was done in the astonishing time of two years.

When the first F-104As reached the USAF in 1958, pilots quickly found that it was indeed a hot fighter—too hot. The Starfighter’s design philosophy of speed above all else resulted in an aircraft with a long fuselage, T-tail for stability, and small wings, which were so thin that special guards had to be put on the leading edges to avoid injuring ground personnel. Because of its small wing, the F-104 required a lot of runway, and blown flaps (which vents airflow from the engine over the flaps to increase lift) were a necessity; unfortunately, the airflow system often failed, which meant that the F-104 pilot would be coming in at a dangerous rate of speed. Because it was feared that a pilot who ejected from a F-104 would never clear the tail, a downward-ejection seat was fitted, but after killing over 20 pilots, the seat was retrofitted with a more reliable, upward-firing type. The design also was not very maneuverable in the horizontal, though it was difficult to match in the vertical. Its shape earned it the moniker “Missile With a Man In It” and “Zipper.”

One thing pilots did not complain about was its speed—the listed top speed of the F-104 was Mach 2.2, but this was because above that the fuselage would melt. The J79 was a near flawless engine that gave the Starfighter an excellent thrust-to-weight ratio; uniquely, the intake design of the Starfighter gave the engine a bansheelike wail. So superb was the F-104 at level speed and climbing that NASA leased several as trainers for the X-15 program, and in setting a number of speed and time-to-climb records.

If the F-104 had gotten a mixed reception at best in the USAF, Lockheed felt that it had potential as an export aircraft. Beating out several excellent British and other American designs in a 1961 competition, every NATO nation except France and Great Britain bought F-104s and manufactured their own as the F-104G; Japan also license-built Starfighters as F-104Js, while still more were supplied to Pakistan and Taiwan. Just as in USAF service, accident rates were incredibly high, particularly in West German and Canadian service—Germany lost 30 percent of its initial batch, and the Canadians over half. Worries that the F-104 was too “hot” for pilots usually transitioning from the F-86 were ignored, and later it was learned why: German, Dutch, and Japanese politicians later admitted to being bribed by Lockheed into buying the Starfighter.

Its high accident rate earned such nicknames as “Widowmaker,” “Flying Coffin,” and “Ground Nail.” Pakistani pilots simply called it Badmash (“Criminal”) and the Japanese Eiko (“Glory,” inferring that it was the easiest way to reach it). German pilots joked that the quickest way to obtain a F-104 was to buy a patch of land and wait.

Nonetheless, once pilots learned how to tame the beast, the accident rates eased somewhat, and NATO pilots discovered that the Starfighter excelled as a low-level attack aircraft: fitted with bomb racks, the F-104 was remarkably stable at low altitude and high speed, and Luftwaffe pilots in particular found that they could sneak up on a target, launch a simulated attack, and be gone before ground defenses could react. The Italians in particular loved the F-104, building their own as the F-104S: these aircraft were equipped with multimode radar and armed with AIM-7 Sparrow and Aspide radar-guided missiles, making them a superb interceptor. Though most NATO nations reequipped their F-104 units with F-16s, F-18s, or Tornados beginning in 1980, the Italian F-104S fleet was continually upgraded and soldiered on until final retirement in 2004. 2578 F-104s were built, mostly F-104Gs; today over 150 survive in museums, with at least ten flyable examples, making it one of the best preserved of the Century Series.

12846 was delivered to the RCAF in 1963. It was assigned mainly to 439 Squadron ("Tigers") and 441 Squadron ("Silver Fox") mainly from bases in France and later at CFB Baden-Sollingen in West Germany. Though it was intended for the low-level fighter-bomber role, it could also be fitted with a camera pod for tactical reconnaissance duties. In 1971, 12846 was handed over to the Royal Danish Air Force (RDAF); it was retired for good in 1984 when the RDAF replaced its F-104 fleet with F-16s. 12846 was then placed on display at Billiund, and was purchased by the Military Museums of Calgary in 2012. It was restored back to its RCAF appearance and went on display around 2015.

Today, 12846 is back to its original appearance, with a well-polished bare metal finish and earlier RCAF markings. It is fitted with a Vinten conformal camera pod on the centerline. The large tank-like object in the center is a "shape," carried to simulate a B43 tactical nuclear bomb. Before the 1970s shifted NATO to a more flexible response to a Warsaw Pact invasion, 12846's job would have been to dash in at low level, deliver its nuclear payload, and get out ahead of the shockwave--hence the F-104's polish, to get every mile of speed out of the airframe.

The reason why the F-104 doesn't fit into the picture all that well is because the Military Museums' Cold War hangars are actually a little too small for the two aircraft placed in one of them; 12846 shares space with a Canadair Sabre. Nonetheless, it's an impressive display worth a visit.

In 1969, the Soviet Union learned of the United States’ TFX program, what would become the F-15 Eagle. This aircraft threatened to be far beyond anything the Soviets had in their inventory or planned at the time. To counter the F-15, the Sukhoi design bureau was to begin work on a long-range heavy air superiority fighter. The so-called Advanced Frontline Fighter concept was too ambitious, and so the program was split up into two designs: the long-range air superiority fighter, and the short-range battlefield air superiority fighter. Mikoyan-Gurevich, with its experience in designing light point-defense fighters like the MiG-21, was assigned this second fighter, known as the Advanced Lightweight Fighter. The latter was also meant to counter the American light fighters known to be in the design stage, the F-16 Fighting Falcon and YF-17 Cobra. The Mikoyan-Gurevich design was designated MiG-29 in 1974.

Since both it and the Advanced Frontline Fighter (which would become the Su-27) had a common origin, the designs were broadly similar, though the MiG-29 was a good deal smaller than the Sukhoi design. Both would have blended fuselages, leading-edge wing extensions for better manueverability, twin tails, and twin engines for better survivalbility—drawing on the same lessons of the Vietnam and Arab-Israeli Wars as the Americans had. Agility was paramount in the MiG-29’s design, as was simplicity and the ability to operate from forward airfields. Because of the latter, a complicated system of vents and doors over the intakes was devised to keep any foreign objects from being sucked into the engines. The intakes themselves were also variable to control airflow to the engines. Some emphasis was given to all-around visibility from the cockpit, as MiG-21 and MiG-23 pilots had complained of poor vision to the front and rear. Because it was meant to be used very close to the fighting front, range was not an important factor in the MiG-29’s design. Mikoyan-Gurevich meant for it to be a rugged aircraft that could maneuver with anything in the West’s inventory, and largely succeeded—despite not using a fly-by-wire control system.

The biggest drawback to the MiG-29 design was its radar. Because Soviet radar technology was still a generation behind that of the West, the multimode, look-down radar the Soviet V-VS desired was too big to fit in a smaller aircraft like the MiG-29. As a result, the radar from the MiG-23MF was adapted and modified. While the radar could track multiple targets, it could not pick out small targets at range and could only guide one missile at a time. This put the MiG-29 at a severe disadvantage: in hypothetical combat with a F-15, both pilots would detect each other at the same time, but the MiG-29 would be unable to respond until the range closed to visual range. Once at close range, the advantage would switch to the more manueverable MiG-29, which compensated for its lack of long-range firepower by using both a helmet-mounted sight (which allowed pilots to engage targets “off-boresight” of the nose) and an infrared sensor mounted in front of the cockpit. The poor radar, combined with a poorly-designed cockpit, meant that the MiG-29 would not be able to reach its full potential. Nonetheless, it gave Soviet Frontal Aviation a dogfighter that was equal at short range with Western fighters.

The first MiG-29A prototype flew in October 1977; engine trouble which resulted in the loss of two prototypes led to delaying its entry into service until 1984 as the operational MiG-29B. By this time, it had been identified by US reconnaissance satellites as first the “Ram-L” and then as the MiG-29A, though only the prototypes had been given this designation. It was given the reporting name Fulcrum: when the name became known in the Soviet Union after its first public display in Finland in 1986, MiG-29 pilots liked the reporting name so much it was unofficially adopted. The MiG-29 would be extensively exported to Soviet client states; after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, exports were expanded to anyone who could afford MiG-29s.

The MiG-29’s combat experience was mixed: in engagements with F-15s during the First Gulf War in 1991, and F-15s and F-16s in the Bosnia and Kosovo Wars of the late 1990s, it came off second-best. Eleven MiG-29s were lost in air combat during these wars; several others were lost during the Eritrean War of 1999, ironically to Ethiopian Su-27s. It should be said that these losses were less due to any inherent problems with the MiG-29 as it was poor training of pilots and better tactics by American and NATO pilots. 37 nations have operated or continue to operate the Fulcrum: this includes the United States, which purchased a number from Moldova to prevent them from being sold to Iran.

The MiG-29 has been extensively upgraded by its operators, usually adding internal fuel, better avionics, and a much-improved radar. India has adopted the MiG-29K for use on its carriers. Some versions use Western electronics. Russian MiG-29s are being gradually upgraded to MiG-29SMT standard, though poor maintenance and aging engines has grounded the V-VS’ fleet on several occasions, as recently as 2009. Over 1600 MiG-29s have been produced, and it continues in production.

The MiG-29UB was designed as the conversion trainer for the MiG-29 series. To accommodate the second cockpit, the UB has a narrower nose as it lacks a radar. Technically, the UB is combat capable, but would be limited to line-of-sight engagements only. The Flying Heritage Collection obtained this aircraft in 2009; it is a former Ukrainian example sold to a private buyer in 2008 and restored back to flying condition. It lacks national markings, likely because the MiG-29 is still a frontline fighter.

While the F-16A had proven a success, its lack of long-range missile and true all-weather capability hampered it, especially in projected combat against the Warsaw Pact over Central Europe. General Dynamics began work on the upgraded F-16C/D version, with the first Block 25 F-16C flying in June 1984 and entering USAF service that September.

Externally, the only ways to tell apart the F-16C from the F-16A is the slightly enlarged base of the tail and a UHF radio antenna at the base of the tail. The intake is also slightly larger, though later marks of the F-16A also have this feature. Internally, however, the F-16C is a significantly different aircraft. The earlier APG-66 radar was replaced by the APG-68 multimode radar used by the F/A-18, which gave the F-16C the same capability to switch between ground-attack and dogfight mode and vastly improved all-weather capability. Cockpit layout was also changed in response to pilots’ requests, with a larger Heads-Up Display and movement of the radar display to eye level rather than between the pilot’s legs on the F-16A. The F-16C would also have the capability to carry the AIM-120 AMRAAM, though it would not be until 1992 that the missile entered service. Other small upgrades were made throughout the design, including the engine.

The Block 25 initial production was superseded by the Block 30 F-16C in 1987, which gave it better navigation systems, and the capability to carry the either the General Electric F110 or the Pratt and Whitney F100 turbofan. The Block 40/42 “Night Falcon” followed in 1988, equipped with LANTIRN night attack pods, followed by the Block 50/52, which was a dedicated Wild Weasel variant. In USAF service, the latter are semi-officially known as F-16CG and F-16CJ variants.

The F-16C had replaced the F-16A in nearly all overseas USAF units by the First Gulf War in 1991, and as a result, the aircraft was among the first deployed to the theater in August 1990. During the war, the F-16C was used mainly in ground attack and strike sorties, due to delays in the AIM-120, but it performed superbly in this role. USAF F-16s finally scored kills in the F-16C, beginning in 1992, when an Iraqi MiG-23 was shot down over the southern no-fly zone; the victory was also the first with the AMRAAM. Four Serbian G-4 Super Galebs were shot down over Bosnia in 1994. F-16Cs had replaced the F-16A entirely in regular and Reserve USAF service by 1997, and further service was seen over Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya by 2012. Subsequent upgrades to USAF F-16Cs with GPS allow them to carry advanced precision weapons such as JSOW and JDAM.

Whatever the variant, the F-16 is today the most prolific combat aircraft in existence, with 28 nations operating the type (17 of which operate F-16Cs). Over 4450 have been built, with more in production; the F-16C is also license-produced by Turkey and South Korea. It also forms the basis for the Mitsubishi F-2 fighter for Japan, though the F-2 is significantly different, with a longer nose and larger wing. Though the USAF projects that the F-16C will be replaced by the F-35 beginning in 2020, it will likely remain in service for a very long time.

Built as the sixth production F-16A, 75-0750 never formally reached the USAF. Instead, it was converted as a permanent testbed to serve with General Dynamics and NASA's Advanced Fighter Technology Integration aircraft. Redesignated NF-16A as a test aircraft, the AFTI F-16 would serve from 1981 to 2000 in various roles, testing new avionics and technologies. The AFTI was among the first aircraft to use "glass" cockpit technology, computer touch-screens, voice-activated flight controls, helmet-mounted targeting, advanced ground-collision avoidance systems, and entirely fly-by-wire controls, with no hydraulic or manual backups. When the test program was brought to an end in 2000, the AFTI project had contribued significantly to more advanced F-16 variants, the F-22 Raptor, and the F-35 Lightning II. Afterwards, it was donated to the National Museum of the USAF at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.

Since the NMUSAF already has a F-16A on display (in Thunderbird colors), it was something of a surprise to see one in the Experimental Aircraft Gallery. The AFTI F-16's differences are readily seen: the extended fuselage spine (similar but not as thick as the F-16E/F/I), and the FLIR infrared sensor at the wing root. It is painted in standard USAF F-16 camouflage, aside from the bright blue test colors. "Power By Wire" refers to its entirely fly-by-wire microprocessor flight controls, while the JSF patch on the tail refers to the F-35 project.

The Space Shuttle in the background is not a real Shuttle--it is one of several full-scale mockups built for ground training.

The A-6 Intruder was designed to serve two roles: one, to replace the aging A-1 Skyraider and supplement the A-4 Skyhawk in the carrier-based strike role, and two, to give the US Navy a genuine all-weather strike aircraft. The requirement was issued in 1957, and Grumman’s A2F-1 design selected, with the first flight in 1960. In 1962, just before fleet entry in 1963, the Intruder was redesignated A-6A.

The A-6 was designed to hit targets with pinpoint accuracy in adverse weather, day or night, similar to what the USAF would later require for the F-111 Aardvark. For this reason, it was built around the Digital Integrated Attack/Navigation Equipment (DIANE), which used three radar systems to constantly update the INS and provide attack data to the bombardier/navigator sitting in the right seat. The system proved very complicated and it would be some years before it was perfected. Since the weather and night would be the Intruder’s primary defense, no internal armament equipped the aircraft, though it could carry an impressive 18,000 pound warload.

The Intruder was committed early to the Vietnam War, which showed up the flaws in the DIANE system and a more lethal one in the bomb delivery system, which had a tendency to set off the bombs prematurely, destroying the aircraft. Gradually improvements were made, and despite the loss of 84 Intruders over Vietnam, it proved to be extremely effective: until the bugs were ironed out of the F-111A in 1971, the A-6 remained the only American aircraft that could attack during the monsoon season.

Specialized A-6Bs were also produced specifically for Iron Hand defense suppression missions, and A-6Cs for anti-truck operations on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. All three variants were replaced by the A-6E beginning in 1971: this replaced DIANE with a more advanced solid-state computer and the three radars with a single AN/APQ-148 multimode radar. In 1979, the A-6E was further modified with the installation of Target Recognition Attack Multisensor (TRAM), consisting of a turret in the nose containing FLIR linked to the radar and a new bomb computer. Besides making the already accurate A-6 even more deadly, it also allowed the Intruder to drop laser-guided bombs, hit moving targets with bombs, and also use passive radar to attack a target.

A-6s would find themselves once more heavily employed during the First Gulf War, flying 4700 sorties for the loss of four aircraft; its final roles would find it supporting Marines in Somalia in 1991 and UN forces in Bosnia in 1995. By that time, surviving A-6Es had been partially upgraded to allow them to fire all newer guided weapons in the inventory (namely the AGM-84 Harpoon, AGM-65 Maverick, and AGM-88 HARM), while most of the fleet also received composite wings.

Grumman further proposed an updated version designated A-6F, with new avionics and engines, but the US Navy rejected this in favor of replacing the Intruder with first the cancelled stealthy A-12A Avenger II, then the F/A-18C/D Hornet. The last A-6E left US Navy service by Feburary 1997; the US Marine Corps had retired theirs in 1993. Older, non-modified aircraft were sunk as an artificial reef off Florida; others remain at AMARC for scrapping.

A-6A BuNo 154147 was delivered to VA-128 ("Golden Intruders") at NAS Whidbey Island, Washington in 1968. It was not there long before it joined the fleet, going to VA-196 ("Main Battery") aboard the USS Constellation (CV-64), seeing combat over Vietnam. In 1971, it was transferred to VA-176 ("Thunderbolts") in the Atlantic, aboard USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CV-42). By 1977, like many of the early A-model Intruders, 154147 was converted to a KA-6D, and would serve with VA-115 ("Eagles"), VA-95 ("Green Lizards"), VA-52 ("Knight Riders"), and finally VA-34 ("Blue Blasters"). On this last cruise, 154147 supported Navy flights from the USS Dwight Eisenhower (CVN-69) during Operation Desert Shield. It was retired in 1992 and scrapped sometime thereafter.

This shot of 154147 shows it with VA-196, probably soon after returning from Vietnam. As an A-6A, it retains the early fuselage speedbrakes and black nose. VA-196 is one of the more famous Intruder squadrons, as it was the squadron Stephen Coonts--later author of "Flight of the Intruder"--was assigned to during his Vietnam tour of duty. Given the F-102 behind 154147, this was possibly taken at an airshow.

(Disclaimer: I found this picture among other photos in my dad’s slides. I’m not sure who took them; some of them may be his. If any of these pictures are yours or you know who took them, let me know and I will remove them from Flickr, unless I have permission to let them remain. These photos are historical artifacts, in many cases of aircraft long since gone to the scrapyard, so I feel they deserve to be shared to the public at large—to honor the men and women who flew and maintained them.)

One of the lessons of the Six-Day War of 1967 was that the long runways needed by contemporary fighters were vulnerable targets and could be destroyed, pinning surviving aircraft to a base they could not operate from nor escape. With this in mind, Hawker-Siddeley began research into a vertical/short takeoff and landing (V/STOL) aircraft, the P.1127 Kestrel, which would use a revolutionary new engine—the Rolls-Royce Pegasus, which used vectored thrust, in which nozzles were turned for regular flight or hovering. The Kestrel was proven in a series of tests, and the British Royal Air Force accepted a modified Kestrel as the Harrier GR.1.

Involved in the test process of the Kestrel and the Harrier had been the US Marine Corps, who saw potential in the idea: in cases where the Marines had to land on beaches, often airfields were hard to get to or were so badly damaged by fighting as to be useless for a time. The Harrier would allow the Marines to have air support over the beach, as Harriers could operate from small ships or from shore. The Marines would subsequently adopt the Harrier as the AV-8A. This concept of small-ship operation also led to the development of the Sea Harrier for the British Fleet Air Arm, as the United Kingdom wanted to retire its large carriers in favor of smaller “through-deck cruisers”—light carriers with Harriers aboard.

While the Harrier’s V/STOL capability was impressive and touted by some British aviation enthusiasts as the wave of the future, the early AV-8As and Harrier GR.1/3s were limited by their size and engine power: despite being the same size as the A-4 Skyhawk, the latter could carry more bombs faster and further than the AV-8A. The Harrier was notoriously unforgiving and difficult to fly; the FAA learned that the best Sea Harrier pilots were actually those who had been helicopter pilots. It was also a maintenance nightmare: to change the engine, the wings had to be removed. In an attempt to cure or mitigate these problems, British Aerospace and McDonnell Douglas embarked on a joint project to improve the Harrier, mainly with a new, larger wing and uprated engine. Defense cuts in the UK led to British Aerospace withdrawing from the project, but despite pressure from the US Navy to cancel the “Advanced Harrier” project, McDonnell Douglas persisted, converting two Harriers to YAV-8B standard, with new wings and redesigned nozzles and intakes. While performance was still not up to par, it still had increased range and more bombload.

New administrations—Margaret Thatcher’s in England and Ronald Reagan in the US—led to the British rejoining the project and more momentum, and finally, in 1981, the first AV-8B Harrier II flew. This had all of the improvements of the YAV-8B, with a new forward fuselage with a raised cockpit for better visibility, an uprated engine, heavy use of composites to lighten the weight, and leading-edge extensions of the wings. These solved the Harrier’s range and speed problems, and the AV-8B went into full production in January 1984 in the US, quickly followed by the Harrier GR.4 in the UK. Almost immediately, according to Marine requirements, work began on a dedicated night attack Harrier with FLIR infrared guidance and provision for night-vision goggles. These aircraft—unofficially referred to as “Night Attack” Harriers but retaining the basic AV-8B designation—became the baseline version, with earlier “Day Fighter” AV-8Bs converted to this standard.

Though the Sea Harrier had blooded the type in the 1982 Falklands War with phenomenal success, the first war fought by Marine AV-8Bs was the First Gulf War of 1991. Marine Harriers, operating from offshore amphibious assault ships, regular airfields, and forward operating locations, were instrumental in the Marines’ liberation of Kuwait, sustaining a 90 percent operational rate; five Harriers were shot down during the war. One complaint was that the AV-8B lacked a radar and had no long-range capability: should a Harrier get into a dogfight, it would have to rely on short-range AIM-9 Sidewinders. Subsequently, McDonnell Douglas began a long modification and update program, the so-called AV-8B+, which redesigned the nose to accept the same radar as the F-18 Hornet. This allowed the Harrier to fire the AIM-120 AMRAAM and the AGM-84 Harpoon attack missile. These updated Harriers began entering service in 1993.

Since then, AV-8Bs have served in American service in Kosovo, Afghanistan (where they were among the first aircraft in action there), and Iraq, where they were used heavily to cover the Marine assault into Baghdad. The design was also updated for British service as the Harrier GR.9, and also used in Kosovo and Afghanistan; budget cuts saw the premature retirement of the GR.9s, which have been subsequently taken up by the US Marines, though the GR.9 lacks the multimode radar of the AV-8B+. Spain and Italy have also adopted the AV-8B for use off of their light carriers—Spain’s Principe de Asturias and Italy’s Garibaldi-class; these aircraft are identical to the Marine AV-8B+. Two concerns of the original Harrier—its high accident rate and high maintenance requirements—still exist, and figured into the British retirement of their GR.9s. Nonetheless, the Harrier is scheduled to service for at least another decade, until it is replaced by the F-35C Lightning II. 323 were built and most remain in service.

Dad built this AV-8B for a college friend of mine. It carries the markings of legendary Marine squadron VMF-214, the famous "Black Sheep" formed by Colonel Gregory "Pappy" Boyington, today based at MCAS Yuma, Arizona. It is painted in current USMC Harrier camouflage of gunship gray and light gray, and is configured for an antitank mission with two AGM-65 Maverick guided missiles, two AIM-9L Sidewinders for self-defense, and two drop tanks. The real 163872 served with VMF-214; it today serves as a training aircraft with VMAT-203 ("Hawks") at MCAS Cherry Point, North Carolina. This is an earlier AV-8B without the "Plus" upgrade.

In the frame is a MH-47G from the US Army 4th Battalion, 160th SOAR/Special Operations Aviation Regiment. This helicopter - 04-03745 - is a rebuild from CH-47D 82-23773 which is a rebuild of CH-47C 68-16002. Yes, quite the history in this helicopter that visited Historic Flight Foundation/HFF for HFF's D-Day + 70 commemeration (my photoset).

According to the Boeing factsheet, "The MH-47G’s fully integrated digital Common Avionics architecture System (CAAS) permits global communications and navigation. CAAS is among the most advanced U.S. Army helicopter systems. CAAS includes integrated forward-looking infrared (FLIR) and multimode radar for nap-of-the-earth and low-level flight operations in conditions of extremely poor visibility and adverse weather. Today’s MH-47Gs contain a fully integrated digital cockpit management system, long-range fuel tanks and advanced cargo-handling capabilities that complement the aircraft’s mission performance and handling characteristics."

Special thanks to Historic Flight Foundation & 4th Battalion, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) for this unique opportunity to photograph SOAR's helicopters. Much appreciate - especially to you Todd & Vanessa when you could have turned me away!

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Field-Termination — Plug includes two industrial qualified multimode or singlemode LC connectors that

accepts 2 strand, round, breakout style fiber optic cable

While the Mirage IIICJ in Israeli Air Force (Heyl Ha’avir) service had proven the Mirage to be a superb fighter, it was not really designed as a ground-attack aircraft, though Israel had often been forced into using it as such. As a result, Israel commissioned Dassault Aircraft of France to design a clear-weather variant of the Mirage III, designed to have better ground-attack capability and range than the CJ fighter-interceptor. This new version was designated the Mirage 5J by Dassault, but following the Six-Day War, President Charles de Gaulle, attempting to improve Franco-Arab relations, embargoed the Mirage 5J, which went into French Armee de l’Air service instead. Israel was later able to covertly acquire plans for the Mirage 5 from Dassault, as well as a number of Atar 9C engines, and built their own version of the Mirage 5J, improving on the design slightly as the Nesher (Dagger).

Though the Nesher performed superbly in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, it retained the problems of the Atar 9-powered Mirage series: a tendency towards compressor stalls in high angles of attack and lack of power compared to other aircraft. Israel Aircraft Industries had already begun research into adapting the Mirage to carry the far more powerful American General Electric J79 turbojet, which powered the F-4 Phantom IIs in Israeli service. The J79 had more than enough power, but also needed much more airflow than the Atar 9, and operated at much hotter temperatures. Using a two-seat Mirage IIIBJ as a test bed, the rear fuselage had to be widened, air scoops added to the rear fuselage and at the base of the tail, and a titanium casing built for the J79. This proved to be successful, and a second conversion of a Nesher resulted in the prototype Kfir (Lion Cub), which first flew in June 1973. Production of the Kfir C.1 would not begin until after the Yom Kippur War; while it would enter service in 1974, its existence was not publicly revealed until a year later.

While the Kfir C.1 was adequate, the power of the J79 was such that, at high speeds, the aircraft was difficult to control, with a tendency to both “snake” through the sky in uncontrollable turns, and to provide too much power to the pilot. It also lacked radar, though early Kfirs had their noses painted black to fool observers into thinking it did. IAI embarked on a program to cure this problem, which resulted in the Kfir C.2. This changed the appearance of the Kfir completely by adding large canards to the intakes, strakes on the slightly longer nose, and more cooling intakes. This cured not only the tendency towards loss of control at high speeds, it also lowered the Kfir’s landing speeds and made it more maneuverable at low speed. The leading edge of the wing was altered to a “sawtooth” design, which also improved performance. As radars became smaller, a ranging radar for attack missions was added as well. While the Kfir was not the first aircraft to use the canard/delta combination (the Saab Viggen entered service just before the Kfir C.2), the use of this combination would be subsequently adopted by several Mirage III/5 users for the same reasons, namely by South Africa, who converted a number of their Mirage IIIs to essentially Kfir clones as the Cheetah.

The Kfir C.2, and its upgraded successor the C.7, would see action beginning in 1977 and culminating in the Lebanon War of 1982, in various airstrikes first against terrorist targets in Lebanon and Syria, and then against Syrian forces directly. Though the Kfir was a good fighter, it was used mainly in the ground attack role, as Israel’s F-15 Eagles were much better suited for air superiority missions. Israel retired its Kfirs by 1996 in favor of F-16C Fighting Falcons, offering surplus aircraft on the open market. Since sale of Kfirs also needed US approval (as the Kfir uses an American engine), foreign sales have been limited to Colombia, Ecuador, and Sri Lanka; Colombia has upgraded its aircraft to C.10 standard, with a full multimode radar, making the Kfir a truly multirole fighter. At least 220 Kfirs were built.

I've actually had this Israeli Air Force Kfir C.7 since 2006, with some idea towards repainting it as a F-21A Kfir from my fictional air force. I may still do that, but for now, it remains in IDF/AF colors. This gray on gray color scheme was applied to Kfirs towards the end of their careers, and only one or two squadrons adopted it; the rest either remained in desert camouflage or adopted the "cafe au lait" scheme. (Supposedly the gray Kfirs were optimized for air-to-air combat, but I don't believe that to be the case--though this would have been a very effective scheme.) Which squadron the real 845 belonged to is unknown, though it was retired in 1994; it may have been scrapped or supplied to the Sri Lankan Air Force.

The Kfir always looked good no matter what scheme it was in, and though marketed as a toy, this is more of a display model than anything else.

Yes, this helicopter visited Historic Flight Foundation/HFF for HFF's D-Day + 70 commemeration (my photoset).

According to the Boeing factsheet, "The MH-47G’s fully integrated digital Common Avionics architecture System (CAAS)

permits global communications and navigation. CAAS is among the most advanced U.S. Army helicopter systems. CAAS includes integrated forward-looking infrared (FLIR) and multimode radar for nap-of-the-earth and low-level flight operations in conditions of extremely poor visibility and adverse weather. Today’s MH-47Gs contain a fully integrated digital cockpit management system, long-range fuel tanks and advanced cargo-handling capabilities that complement the aircraft’s mission performance and handling characteristics."

Special thanks to Historic Flight Foundation & 4th Battalion, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) for this unique opportunity to photograph SOAR's helicopters. Much appreciate - especially to you Todd & Vanessa when you could have turned me away!

The fourth of the 1950s era “Century Series,” the F-104 Starfighter was designed around one single element: speed. Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, head of Lockheed’s famous “Skunk Works” factory, had interviewed US Air Force pilots during the Korean War, seeking their input on any new fighter. Since the pilots reported that they wanted high performance more than anything else, Johnson returned to the United States determined to deliver exactly that: a simple, point-defense interceptor marrying the lightest airframe to the most powerful engine then available, the superb General Electric J79.

When Johnson offered the L-098 design to the USAF in 1952, the service was so impressed that they created an entire competition for the aircraft to be accepted, ostensibly as a F-100 Super Sabre replacement. The Lockheed design had the clear edge, though both North American’s and Northrop’s design went on to be built themselves—the North American F-107A Ultra Sabre and the Northrop T-38 Talon. The USAF purchased the L-098 as the F-104A Starfighter. The design changed very little from initial design to prototype to operational aircraft, which was done in the astonishing time of two years.

When the first F-104As reached the USAF in 1958, pilots quickly found that it was indeed a hot fighter—too hot. The Starfighter’s design philosophy of speed above all else resulted in an aircraft with a long fuselage, T-tail for stability, and small wings, which were so thin that special guards had to be put on the leading edges to avoid injuring ground personnel. Because of its small wing, the F-104 required a lot of runway, and blown flaps (which vents airflow from the engine over the flaps to increase lift) were a necessity; unfortunately, the airflow system often failed, which meant that the F-104 pilot would be coming in at a dangerous rate of speed. Because it was feared that a pilot who ejected from a F-104 would never clear the tail, a downward-ejection seat was fitted, but after killing over 20 pilots, the seat was retrofitted with a more reliable, upward-firing type. The design also was not very maneuverable in the horizontal, though it was difficult to match in the vertical. Its shape earned it the moniker “Missile With a Man In It” and “Zipper.”

One thing pilots did not complain about was its speed—the listed top speed of the F-104 was Mach 2.2, but this was because above that the fuselage would melt. The J79 was a near flawless engine that gave the Starfighter an excellent thrust-to-weight ratio; uniquely, the intake design of the Starfighter gave the engine a bansheelike wail. So superb was the F-104 at level speed and climbing that NASA leased several as trainers for the X-15 program, and in setting a number of speed and time-to-climb records.

If the F-104 had gotten a mixed reception at best in the USAF, Lockheed felt that it had potential as an export aircraft. Beating out several excellent British and other American designs in a 1961 competition, every NATO nation except France and Great Britain bought F-104s and manufactured their own as the F-104G; Japan also license-built Starfighters as F-104Js, while still more were supplied to Pakistan and Taiwan. Just as in USAF service, accident rates were incredibly high, particularly in West German and Canadian service—Germany lost 30 percent of its initial batch, and the Canadians over half. Worries that the F-104 was too “hot” for pilots usually transitioning from the F-86 were ignored, and later it was learned why: German, Dutch, and Japanese politicians later admitted to being bribed by Lockheed into buying the Starfighter.

Its high accident rate earned such nicknames as “Widowmaker,” “Flying Coffin,” and “Ground Nail.” Pakistani pilots simply called it Badmash (“Criminal”) and the Japanese Eiko (“Glory,” inferring that it was the easiest way to reach it). German pilots joked that the quickest way to obtain a F-104 was to buy a patch of land and wait.

Nonetheless, once pilots learned how to tame the beast, the accident rates eased somewhat, and NATO pilots discovered that the Starfighter excelled as a low-level attack aircraft: fitted with bomb racks, the F-104 was remarkably stable at low altitude and high speed, and Luftwaffe pilots in particular found that they could sneak up on a target, launch a simulated attack, and be gone before ground defenses could react. The Italians in particular loved the F-104, building their own as the F-104S: these aircraft were equipped with multimode radar and armed with AIM-7 Sparrow and Aspide radar-guided missiles, making them a superb interceptor. Though most NATO nations reequipped their F-104 units with F-16s, F-18s, or Tornados beginning in 1980, the Italian F-104S fleet was continually upgraded and soldiered on until final retirement in 2004. 2578 F-104s were built, mostly F-104Gs; today over 150 survive in museums, with at least ten flyable examples, making it one of the best preserved of the Century Series.

56-0910, a F-104C, joined the USAF's primary active-duty F-104 unit in 1958, the 479th Tactical Fighter Wing at George AFB, California. It would remain with the 479th throughout most of its career, which included both a brief deployment to NAS Key West, Florida for the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, and a longer one with the 476th TFS at Da Nang, South Vietnam. There, 56-0910 was camouflaged and given possibly the most famous piece of nose art ever applied to a F-104--a drunken, skinny alley cat--and the name "Pussycat." 56-0910 flew combat over North Vietnam on escort missions, and came home in 1965. As the 479th was transitioning to the F-4 Phantom II, 56-0910 was transferred to the 156th TFG (Puerto Rico ANG) at San Juan, the last USAF F-104 unit. It was retired in 1975, and flown to Lowry AFB, Colorado, for display in its airpark, where I saw it in the early 1980s. When Lowry AFB closed in the early 1990s, it became part of the Wings Over the Rockies collection.

Though it would've been nice to see 56-0910 returned to its "Pussycat" colors, modern sensibilities probably precluded this (and there's no telling what kids would make of that nose art). Not that there's a thing wrong with this gorgeous restoration in the 479th's bare metal colors. Though the Wings Over the Rockies hangar was more crowded than usual due to coronavirus, I was able to get all of the F-104 in the shot.

The Yaesu FT-817ND Qrp HF VHF UHF Multi-mode Portable Transceiver

5 watts output selectable down to 500 mw

Nice Quality Radio Made in Japan

73, de Dave 2W0DAA / GW4JKR

This is the Yaesu FT-290R MK2 VHF 144MHz all mode two meter Transceiver,

Nice Quality made in Japan

With the 9 Type C cell rechargeable batteries in the matching FBA-8 case

And the optional FL-2025 Clip on 25 watt matching amplifier

All in very nice condition and working order, The set whilst running on its battery box

Produces 2.5 watts or 500 mw low setting

Modes FM USB & CW

Ideal radio for portable, Mobile or base

73, de Dave.....2W0DAA

Yes, there's ballistic armor in the aircraft and not one but FOUR gun mounts in the MH-47G. Yup, Special Operations capable.

---------------

In the frame is a MH-47G from the US Army 4th Battalion, 160th SOAR/Special Operations Aviation Regiment. This helicopter - 04-03745 - is a rebuild from CH-47D 82-23773 which is a rebuild of CH-47C 68-16002. Yes, quite the history in this helicopter that visited Historic Flight Foundation/HFF for HFF's D-Day + 70 commemeration (my photoset).

According to the Boeing factsheet, "The MH-47G’s fully integrated digital Common Avionics architecture System (CAAS) permits global communications and navigation. CAAS is among the most advanced U.S. Army helicopter systems. CAAS includes integrated forward-looking infrared (FLIR) and multimode radar for nap-of-the-earth and low-level flight operations in conditions of extremely poor visibility and adverse weather. Today’s MH-47Gs contain a fully integrated digital cockpit management system, long-range fuel tanks and advanced cargo-handling capabilities that complement the aircraft’s mission performance and handling characteristics."

Special thanks to Historic Flight Foundation & 4th Battalion, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) for this unique opportunity to photograph SOAR's helicopters. Much appreciate - especially to you Todd & Vanessa when you could have turned me away!

While the Mirage IIICJ in Israeli Air Force (Heyl Ha’avir) service had proven the Mirage to be a superb fighter, it was not really designed as a ground-attack aircraft, though Israel had often been forced into using it as such. As a result, Israel commissioned Dassault Aircraft of France to design a clear-weather variant of the Mirage III, designed to have better ground-attack capability and range than the CJ fighter-interceptor. This new version was designated the Mirage 5J by Dassault, but following the Six-Day War, President Charles de Gaulle, attempting to improve Franco-Arab relations, embargoed the Mirage 5J, which went into French Armee de l’Air service instead. Israel was later able to covertly acquire plans for the Mirage 5 from Dassault, as well as a number of Atar 9C engines, and built their own version of the Mirage 5J, improving on the design slightly as the Nesher (Dagger).

Though the Nesher performed superbly in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, it retained the problems of the Atar 9-powered Mirage series: a tendency towards compressor stalls in high angles of attack and lack of power compared to other aircraft. Israel Aircraft Industries had already begun research into adapting the Mirage to carry the far more powerful American General Electric J79 turbojet, which powered the F-4 Phantom IIs in Israeli service. The J79 had more than enough power, but also needed much more airflow than the Atar 9, and operated at much hotter temperatures. Using a two-seat Mirage IIIBJ as a test bed, the rear fuselage had to be widened, air scoops added to the rear fuselage and at the base of the tail, and a titanium casing built for the J79. This proved to be successful, and a second conversion of a Nesher resulted in the prototype Kfir (Lion Cub), which first flew in June 1973. Production of the Kfir C.1 would not begin until after the Yom Kippur War; while it would enter service in 1974, its existence was not publicly revealed until a year later.

While the Kfir C.1 was adequate, the power of the J79 was such that, at high speeds, the aircraft was difficult to control, with a tendency to both “snake” through the sky in uncontrollable turns, and to provide too much power to the pilot. It also lacked radar, though early Kfirs had their noses painted black to fool observers into thinking it did. IAI embarked on a program to cure this problem, which resulted in the Kfir C.2. This changed the appearance of the Kfir completely by adding large canards to the intakes, strakes on the slightly longer nose, and more cooling intakes. This cured not only the tendency towards loss of control at high speeds, it also lowered the Kfir’s landing speeds and made it more maneuverable at low speed. The leading edge of the wing was altered to a “sawtooth” design, which also improved performance. As radars became smaller, a ranging radar for attack missions was added as well. While the Kfir was not the first aircraft to use the canard/delta combination (the Saab Viggen entered service just before the Kfir C.2), the use of this combination would be subsequently adopted by several Mirage III/5 users for the same reasons, namely by South Africa, who converted a number of their Mirage IIIs to essentially Kfir clones as the Cheetah.

The Kfir C.2, and its upgraded successor the C.7, would see action beginning in 1977 and culminating in the Lebanon War of 1982, in various airstrikes first against terrorist targets in Lebanon and Syria, and then against Syrian forces directly. Though the Kfir was a good fighter, it was used mainly in the ground attack role, as Israel’s F-15 Eagles were much better suited for air superiority missions. Israel retired its Kfirs by 1996 in favor of F-16C Fighting Falcons, offering surplus aircraft on the open market. Since sale of Kfirs also needed US approval (as the Kfir uses an American engine), foreign sales have been limited to Colombia, Ecuador, and Sri Lanka; Colombia has upgraded its aircraft to C.10 standard, with a full multimode radar, making the Kfir a truly multirole fighter. At least 220 Kfirs were built.

Dad built this IDF/AF Kfir C.2 for the Malmstrom AFB Museum in the early 1980s. This angle shows the Kfir's canard-delta design, as well as the standard IDF/AF desert camouflage of the time--dark brown and mint green over desert tan. The large yellow triangles were applied so as not to confuse the Kfirs with Egyptian or Jordanian Mirages in a dogfight. (Israel's Mirage III fleet carried the triangles for the same reason, and Egypt applies orange panels to its F-16s so they are not confused for Israeli ones!) This aircraft, 716, belonged to 101 Squadron based at Hatzor for at least some of its career, and carries the squadron's red-hatched rudder and winged-skull insignia on the tail. It carries a light load for a Kfir--two Shafrir 2 air-to-air missiles and a single belly drop tank.

Considering its age (Dad built it in 1984) and the fact that it has spent the last 20 years in storage, it still looks good, with only a little bit of the decals starting to turn brittle. The real Kfir 716 still exists, last reported as in storage in Israel, though it may also serve with the independent defense contractor ATAC as an aggressor aircraft.

While the F-16A had proven a success, its lack of long-range missile and true all-weather capability hampered it, especially in projected combat against the Warsaw Pact over Central Europe. General Dynamics began work on the upgraded F-16C/D version, with the first Block 25 F-16C flying in June 1984 and entering USAF service that September.

Externally, the only ways to tell apart the F-16C from the F-16A is the slightly enlarged base of the tail and a UHF radio antenna at the base of the tail. The intake is also slightly larger, though later marks of the F-16A also have this feature. Internally, however, the F-16C is a significantly different aircraft. The earlier APG-66 radar was replaced by the APG-68 multimode radar used by the F/A-18, which gave the F-16C the same capability to switch between ground-attack and dogfight mode and vastly improved all-weather capability. Cockpit layout was also changed in response to pilots’ requests, with a larger Heads-Up Display and movement of the radar display to eye level rather than between the pilot’s legs on the F-16A. The F-16C would also have the capability to carry the AIM-120 AMRAAM, though it would not be until 1992 that the missile entered service. Other small upgrades were made throughout the design, including the engine.

The Block 25 initial production was superseded by the Block 30 F-16C in 1987, which gave it better navigation systems, and the capability to carry the either the General Electric F110 or the Pratt and Whitney F100 turbofan. The Block 40/42 “Night Falcon” followed in 1988, equipped with LANTIRN night attack pods, followed by the Block 50/52, which was a dedicated Wild Weasel variant. In USAF service, the latter are semi-officially known as F-16CG and F-16CJ variants.

The F-16C had replaced the F-16A in nearly all overseas USAF units by the First Gulf War in 1991, and as a result, the aircraft was among the first deployed to the theater in August 1990. During the war, the F-16C was used mainly in ground attack and strike sorties, due to delays in the AIM-120, but it performed superbly in this role. USAF F-16s finally scored kills in the F-16C, beginning in 1992, when an Iraqi MiG-23 was shot down over the southern no-fly zone; the victory was also the first with the AMRAAM. Four Serbian G-4 Super Galebs were shot down over Bosnia in 1994. F-16Cs had replaced the F-16A entirely in regular and Reserve USAF service by 1997, and further service was seen over Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya by 2012. Subsequent upgrades to USAF F-16Cs with GPS allow them to carry advanced precision weapons such as JSOW and JDAM.

Whatever the variant, the F-16 is today the most prolific combat aircraft in existence, with 28 nations operating the type (17 of which operate F-16Cs). Over 4450 have been built, with more in production; the F-16C is also license-produced by Turkey and South Korea. It also forms the basis for the Mitsubishi F-2 fighter for Japan, though the F-2 is significantly different, with a longer nose and larger wing. Though the USAF projects that the F-16C will be replaced by the F-35 beginning in 2020, it will likely remain in service for a very long time.

Having seen this aircraft on aviation websites and on decal sheets, it was a pleasant surprise to finally see it in person at the 122nd Fighter Wing's airpark at Fort Wayne, Indiana. This is 84-1264, a F-16C that joined the USAF in 1985, assigned to the 50th Tactical Fighter Wing based at Hahn, West Germany. When Hahn closed at the end of the Cold War, 84-1264 was transferred to the 122nd FW (Indiana ANG) at Fort Wayne. It would remain with the wing for nearly 20 years, and saw combat during the Second Gulf War (Operation Iraqi Freedom) in 2004.

In 2009, to honor the 122nd FW's predecessor, the 358th Fighter Group ("Orange Tails") of World War II fame, 84-1264 was painted in the same scheme as one of the 358th's P-47 Thunderbolts. The result was striking: an all-orange tail and ventral fins, invasion stripes on the rear fuselage and wings, and the group's orange-and-white nose marking. The wing did not stop there: the most famous P-47 of the 358th was "Tarheel Hal," which covered the nose with a starry field of blue; this was replicated on 84-1264. The 122nd kept its Indiana tail stripe and added "358th Fighter Group" to the base of the tail.

The scheme was kept for a year until the USAF decided to retire the earlier Block 25 F-16Cs, and 84-1264 was taken out of service. Thankfully, it was kept in its heritage scheme and placed on display in the airpark. As I said before, it was a rather neat surprise to see this one-of-a-kind F-16 on an overcast morning in May 2017.

The fourth of the 1950s era “Century Series,” the F-104 Starfighter was designed around one single element: speed. Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, head of Lockheed’s famous “Skunk Works” factory, had interviewed US Air Force pilots during the Korean War, seeking their input on any new fighter. Since the pilots reported that they wanted high performance more than anything else, Johnson returned to the United States determined to deliver exactly that: a simple, point-defense interceptor marrying the lightest airframe to the most powerful engine then available, the superb General Electric J79.

When Johnson offered the L-098 design to the USAF in 1952, the service was so impressed that they created an entire competition for the aircraft to be accepted, ostensibly as a F-100 Super Sabre replacement. The Lockheed design had the clear edge, though both North American’s and Northrop’s design went on to be built themselves—the North American F-107A Ultra Sabre and the Northrop T-38 Talon. The USAF purchased the L-098 as the F-104A Starfighter. The design changed very little from initial design to prototype to operational aircraft, which was done in the astonishing time of two years.

When the first F-104As reached the USAF in 1958, pilots quickly found that it was indeed a hot fighter—too hot. The Starfighter’s design philosophy of speed above all else resulted in an aircraft with a long fuselage, T-tail for stability, and small wings, which were so thin that special guards had to be put on the leading edges to avoid injuring ground personnel. Because of its small wing, the F-104 required a lot of runway, and blown flaps (which vents airflow from the engine over the flaps to increase lift) were a necessity; unfortunately, the airflow system often failed, which meant that the F-104 pilot would be coming in at a dangerous rate of speed. Because it was feared that a pilot who ejected from a F-104 would never clear the tail, a downward-ejection seat was fitted, but after killing over 20 pilots, the seat was retrofitted with a more reliable, upward-firing type. The design also was not very maneuverable in the horizontal, though it was difficult to match in the vertical. Its shape earned it the moniker “Missile With a Man In It” and “Zipper.”

One thing pilots did not complain about was its speed—the listed top speed of the F-104 was Mach 2.2, but this was because above that the fuselage would melt. The J79 was a near flawless engine that gave the Starfighter an excellent thrust-to-weight ratio; uniquely, the intake design of the Starfighter gave the engine a bansheelike wail. So superb was the F-104 at level speed and climbing that NASA leased several as trainers for the X-15 program, and in setting a number of speed and time-to-climb records.

If the F-104 had gotten a mixed reception at best in the USAF, Lockheed felt that it had potential as an export aircraft. Beating out several excellent British and other American designs in a 1961 competition, every NATO nation except France and Great Britain bought F-104s and manufactured their own as the F-104G; Japan also license-built Starfighters as F-104Js, while still more were supplied to Pakistan and Taiwan. Just as in USAF service, accident rates were incredibly high, particularly in West German and Canadian service—Germany lost 30 percent of its initial batch, and the Canadians over half. Worries that the F-104 was too “hot” for pilots usually transitioning from the F-86 were ignored, and later it was learned why: German, Dutch, and Japanese politicians later admitted to being bribed by Lockheed into buying the Starfighter.

Its high accident rate earned such nicknames as “Widowmaker,” “Flying Coffin,” and “Ground Nail.” Pakistani pilots simply called it Badmash (“Criminal”) and the Japanese Eiko (“Glory,” inferring that it was the easiest way to reach it). German pilots joked that the quickest way to obtain a F-104 was to buy a patch of land and wait.

Nonetheless, once pilots learned how to tame the beast, the accident rates eased somewhat, and NATO pilots discovered that the Starfighter excelled as a low-level attack aircraft: fitted with bomb racks, the F-104 was remarkably stable at low altitude and high speed, and Luftwaffe pilots in particular found that they could sneak up on a target, launch a simulated attack, and be gone before ground defenses could react. The Italians in particular loved the F-104, building their own as the F-104S: these aircraft were equipped with multimode radar and armed with AIM-7 Sparrow and Aspide radar-guided missiles, making them a superb interceptor. Though most NATO nations reequipped their F-104 units with F-16s, F-18s, or Tornados beginning in 1980, the Italian F-104S fleet was continually upgraded and soldiered on until final retirement in 2004. 2578 F-104s were built, mostly F-104Gs; today over 150 survive in museums, with at least ten flyable examples, making it one of the best preserved of the Century Series.

56-0790 was delivered to the USAF in 1957, but never entered service with a frontline unit. Instead, it was assigned to the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB, California, for high-speed flight tests, and to act as a chase plane for NF-104s going for speed and altitude records. In 1959, it was returned to Lockheed for a year and converted to a F-104G for testing tactical nuclear weapons delivery. It was returned to AFFTC in 1960, and in 1966 was transferred to NASA directly to replace the NASA F-104 that had been destroyed in a midair collision with the XB-70 Valkyrie. It was reregistered as N820NA, and would perform much the same duties as it had with the USAF, including chase plane duties for the Space Shuttle and YF-12 speed tests. It was retired in 1977 and donated to the Flight Test Museum at Edwards in 1985, and moved to Century Circle in 2007.

I've seen pictures of N820NA, and my stepfather built a model of the aircraft for the Malmstrom AFB Museum, but I had no idea this was that aircraft. (Adding to the confusion is that the Museum of Flight in Seattle has a F-104 painted as N820NA.) While at the Flight Test Museum, N820NA was displayed in its NASA colors, but when it was moved to Century Circle, it was refinished as 56-0790--rather plain, in my opinion, as compared to NASA colors, and giving little hint to its identity as one of the more famous chase Starfighters. The California sun has not been kind either, so it remains to be seen how Edwards will display the aircraft when it moves into their new museum in 2022.

The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 Foxbat had been a bit of a disappointment to the Soviet IA-PVO interceptor force. It had been designed to intercept the XB-70 Valkyrie, a bomber that never went into production, and because of this, the MiG-25 had sacrificed much for its ability to reach Mach 3: manueverability suffered, it lacked range unless flown at subsonic speeds (a major problem in defending the far-flung Soviet Union), and its weight made it difficult to fly at low altitude.

While the Foxbat did have good high-altitude performance, the question in IA-PVO commanders was exactly what the MiG-25 was designed to intercept: the XB-70 had been cancelled, the B-52 was a subsonic bomber, and (at the time) the B-1’s continued existence was in question. As a reconnaissance aircraft, the Foxbat was superb; in combat, the aircraft would be so limited as to only be able to operate as a point-defense interceptor—which could be done just as easily and cheaper by MiG-21s.

Mikoyan-Gurevich began work on a successor, the Ye-155MP. This used the MiG-25P as its basis, but with a longer fuselage to add a second cockpit for the radar operator; the Soviets had noticed the success American fighters such as the F-4 Phantom II and F-14 Tomcat had with a two-man crew, and earlier Soviet interceptors such as the Yak-28 had two-man crews. Because the MiG-25’s weight—it was mostly stainless steel--had so limited its performance, the Ye-155 would use more titanium and aluminum than steel. (It was still heavier than any other interceptor in service: the MiG-31 is ten tons heavier than the Tu-134 airliner.) Some streamlining was also done, and the Tumansky engines of the Foxbat were replaced by more efficient Soloviev D-30 turbofans. Manueverability was still limited compared to other fighters, but the MiG-31 was never meant to be used in a dogfight.

With an emphasis on range rather than necessarily speed—though the design was still capable of Mach 2.8—the new aircraft was better suited for the long-range, high-endurance interception role needed to patrol the long borders of the Soviet Union. As such, it was a brand-new aircraft rather than a variant of the MiG-25, and Mikoyan-Gurevich designated the aircraft as MiG-31. Production began in 1979, but it was not until the early 1980s that the West learned of the MiG-31’s existence, giving it the reporting name of Foxhound.

As the MiG-31’s primary role was interception, that of bombers and especially smaller cruise missiles, the Foxhound had to have a good radar; the MiG-25’s radar was only average, though valued for its ability to burn through enemy jamming through sheer electronic force. The MiG-31 was equipped with the Zaslon S-800 radar, the first Soviet radar capable of look-down, shoot-down interception, with a range of 125 miles and a capability to track ten targets and attack four of them at once. To back the radar up, an infrared sensor was added under the nose, while the fire control computer could be datalinked to five other MiG-31s, allowing a single fighter to coordinate the attack of several others. The R-33 missile was developed specifically for the Foxhound: based on the AIM-54 Phoenix, the R-33 has a maximum range of about 80 miles and, like the Phoenix, was designed to destroy bombers or cruise missiles at extreme range. The R-33 was also designed to home in on the emissions of E-3 AWACS. It was also equipped with a GSh-30-6 gatling cannon, but after losses due to premature detonations of cannon ammunition in 1983, today’s MiG-31s never carry ammunition for the weapon.

The collapse of the Soviet Union led to Foxhound serviceability rates dropping below 20 percent by 1996. A crash program began with the beginning of the Putin regime to get the MiG-31s flying again, and ten years later the rate had jumped to 70 percent. The MiG-31 is undergoing a slow process of modernization, adding HOTAS, multifunction displays, a new Western-style multimode radar, and a limited air-to-ground capability, allowing the MiG-31 to operate in the high-altitude SEAD role performed by the MiG-25. Today, it is the only dedicated interceptor in Russian service, serving alongside the MiG-29 and Su-27.

This was built straight from the 1/144 Revell kit, and painted in IA-PVO air defense gray, with darker grays for the radome and ECM panels. The warload of two drop tanks and two R-40 (AA-6) Acrid missiles is standard, though the missiles probably should be outboard of the drop tanks (in my defense, I was following the kit instructions).

Just fitted a brand new set of 9 German quality Ansmann rechargeable 4500mAh Ni-MH Batteries to my Yaesu FT-290R MK2 VHf All mode portable 144Mhz transceiver

73, de Dave 2W0DAA / GW4JKR

Yaesu FT101Z Warc version for HF. Standatd C5800 multimode for 2 Metres. AKD7001 for 70cms FM. A converted CB for 10 FM.

The fourth of the 1950s era “Century Series,” the F-104 Starfighter was designed around one single element: speed. Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, head of Lockheed’s famous “Skunk Works” factory, had interviewed US Air Force pilots during the Korean War, seeking their input on any new fighter. Since the pilots reported that they wanted high performance more than anything else, Johnson returned to the United States determined to deliver exactly that: a simple, point-defense interceptor marrying the lightest airframe to the most powerful engine then available, the superb General Electric J79.

When Johnson offered the L-098 design to the USAF in 1952, the service was so impressed that they created an entire competition for the aircraft to be accepted, ostensibly as a F-100 Super Sabre replacement. The Lockheed design had the clear edge, though both North American’s and Northrop’s design went on to be built themselves—the North American F-107A Ultra Sabre and the Northrop T-38 Talon. The USAF purchased the L-098 as the F-104A Starfighter. The design changed very little from initial design to prototype to operational aircraft, which was done in the astonishing time of two years.

When the first F-104As reached the USAF in 1958, pilots quickly found that it was indeed a hot fighter—too hot. The Starfighter’s design philosophy of speed above all else resulted in an aircraft with a long fuselage, T-tail for stability, and small wings, which were so thin that special guards had to be put on the leading edges to avoid injuring ground personnel. Because of its small wing, the F-104 required a lot of runway, and blown flaps (which vents airflow from the engine over the flaps to increase lift) were a necessity; unfortunately, the airflow system often failed, which meant that the F-104 pilot would be coming in at a dangerous rate of speed. Because it was feared that a pilot who ejected from a F-104 would never clear the tail, a downward-ejection seat was fitted, but after killing over 20 pilots, the seat was retrofitted with a more reliable, upward-firing type. The design also was not very maneuverable in the horizontal, though it was difficult to match in the vertical. Its shape earned it the moniker “Missile With a Man In It” and “Zipper.”

One thing pilots did not complain about was its speed—the listed top speed of the F-104 was Mach 2.2, but this was because above that the fuselage would melt. The J79 was a near flawless engine that gave the Starfighter an excellent thrust-to-weight ratio; uniquely, the intake design of the Starfighter gave the engine a bansheelike wail. So superb was the F-104 at level speed and climbing that NASA leased several as trainers for the X-15 program, and in setting a number of speed and time-to-climb records.

If the F-104 had gotten a mixed reception at best in the USAF, Lockheed felt that it had potential as an export aircraft. Beating out several excellent British and other American designs in a 1961 competition, every NATO nation except France and Great Britain bought F-104s and manufactured their own as the F-104G; Japan also license-built Starfighters as F-104Js, while still more were supplied to Pakistan and Taiwan. Just as in USAF service, accident rates were incredibly high, particularly in West German and Canadian service—Germany lost 30 percent of its initial batch, and the Canadians over half. Worries that the F-104 was too “hot” for pilots usually transitioning from the F-86 were ignored, and later it was learned why: German, Dutch, and Japanese politicians later admitted to being bribed by Lockheed into buying the Starfighter.

Its high accident rate earned such nicknames as “Widowmaker,” “Flying Coffin,” and “Ground Nail.” Pakistani pilots simply called it Badmash (“Criminal”) and the Japanese Eiko (“Glory,” inferring that it was the easiest way to reach it). German pilots joked that the quickest way to obtain a F-104 was to buy a patch of land and wait.

Nonetheless, once pilots learned how to tame the beast, the accident rates eased somewhat, and NATO pilots discovered that the Starfighter excelled as a low-level attack aircraft: fitted with bomb racks, the F-104 was remarkably stable at low altitude and high speed, and Luftwaffe pilots in particular found that they could sneak up on a target, launch a simulated attack, and be gone before ground defenses could react. The Italians in particular loved the F-104, building their own as the F-104S: these aircraft were equipped with multimode radar and armed with AIM-7 Sparrow and Aspide radar-guided missiles, making them a superb interceptor. Though most NATO nations reequipped their F-104 units with F-16s, F-18s, or Tornados beginning in 1980, the Italian F-104S fleet was continually upgraded and soldiered on until final retirement in 2004. 2578 F-104s were built, mostly F-104Gs; today over 150 survive in museums, with at least ten flyable examples, making it one of the best preserved of the Century Series.

Though displayed as F-104G 61-3243, this is actually F-104C 56-0892. Like most USAF F-104s, it was assigned to the 479th Tactical Fighter Wing at George AFB, California in 1958. It would see service in Vietnam in detachments at Da Nang, South Vietnam and Udorn RTAFB, Thailand from 1965 to 1967; it was camouflaged and was named "Snoopy Sniper," with appropriate nose art. After its Vietnam service, 56-0892 was transferred to the 156th TFG (Puerto Rico ANG) at San Juan, which where was most of the USAF's F-104s would end their career. 56-0892 was no different, and survived a landing accident when the dragchute failed to deploy; the pilot groundlooped the aircraft into the dirt rather than go off the end of the runway into the ocean.

When 56-0892 was retired in 1975, it was flown to Luke AFB, Arizona to go on display in the base airpark. Initially, it was displayed as a German F-104G to represent the German F-104 training unit that operated out of Luke, then repainted as a standard USAF pre-Vietnam F-104--but neither under its true tail number.

I caught up with 56-0892 on a very hot summer day (even for Phoenix) in August 2020. The markings have faded under the Arizona sun--as the temperature that day was sitting at 115 degrees, I could sympathize--but otherwise the aircraft is in good shape.

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The fourth of the 1950s era “Century Series,” the F-104 Starfighter was designed around one single element: speed. Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, head of Lockheed’s famous “Skunk Works” factory, interviewed US Air Force pilots during the Korean War and sought their input on any new fighter. Since the pilots reported that they wanted high performance more than anything else, Johnson returned to the United States determined to deliver exactly that: a simple, point-defense interceptor marrying the lightest airframe to the most powerful engine then available, the superb General Electric J79.

When Johnson offered the L-098 design to the USAF in 1952, the service was so impressed that they created an entire competition for the aircraft to be accepted. The Lockheed design had the clear edge, though both North American’s and Northrop’s design went on to be built themselves—the North American F-107A Ultra Sabre and the Northrop T-38 Talon. The USAF purchased the L-098 as the F-104A Starfighter. The design changed very little from initial design to prototype to operational aircraft, which was done in the astonishing time of two years.

When the first F-104As reached the USAF in 1958, pilots quickly found that it was indeed a hot fighter—too hot. The Starfighter’s design philosophy of speed above all else resulted in an aircraft with a long fuselage, T-tail for stability, and small wings, which were so thin that special guards had to be put on the leading edges to avoid injuring ground personnel. Because of its small wing, the F-104 required a lot of runway. Because it was feared that a pilot who ejected from a F-104 would never clear the tail, a downward-ejection seat was fitted, but after killing over 20 pilots, the seat was retrofitted with a more reliable, upward-firing type. The design also was not very maneuverable in the horizontal, though it was difficult to match in the vertical. Its shape earned it the moniker “Missile With a Man In It” and “Zipper.”

One thing pilots did not complain about was its speed—the listed top speed of the F-104 was Mach 2.2, but this was because above that the fuselage would melt. The J79 was a near flawless engine that gave the Starfighter an excellent thrust-to-weight ratio; uniquely, the intake design of the Starfighter gave the engine a bansheelike wail. So superb was the F-104 at level speed and climbing that NASA leased several as trainers for the X-15 program, and in setting a number of speed and time-to-climb records.

If the F-104 had gotten a mixed reception at best in the USAF, Lockheed felt that it had potential as an export aircraft. Beating out several excellent British and other American designs in a 1961 competition, every NATO nation except France and Great Britain bought F-104s and manufactured their own as the F-104G; Japan also license-built Starfighters as F-104Js, while still more were supplied to Pakistan and Taiwan. Just as in USAF service, accident rates were incredibly high, particularly in West German and Canadian service—Germany lost 30 percent of its initial batch, and the Canadians over half. Worries that the F-104 was too “hot” for pilots usually transitioning from the F-86 were ignored. Its high accident rate earned such nicknames as “Widowmaker,” “Flying Coffin,” and “Ground Nail.” Pakistani pilots simply called it Badmash (“Criminal”) and the Japanese Eiko (“Glory,” inferring that it was the easiest way to reach it). German pilots joked that the quickest way to obtain a F-104 was to buy a patch of land and wait.

Nonetheless, once pilots learned how to tame the beast, the accident rates eased somewhat, and NATO pilots discovered that the Starfighter excelled as a low-level attack aircraft: fitted with bomb racks, the F-104 was remarkably stable at low altitude and high speed, and Luftwaffe pilots in particular found that they could sneak up on a target and be gone before ground defenses could react. The Italians in particular loved the F-104, building their own as the F-104S: these aircraft were equipped with multimode radar and armed with AIM-7 Sparrow and Aspide radar-guided missiles, making them a superb interceptor. Though most NATO nations reequipped their F-104 units with F-16s, F-18s, or Tornados beginning in 1980, the Italian F-104S fleet was continually upgraded and soldiered on until final retirement in 2004. 2578 F-104s were built, mostly F-104Gs; today over 150 survive in museums, with at least ten flyable examples, making it one of the best preserved of the Century Series.

56-0914 was delivered as a F-104C to the 479th Fighter Wing at George AFB, California sometime in 1957, where it was assigned to interceptor duties. From 1965 to 1967, it was detached to fly escort missions over North Vietnam, and was among the first F-104s to be camouflaged. The F-104's record in Vietnam was not an enviable one: they were too short ranged to go very deep into the North, and the one time that a F-104 was engaged with a MiG (a Chinese MiG-19), the Starfighter was shot down. When the USAF realized that the F-104 was simply not needed in theater, 56-0914 was sent back to George. It served with the 479th until 1971, when it was relegated to the USAF's last Starfighter unit, the 156th Tactical Fighter Wing (Puerto Rico ANG). When the F-104 was retired, 56-0914 was flown to the National Museum of the USAF for preservation.

Today, 0914 has been restored to its pre-Vietnam War bare metal finish, with large "buzz numbers" on the fuselage--so named in case people on the ground needed to identify a fighter pilot who was making unauthorized low passes. A Tactical Air Command patch and lightning bolt are carried on the tail.

Démonstration du Soukhoi Su 35 au salon du Bourget.

Le Soukhoï Su-35 (Flanker Plus dans le code OTAN) est un chasseur russe. Il a été créé dans le but d'accroître les capacités offensives du Su-27 et de lui donner la possibilité de détruire tant les cibles aériennes que de surface.

Le Su-35 est le premier chasseur au monde à avoir deux radars, un N-011 multimode à balayage électronique à l'avant et un N-012 dans le cône de queue. Le N-011 est capable d'acquérir 15 cibles et d'en engager 8, sa portée est de plus de 100 km pour un objectif d'une SER de 0,01 m2.

Sukhoi Su35 demonstration at Paris Air Show "Le Bourget".

The Sukhoi Su-35 (Russian: Сухой Су-35; NATO reporting name: Flanker-E) is designation of two different heavily-upgraded derivatives of the Su-27 'Flanker'. Both are single-seat, twin-engine supermaneuverable multirole fighters, designed by Sukhoi and built by Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aircraft Production Association (KnAAPO).

The first variant was designed during the 1980s, when Sukhoi was looking to upgrade its high-performance Su-27, and was initially known as the Su-27M. Later re-designated Su-35, this derivative incorporates aerodynamic refinements to increase manoeuvrability, enhanced avionics, longer range, and a more powerful engine. The first Su-35 prototype, converted from a Su-27, made its maiden flight in June 1988. More than a dozen of these were built with some used by the Russian Knights aerobatic demonstration team. The first Su-35 design was later modified into the Su-37 with thrust-vectoring engines and used as a technology demonstrator. A sole Su-35UB two-seat trainer was built in the late 1990s that, despite its name, shares a strong resemblance to the Su-30MK family.

In 2003, Sukhoi embarked on a second modernization of the Su-27 to produce what the company calls a 4++ generation fighter that would serve as an interim fighter prior to the arrival of the Sukhoi PAK FA. This derivative incorporates a reinforced airframe, improved avionics and radar, thrust-vectoring engines, and a reduced radar signature from the front, while omitting the canards and air brake. In 2008 the revamped variant, erroneously dubbed the Su-35BM by the media, started its flight test programme that involved four prototypes, one of which was lost in 2009.

The Russian Air Force has ordered 48 production units, designated Su-35S, of the newly-revamped Su-35. Both Su-35 models have been offered to many countries, including Brazil, China, India and South Korea, but so far have not attracted any export orders. Sukhoi originally projected that it would export more than 160 units of the second modernized Su-35 worldwide.

The fourth of the 1950s era “Century Series,” the F-104 Starfighter was designed around one single element: speed. Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, head of Lockheed’s famous “Skunk Works” factory, had interviewed US Air Force pilots during the Korean War, seeking their input on any new fighter. Since the pilots reported that they wanted high performance more than anything else, Johnson returned to the United States determined to deliver exactly that: a simple, point-defense interceptor marrying the lightest airframe to the most powerful engine then available, the superb General Electric J79.

When Johnson offered the L-098 design to the USAF in 1952, the service was so impressed that they created an entire competition for the aircraft to be accepted, ostensibly as a F-100 Super Sabre replacement. The Lockheed design had the clear edge, though both North American’s and Northrop’s design went on to be built themselves—the North American F-107A Ultra Sabre and the Northrop T-38 Talon. The USAF purchased the L-098 as the F-104A Starfighter. The design changed very little from initial design to prototype to operational aircraft, which was done in the astonishing time of two years.

When the first F-104As reached the USAF in 1958, pilots quickly found that it was indeed a hot fighter—too hot. The Starfighter’s design philosophy of speed above all else resulted in an aircraft with a long fuselage, T-tail for stability, and small wings, which were so thin that special guards had to be put on the leading edges to avoid injuring ground personnel. Because of its small wing, the F-104 required a lot of runway, and blown flaps (which vents airflow from the engine over the flaps to increase lift) were a necessity; unfortunately, the airflow system often failed, which meant that the F-104 pilot would be coming in at a dangerous rate of speed. Because it was feared that a pilot who ejected from a F-104 would never clear the tail, a downward-ejection seat was fitted, but after killing over 20 pilots, the seat was retrofitted with a more reliable, upward-firing type. The design also was not very maneuverable in the horizontal, though it was difficult to match in the vertical. Its shape earned it the moniker “Missile With a Man In It” and “Zipper.”

One thing pilots did not complain about was its speed—the listed top speed of the F-104 was Mach 2.2, but this was because above that the fuselage would melt. The J79 was a near flawless engine that gave the Starfighter an excellent thrust-to-weight ratio; uniquely, the intake design of the Starfighter gave the engine a bansheelike wail. So superb was the F-104 at level speed and climbing that NASA leased several as trainers for the X-15 program, and in setting a number of speed and time-to-climb records.

If the F-104 had gotten a mixed reception at best in the USAF, Lockheed felt that it had potential as an export aircraft. Beating out several excellent British and other American designs in a 1961 competition, every NATO nation except France and Great Britain bought F-104s and manufactured their own as the F-104G; Japan also license-built Starfighters as F-104Js, while still more were supplied to Pakistan and Taiwan. Just as in USAF service, accident rates were incredibly high, particularly in West German and Canadian service—Germany lost 30 percent of its initial batch, and the Canadians over half. Worries that the F-104 was too “hot” for pilots usually transitioning from the F-86 were ignored, and later it was learned why: German, Dutch, and Japanese politicians later admitted to being bribed by Lockheed into buying the Starfighter.

Its high accident rate earned such nicknames as “Widowmaker,” “Flying Coffin,” and “Ground Nail.” Pakistani pilots simply called it Badmash (“Criminal”) and the Japanese Eiko (“Glory,” inferring that it was the easiest way to reach it). German pilots joked that the quickest way to obtain a F-104 was to buy a patch of land and wait.

Nonetheless, once pilots learned how to tame the beast, the accident rates eased somewhat, and NATO pilots discovered that the Starfighter excelled as a low-level attack aircraft: fitted with bomb racks, the F-104 was remarkably stable at low altitude and high speed, and Luftwaffe pilots in particular found that they could sneak up on a target, launch a simulated attack, and be gone before ground defenses could react. The Italians in particular loved the F-104, building their own as the F-104S: these aircraft were equipped with multimode radar and armed with AIM-7 Sparrow and Aspide radar-guided missiles, making them a superb interceptor. Though most NATO nations reequipped their F-104 units with F-16s, F-18s, or Tornados beginning in 1980, the Italian F-104S fleet was continually upgraded and soldiered on until final retirement in 2004. 2578 F-104s were built, mostly F-104Gs; today over 150 survive in museums, with at least ten flyable examples, making it one of the best preserved of the Century Series.

This F-104 on display as a NASA F-104N at the Evergreen Aviation Museum is actually a F-104G, FX-84, formerly of the Belgian Air Force. F-104Ns were demilitarized F-104Gs, so it is still accurate; the three N models served as high-speed chase aircraft for NASA. This aircraft was retired from Belgian service in the late 1970s and eventually made its way to the Evergreen Museum. It is restored in the colors of N813NA, the aircraft lost in a collision on 8 June 1966 with the second XB-70 Valkyrie. Joe Walker, the pilot, was killed instantly when his F-104 drifted into the Valkyrie, destroying both aircraft; the copilot of the XB-70 also died in the incident. This immaculate F-104 is preserved as a memorial to Walker, who was a former X-1 and X-15 pilot.

The A-6 Intruder was designed to serve two roles: one, to replace the aging A-1 Skyraider and supplement the A-4 Skyhawk in the carrier-based strike role, and two, to give the US Navy a genuine all-weather strike aircraft. The requirement was issued in 1957, and Grumman’s A2F-1 design selected, with the first flight in 1960. In 1962, just before fleet entry in 1963, the Intruder was redesignated A-6A.

The A-6 was designed to hit targets with pinpoint accuracy in adverse weather, day or night, similar to what the USAF would later require for the F-111 Aardvark. For this reason, it was built around the Digital Integrated Attack/Navigation Equipment (DIANE), which used three radar systems to constantly update the INS and provide attack data to the bombardier/navigator sitting in the right seat. The system proved very complicated and it would be some years before it was perfected. Since the weather and night would be the Intruder’s primary defense, no internal armament equipped the aircraft, though it could carry an impressive 18,000 pound warload.

The Intruder was committed early to the Vietnam War, which showed up the flaws in the DIANE system and a more lethal one in the bomb delivery system, which had a tendency to set off the bombs prematurely, destroying the aircraft. Gradually improvements were made, and despite the loss of 84 Intruders over Vietnam, it proved to be extremely effective: until the bugs were ironed out of the F-111A in 1971, the A-6 remained the only American aircraft that could attack during the monsoon season.

Specialized A-6Bs were also produced specifically for Iron Hand defense suppression missions, and A-6Cs for anti-truck operations on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. All three variants were replaced by the A-6E beginning in 1971: this replaced DIANE with a more advanced solid-state computer and the three radars with a single AN/APQ-148 multimode radar. In 1979, the A-6E was further modified with the installation of Target Recognition Attack Multisensor (TRAM), consisting of a turret in the nose containing FLIR linked to the radar and a new bomb computer. Besides making the already accurate A-6 even more deadly, it also allowed the Intruder to drop laser-guided bombs, hit moving targets with bombs, and also use passive radar to attack a target.

A-6s would find themselves once more heavily employed during the First Gulf War, flying 4700 sorties for the loss of four aircraft; its final roles would find it supporting Marines in Somalia in 1991 and UN forces in Bosnia in 1995. By that time, surviving A-6Es had been partially upgraded to allow them to fire all newer guided weapons in the inventory (namely the AGM-84 Harpoon, AGM-65 Maverick, and AGM-88 HARM), while most of the fleet also received composite wings.

Grumman further proposed an updated version designated A-6F, with new avionics and engines, but the US Navy rejected this in favor of replacing the Intruder with first the cancelled stealthy A-12A Avenger II, then the F/A-18C/D Hornet. The last A-6E left US Navy service by Feburary 1997; the US Marine Corps had retired theirs in 1993. Older, non-modified aircraft were sunk as an artificial reef off Florida; others remain at AMARC for scrapping.

Built as an A-6A in 1968, 155648 joined the fleet soon thereafter. In 1970, it was converted to an A-6C, a specialized variant used to attack trucks on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and equipped with low-light TV cameras and Black Crow engine ignition sensors. (I could find no existing records which squadron and carrier 155648 served with during Vietnam.)

In the 1970s, it was upgraded to an A-6E, and spent most of the 1980s with VA-145 ("Swordsmen"). While still with VA-145 aboard the USS Ranger (CV-61), 155648 was involved in its second war, and flew missions during Operation Desert Storm. After that war, it was transferred to the US Naval Reserve's VA-205 ("Green Falcons") at NAS Atlanta, and retired in 1994 when the squadron was disestablished. Because of its status as a two-war aircraft, 155648 was preserved as a gate guard at NAS Atlanta; when the base was handed over to the US Army in 2009, it was moved to the outdoor Marietta Museum of History Aviation Wing just outside of Dobbins ARB.

155648 looks to be in excellent shape, and wears the overall gray worn by US Navy A-6s from the 1980s. VA-205 adopted the emblem of the Atlanta Falcons NFL team as their tail insignia--appropriate, given the squadron's nickname and hometown. 155648 is also displayed with a full load of ordnance: 24 Mk 82 500-pound bombs.

The A-6 Intruder was designed to serve two roles: one, to replace the aging A-1 Skyraider and supplement the A-4 Skyhawk in the carrier-based strike role, and two, to give the US Navy a genuine all-weather strike aircraft. The requirement was issued in 1957, and Grumman’s A2F-1 design selected, with the first flight in 1960. In 1962, just before fleet entry in 1963, the Intruder was redesignated A-6A.

The A-6 was designed to hit targets with pinpoint accuracy in adverse weather, day or night, similar to what the USAF would later require for the F-111 Aardvark. For this reason, it was built around the Digital Integrated Attack/Navigation Equipment (DIANE), which used three radar systems to constantly update the INS and provide attack data to the bombardier/navigator sitting in the right seat. The system proved very complicated and it would be some years before it was perfected. Since the weather and night would be the Intruder’s primary defense, no internal armament equipped the aircraft, though it could carry an impressive 18,000 pound warload.

The Intruder was committed early to the Vietnam War, which showed up the flaws in the DIANE system and a more lethal one in the bomb delivery system, which had a tendency to set off the bombs prematurely, destroying the aircraft. Gradually improvements were made, and despite the loss of 84 Intruders over Vietnam, it proved to be extremely effective: until the bugs were ironed out of the F-111A in 1971, the A-6 remained the only American aircraft that could attack during the monsoon season.

Specialized A-6Bs were also produced specifically for Iron Hand defense suppression missions, and A-6Cs for anti-truck operations on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. All three variants were replaced by the A-6E beginning in 1971: this replaced DIANE with a more advanced solid-state computer and the three radars with a single AN/APQ-148 multimode radar. In 1979, the A-6E was further modified with the installation of Target Recognition Attack Multisensor (TRAM), consisting of a turret in the nose containing FLIR linked to the radar and a new bomb computer. Besides making the already accurate A-6 even more deadly, it also allowed the Intruder to drop laser-guided bombs, hit moving targets with bombs, and also use passive radar to attack a target.

A-6s would find themselves once more heavily employed during the First Gulf War, flying 4700 sorties for the loss of four aircraft; its final roles would find it supporting Marines in Somalia in 1991 and UN forces in Bosnia in 1995. By that time, surviving A-6Es had been partially upgraded to allow them to fire all newer guided weapons in the inventory (namely the AGM-84 Harpoon, AGM-65 Maverick, and AGM-88 HARM), while most of the fleet also received composite wings.

Grumman further proposed an updated version designated A-6F, with new avionics and engines, but the US Navy rejected this in favor of replacing the Intruder with first the cancelled stealthy A-12A Avenger II, then the F/A-18C/D Hornet. The last A-6E left US Navy service by Feburary 1997; the US Marine Corps had retired theirs in 1993. Older, non-modified aircraft were sunk as an artificial reef off Florida; others remain at AMARC for scrapping.

This A-6E belongs to VA-115 ("Eagles") during its late 1980s deployment aboard USS Midway. It carries an almost anonymous overall gray scheme with subdued markings, and is configured for the Wild Weasel SEAD mission, with two AGM-78 Standard ARM and two AGM-88 HARM missiles.

Although fiber is advantageous in its bandwidth and ability to cover large distances its transmissive qualities can be damaged by sharp kinks or bends. In many installations a hard plastic duct is used for routing the fiber to different locations to protect it from damage.

In the frame is a MH-47G from the US Army 4th Battalion, 160th SOAR/Special Operations Aviation Regiment. This helicopter - 04-03745 - is a rebuild from CH-47D 82-23773 which is a rebuild of CH-47C 68-16002. Yes, quite the history in this helicopter that visited Historic Flight Foundation/HFF for HFF's D-Day + 70 commemeration (my photoset).

According to the Boeing factsheet, "The MH-47G’s fully integrated digital Common Avionics architecture System (CAAS) permits global communications and navigation. CAAS is among the most advanced U.S. Army helicopter systems. CAAS includes integrated forward-looking infrared (FLIR) and multimode radar for nap-of-the-earth and low-level flight operations in conditions of extremely poor visibility and adverse weather. Today’s MH-47Gs contain a fully integrated digital cockpit management system, long-range fuel tanks and advanced cargo-handling capabilities that complement the aircraft’s mission performance and handling characteristics."

Special thanks to Historic Flight Foundation & 4th Battalion, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) for this unique opportunity to photograph SOAR's helicopters. Much appreciate - especially to you Todd & Vanessa when you could have turned me away!

While the F-16A had proven a success, its lack of long-range missile and true all-weather capability hampered it, especially in projected combat against the Warsaw Pact over Central Europe. General Dynamics began work on the upgraded F-16C/D version, with the first Block 25 F-16C flying in June 1984 and entering USAF service that September.

Externally, the only ways to tell apart the F-16C from the F-16A is the slightly enlarged base of the tail and a UHF radio antenna at the base of the tail. The intake is also slightly larger, though later marks of the F-16A also have this feature. Internally, however, the F-16C is a significantly different aircraft. The earlier APG-66 radar was replaced by the APG-68 multimode radar used by the F/A-18, which gave the F-16C the same capability to switch between ground-attack and dogfight mode and vastly improved all-weather capability. Cockpit layout was also changed in response to pilots’ requests, with a larger Heads-Up Display and movement of the radar display to eye level rather than between the pilot’s legs on the F-16A. The F-16C would also have the capability to carry the AIM-120 AMRAAM, though it would not be until 1992 that the missile entered service. Other small upgrades were made throughout the design, including the engine.

The Block 25 initial production was superseded by the Block 30 F-16C in 1987, which gave it better navigation systems, and the capability to carry the either the General Electric F110 or the Pratt and Whitney F100 turbofan. The Block 40/42 “Night Falcon” followed in 1988, equipped with LANTIRN night attack pods, followed by the Block 50/52, which was a dedicated Wild Weasel variant. In USAF service, the latter are semi-officially known as F-16CG and F-16CJ variants.

The F-16C had replaced the F-16A in nearly all overseas USAF units by the First Gulf War in 1991, and as a result, the aircraft was among the first deployed to the theater in August 1990. During the war, the F-16C was used mainly in ground attack and strike sorties, due to delays in the AIM-120, but it performed superbly in this role. USAF F-16s finally scored kills in the F-16C, beginning in 1992, when an Iraqi MiG-23 was shot down over the southern no-fly zone; the victory was also the first with the AMRAAM. Four Serbian G-4 Super Galebs were shot down over Bosnia in 1994. F-16Cs had replaced the F-16A entirely in regular and Reserve USAF service by 1997, and further service was seen over Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya by 2012. Subsequent upgrades to USAF F-16Cs with GPS allow them to carry advanced precision weapons such as JSOW and JDAM.

Whatever the variant, the F-16 is today the most prolific combat aircraft in existence, with 28 nations operating the type (17 of which operate F-16Cs). Over 4450 have been built, with more in production; the F-16C is also license-produced by Turkey and South Korea. It also forms the basis for the Mitsubishi F-2 fighter for Japan, though the F-2 is significantly different, with a longer nose and larger wing. Though the USAF projects that the F-16C will be replaced by the F-35 beginning in 2020, it will likely remain in service for a very long time.

Here Thunderbird 6 shows off the Alpha of the F-16. "High Alpha" refers to the ability of an aircraft to maintain a nose up altitude for a lengthy amount of time--which could be valuable in a dogfight, though most fighter pilots would not want to slow down in a pitched fight. In this maneuver, the F-16 is "hanging on the engine," staying aloft on sheer thrust and the lift provided by the F-16's design. The F-16 doesn't have the Alpha of the F-18 or the Su-27, but it can more than hold its own. This picture was taken at the Wings Over the Falls airshow in Great Falls, MT in July 2017.

The A-6 Intruder was designed to serve two roles: one, to replace the aging A-1 Skyraider and supplement the A-4 Skyhawk in the carrier-based strike role, and two, to give the US Navy a genuine all-weather strike aircraft. The requirement was issued in 1957, and Grumman’s A2F-1 design selected, with the first flight in 1960. In 1962, just before fleet entry in 1963, the Intruder was redesignated A-6A.

The A-6 was designed to hit targets with pinpoint accuracy in adverse weather, day or night, similar to what the USAF would later require for the F-111 Aardvark. For this reason, it was built around the Digital Integrated Attack/Navigation Equipment (DIANE), which used three radar systems to constantly update the INS and provide attack data to the bombardier/navigator sitting in the right seat. The system proved very complicated and it would be some years before it was perfected. Since the weather and night would be the Intruder’s primary defense, no defensive armament was put on the aircraft, though it could carry an impressive 18,000 pound warload of air-to-ground weaponry.

The Intruder was committed early to the Vietnam War, which showed up the flaws in the DIANE system and a more lethal one in the bomb delivery system, which had a tendency to set off the bombs prematurely, destroying the aircraft. Gradually improvements were made, and despite the loss of 84 Intruders over Vietnam, it proved to be extremely effective: until the bugs were ironed out of the F-111A in 1971, the A-6 remained the only American aircraft that could attack during the monsoon season. Specialized A-6Bs were also produced specifically for Iron Hand defense suppression missions, and A-6Cs for anti-truck operations on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

All three variants were replaced by the A-6E beginning in 1971: this replaced DIANE with a more advanced solid-state computer and the three radars with a single AN/APQ-148 multimode radar. In 1979, the A-6E was further modified with the installation of Target Recognition Attack Multisensor (TRAM), consisting of a turret in the nose containing FLIR linked to the radar and a new bomb computer. Besides making the already accurate A-6 even more deadly, it also allowed the Intruder to drop laser-guided bombs, hit moving targets with bombs, and also use passive radar to attack a target.

A-6s would find themselves once more heavily employed during the First Gulf War, flying 4700 sorties for the loss of four aircraft; its final roles would find it supporting Marines in Somalia in 1991 and UN forces in Bosnia in 1995. By that time, surviving A-6Es had been partially upgraded to allow them to fire all newer guided weapons in the inventory (namely the AGM-84 Harpoon, AGM-65 Maverick, and AGM-88 HARM), while most of the fleet also received composite wings. Grumman further proposed an updated version designated A-6F, with new avionics and engines, but the US Navy rejected this in favor of replacing the Intruder with the F/A-18C/D Hornet. The last A-6E left US Navy service by Feburary 1997; the US Marine Corps had retired theirs in 1993.

In addition to the attack versions of the Intruder, Grumman also built the dedicated KA-6D tanker version, which replaced the attack systems with an internal hose/reel refuelling system. These too were retired in 1997 and replaced by the S-3B Viking.

This A-6E, 158794, is on display at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington, painted in the colors of VA-52 ("Knightriders") during its 1972 deployment aboard USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63). It is a memorial to Lts. Roderick Lester and Harry Mossman, who were killed during a night mission on 19 August 1972 over North Vietnam. 158794 is of more recent vintage, having served in Operation Desert Storm. It was retired in 1995 and donated to the Museum of Flight. Camouflaged in Vietnam-era light gray over white, with the flamboyant squadron colors of the period, it is armed with 24 low-drag Mk 82 bombs. Like most of the MOF's aircraft, it looks like it just rolled off the assembly line.

While the F-16A had proven a success, its lack of long-range missile and true all-weather capability hampered it, especially in projected combat against the Warsaw Pact over Central Europe. General Dynamics began work on the upgraded F-16C/D version, with the first Block 25 F-16C flying in June 1984 and entering USAF service that September.

Externally, the only ways to tell apart the F-16C from the F-16A is the slightly enlarged base of the tail and a UHF radio antenna at the base of the tail. The intake is also slightly larger, though later marks of the F-16A also have this feature. Internally, however, the F-16C is a significantly different aircraft. The earlier APG-66 radar was replaced by the APG-68 multimode radar used by the F/A-18, which gave the F-16C the same capability to switch between ground-attack and dogfight mode and vastly improved all-weather capability. Cockpit layout was also changed in response to pilots’ requests, with a larger Heads-Up Display and movement of the radar display to eye level rather than between the pilot’s legs on the F-16A. The F-16C would also have the capability to carry the AIM-120 AMRAAM, though it would not be until 1992 that the missile entered service. Other small upgrades were made throughout the design, including the engine.

The Block 25 initial production was superseded by the Block 30 F-16C in 1987, which gave it better navigation systems, and the capability to carry the either the General Electric F110 or the Pratt and Whitney F100 turbofan. The Block 40/42 “Night Falcon” followed in 1988, equipped with LANTIRN night attack pods, followed by the Block 50/52, which was a dedicated Wild Weasel variant. In USAF service, the latter are semi-officially known as F-16CG and F-16CJ variants.

The F-16C had replaced the F-16A in nearly all overseas USAF units by the First Gulf War in 1991, and as a result, the aircraft was among the first deployed to the theater in August 1990. During the war, the F-16C was used mainly in ground attack and strike sorties, due to delays in the AIM-120, but it performed superbly in this role. USAF F-16s finally scored kills in the F-16C, beginning in 1992, when an Iraqi MiG-23 was shot down over the southern no-fly zone; the victory was also the first with the AMRAAM. Four Serbian G-4 Super Galebs were shot down over Bosnia in 1994. F-16Cs had replaced the F-16A entirely in regular and Reserve USAF service by 1997, and further service was seen over Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya by 2012. Subsequent upgrades to USAF F-16Cs with GPS allow them to carry advanced precision weapons such as JSOW and JDAM.

Whatever the variant, the F-16 is today the most prolific combat aircraft in existence, with 28 nations operating the type (17 of which operate F-16Cs). Over 4450 have been built, with more in production; the F-16C is also license-produced by Turkey and South Korea. It also forms the basis for the Mitsubishi F-2 fighter for Japan, though the F-2 is significantly different, with a longer nose and larger wing. Though the USAF projects that the F-16C will be replaced by the F-35 beginning in 2020, it will likely remain in service for a very long time.

The bomb burst is the climax of many aerobatic teams' performances, and the Thunderbirds are no different. I got this shot just as the team went into the break, but before Thunderbird 5 spiraled out of the smoke--the solo was a little late getting into his climb. My dad took a similar picture of the Thunderbirds in a bomb burst 40 years ago in T-38s; this is mine in 2017.

PAF is modernizing its fleet of 45 F-16 A/B Block-15 to Block50 standard with the help of Turkish Aircraft Industries (TAI), Turkey. Seen above is one of the five F-16 MLU currently operated by PAF. Later this year, four more F-16 MLU are scheduled to be delivered to PAF. F-16 MLU has AN/APG-68 V(9) Multimode radar which gives its “six on six” pylon AIM-120 AMRAAM carrying capability.

www.pafwallpapers.com/blog/2012/06/shahbaz-air-base-in-2012/

In the frame is a MH-47G from the US Army 4th Battalion, 160th SOAR/Special Operations Aviation Regiment. This helicopter - 04-03745 - is a rebuild from CH-47D 82-23773 which is a rebuild of CH-47C 68-16002. Yes, quite the history in this helicopter that visited Historic Flight Foundation/HFF for HFF's D-Day + 70 commemeration (my photoset).

According to the Boeing factsheet, "The MH-47G’s fully integrated digital Common Avionics architecture System (CAAS) permits global communications and navigation. CAAS is among the most advanced U.S. Army helicopter systems. CAAS includes integrated forward-looking infrared (FLIR) and multimode radar for nap-of-the-earth and low-level flight operations in conditions of extremely poor visibility and adverse weather. Today’s MH-47Gs contain a fully integrated digital cockpit management system, long-range fuel tanks and advanced cargo-handling capabilities that complement the aircraft’s mission performance and handling characteristics."

Special thanks to Historic Flight Foundation & 4th Battalion, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) for this unique opportunity to photograph SOAR's helicopters. Much appreciate - especially to you Todd & Vanessa when you could have turned me away!

- A probe holder of an atomic force microscope (in this case a Bruker MultiMode). The cantilever probe is in the holder and can be seen in the middle being held in place by the gold coloured spring. This kind of microscopes can detect structures nano-metres (1 nm = a billionth of a metre) in size. I took this photo for an open lecture I'm giving today on using atomic force microscopy to "see" nano-scale protein structures at The Beaney museum in Canterbury.

My little low power radio, the display is just as small as it's 5 watt max power output.

The Yaesu FT-817 is one of the smallest MF/HF/VHF/UHF multimode general coverage amateur transceivers.

www.rac.ca/en/amateur-radio/

www.arrl.org/new-to-ham-radio

While the F-16A had proven a success, its lack of long-range missile and true all-weather capability hampered it, especially in projected combat against the Warsaw Pact over Central Europe. General Dynamics began work on the upgraded F-16C/D version, with the first Block 25 F-16C flying in June 1984 and entering USAF service that September.

Externally, the only ways to tell apart the F-16C from the F-16A is the slightly enlarged base of the tail and a UHF radio antenna at the base of the tail. The intake is also slightly larger, though later marks of the F-16A also have this feature. Internally, however, the F-16C is a significantly different aircraft. The earlier APG-66 radar was replaced by the APG-68 multimode radar used by the F/A-18, which gave the F-16C the same capability to switch between ground-attack and dogfight mode and vastly improved all-weather capability. Cockpit layout was also changed in response to pilots’ requests, with a larger Heads-Up Display and movement of the radar display to eye level rather than between the pilot’s legs on the F-16A. The F-16C would also have the capability to carry the AIM-120 AMRAAM, though it would not be until 1992 that the missile entered service. Other small upgrades were made throughout the design, including the engine.

The Block 25 initial production was superseded by the Block 30 F-16C in 1987, which gave it better navigation systems, and the capability to carry the either the General Electric F110 or the Pratt and Whitney F100 turbofan. The Block 40/42 “Night Falcon” followed in 1988, equipped with LANTIRN night attack pods, followed by the Block 50/52, which was a dedicated Wild Weasel variant. In USAF service, the latter are semi-officially known as F-16CG and F-16CJ variants.

The F-16C had replaced the F-16A in nearly all overseas USAF units by the First Gulf War in 1991, and as a result, the aircraft was among the first deployed to the theater in August 1990. During the war, the F-16C was used mainly in ground attack and strike sorties, due to delays in the AIM-120, but it performed superbly in this role. USAF F-16s finally scored kills in the F-16C, beginning in 1992, when an Iraqi MiG-23 was shot down over the southern no-fly zone; the victory was also the first with the AMRAAM. Four Serbian G-4 Super Galebs were shot down over Bosnia in 1994. F-16Cs had replaced the F-16A entirely in regular and Reserve USAF service by 1997, and further service was seen over Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya by 2012. Subsequent upgrades to USAF F-16Cs with GPS allow them to carry advanced precision weapons such as JSOW and JDAM.

Whatever the variant, the F-16 is today the most prolific combat aircraft in existence, with 28 nations operating the type (17 of which operate F-16Cs). Over 4450 have been built, with more in production; the F-16C is also license-produced by Turkey and South Korea. It also forms the basis for the Mitsubishi F-2 fighter for Japan, though the F-2 is significantly different, with a longer nose and larger wing. Though the USAF projects that the F-16C will be replaced by the F-35 beginning in 2020, it will likely remain in service for a very long time.

Thunderbird 10 is officially assigned to the executive officer of the team--during the 2017 season, Captain Angelina Urbina. The aircraft flies with the team as a spare in case another Thunderbird is "downed" with mechanical issues. At the Wings Over the Falls airshow in Great Falls, MT in July 2017, it was sitting in one of the 120th Airlift Wing's hangars, which provided me and a lot of other photographers an excellent opportunity for pictures, and a fine study of a magnificent aircraft.

The Thunderbirds color scheme is iconic and needs no explanation. The small patch to the left of the flag display is a USAF 70th anniversary sticker. Since Capt. Urbina is from Helena, she got quite the warm reception from the airshow crowd!

While the F-16A had proven a success, its lack of long-range missile and true all-weather capability hampered it, especially in projected combat against the Warsaw Pact over Central Europe. General Dynamics began work on the upgraded F-16C/D version, with the first Block 25 F-16C flying in June 1984 and entering USAF service that September.

Externally, the only ways to tell apart the F-16C from the F-16A is the slightly enlarged base of the tail and a UHF radio antenna at the base of the tail. The intake is also slightly larger, though later marks of the F-16A also have this feature. Internally, however, the F-16C is a significantly different aircraft. The earlier APG-66 radar was replaced by the APG-68 multimode radar used by the F/A-18, which gave the F-16C the same capability to switch between ground-attack and dogfight mode and vastly improved all-weather capability. Cockpit layout was also changed in response to pilots’ requests, with a larger Heads-Up Display and movement of the radar display to eye level rather than between the pilot’s legs on the F-16A. The F-16C would also have the capability to carry the AIM-120 AMRAAM, though it would not be until 1992 that the missile entered service. Other small upgrades were made throughout the design, including the engine.

The Block 25 initial production was superseded by the Block 30 F-16C in 1987, which gave it better navigation systems, and the capability to carry the either the General Electric F110 or the Pratt and Whitney F100 turbofan. The Block 40/42 “Night Falcon” followed in 1988, equipped with LANTIRN night attack pods, followed by the Block 50/52, which was a dedicated Wild Weasel variant. In USAF service, the latter are semi-officially known as F-16CG and F-16CJ variants.

The F-16C had replaced the F-16A in nearly all overseas USAF units by the First Gulf War in 1991, and as a result, the aircraft was among the first deployed to the theater in August 1990. During the war, the F-16C was used mainly in ground attack and strike sorties, due to delays in the AIM-120, but it performed superbly in this role. USAF F-16s finally scored kills in the F-16C, beginning in 1992, when an Iraqi MiG-23 was shot down over the southern no-fly zone; the victory was also the first with the AMRAAM. Four Serbian G-4 Super Galebs were shot down over Bosnia in 1994. F-16Cs had replaced the F-16A entirely in regular and Reserve USAF service by 1997, and further service was seen over Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya by 2012. Subsequent upgrades to USAF F-16Cs with GPS allow them to carry advanced precision weapons such as JSOW and JDAM.

Whatever the variant, the F-16 is today the most prolific combat aircraft in existence, with 28 nations operating the type (17 of which operate F-16Cs). Over 4450 have been built, with more in production; the F-16C is also license-produced by Turkey and South Korea. It also forms the basis for the Mitsubishi F-2 fighter for Japan, though the F-2 is significantly different, with a longer nose and larger wing. Though the USAF projects that the F-16C will be replaced by the F-35 beginning in 2020, it will likely remain in service for a very long time.

Given that they are still active aircraft, it is somewhat unusual to see a C-model F-16 on display; 85-1469 is a Block 30 version of the F-16C, the second production variant of the C-model. It was originally assigned to the 86th Tactical Fighter Wing at Ramstein, Germany, but in the post Cold War drawdown, it was reassigned to the 114th Fighter Group (South Dakota ANG) at Joe Foss Field, Sioux Falls. 85-1469 served in Operation Southern Watch over southern Iraq in the 1990s, where it got the name "Miss Deal," complete with nose art of Las Vegas and Jessica Rabbit. The nose art remained until 2005, when sadly it was removed.

In October of 2005, 85-1469 was approaching a KC-10 Extender to take on fuel when the two aircraft collided. Luckily, both aircraft were able to land safely, but on inspection, the F-16 was damaged beyond economical repair. Rather than scrap the aircraft, the 114th repaired it to static display condition and moved 85-1469 to its airpark.

The way it has been restored, one wouldn't know that 85-1469 was ever in an accident. It carries the 114th's unique and attractive "Fighting Lobos" running wolf tail art; it is well-maintained, as evidenced by the chrome tailpipe! During my brief stop in Sioux Falls, two of the 114th's F-16s were making low passes over Foss Field, "beating up" the runways in classic fashion--this made for quite the backdrop.

The fourth of the 1950s era “Century Series,” the F-104 Starfighter was designed around one single element: speed. Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, head of Lockheed’s famous “Skunk Works” factory, interviewed US Air Force pilots during the Korean War and sought their input on any new fighter. Since the pilots reported that they wanted high performance more than anything else, Johnson returned to the United States determined to deliver exactly that: a simple, point-defense interceptor marrying the lightest airframe to the most powerful engine then available, the superb General Electric J79.

When Johnson offered the L-098 design to the USAF in 1952, the service was so impressed that they created an entire competition for the aircraft to be accepted. The Lockheed design had the clear edge, though both North American’s and Northrop’s design went on to be built themselves—the North American F-107A Ultra Sabre and the Northrop T-38 Talon. The USAF purchased the L-098 as the F-104A Starfighter. The design changed very little from initial design to prototype to operational aircraft, which was done in the astonishing time of two years.

When the first F-104As reached the USAF in 1958, pilots quickly found that it was indeed a hot fighter—too hot. The Starfighter’s design philosophy of speed above all else resulted in an aircraft with a long fuselage, T-tail for stability, and small wings, which were so thin that special guards had to be put on the leading edges to avoid injuring ground personnel. Because of its small wing, the F-104 required a lot of runway. Because it was feared that a pilot who ejected from a F-104 would never clear the tail, a downward-ejection seat was fitted, but after killing over 20 pilots, the seat was retrofitted with a more reliable, upward-firing type. The design also was not very maneuverable in the horizontal, though it was difficult to match in the vertical. Its shape earned it the moniker “Missile With a Man In It” and “Zipper.”

One thing pilots did not complain about was its speed—the listed top speed of the F-104 was Mach 2.2, but this was because above that the fuselage would melt. The J79 was a near flawless engine that gave the Starfighter an excellent thrust-to-weight ratio; uniquely, the intake design of the Starfighter gave the engine a bansheelike wail. So superb was the F-104 at level speed and climbing that NASA leased several as trainers for the X-15 program, and in setting a number of speed and time-to-climb records.

If the F-104 had gotten a mixed reception at best in the USAF, Lockheed felt that it had potential as an export aircraft. Beating out several excellent British and other American designs in a 1961 competition, every NATO nation except France and Great Britain bought F-104s and manufactured their own as the F-104G; Japan also license-built Starfighters as F-104Js, while still more were supplied to Pakistan and Taiwan. Just as in USAF service, accident rates were incredibly high, particularly in West German and Canadian service—Germany lost 30 percent of its initial batch, and the Canadians over half. Worries that the F-104 was too “hot” for pilots usually transitioning from the F-86 were ignored. Its high accident rate earned such nicknames as “Widowmaker,” “Flying Coffin,” and “Ground Nail.” Pakistani pilots simply called it Badmash (“Criminal”) and the Japanese Eiko (“Glory,” inferring that it was the easiest way to reach it). German pilots joked that the quickest way to obtain a F-104 was to buy a patch of land and wait.

Nonetheless, once pilots learned how to tame the beast, the accident rates eased somewhat, and NATO pilots discovered that the Starfighter excelled as a low-level attack aircraft: fitted with bomb racks, the F-104 was remarkably stable at low altitude and high speed, and Luftwaffe pilots in particular found that they could sneak up on a target and be gone before ground defenses could react. The Italians in particular loved the F-104, building their own as the F-104S: these aircraft were equipped with multimode radar and armed with AIM-7 Sparrow and Aspide radar-guided missiles, making them a superb interceptor. Though most NATO nations reequipped their F-104 units with F-16s, F-18s, or Tornados beginning in 1980, the Italian F-104S fleet was continually upgraded and soldiered on until final retirement in 2004. 2578 F-104s were built, mostly F-104Gs; today over 150 survive in museums, with at least ten flyable examples, making it one of the best preserved of the Century Series.

This Royal Jordanian Air Force F-104A was built by Dad as part of his "Middle East Wars" series. The RJAF was supplied with both new-build and former Republic of China F-104As beginning in 1967. Though the RJAF received F-104s before the Six-Day War, they were still in transit when the war began, which allowed them to survive the Israeli onslaught. Despite the limitations of the Starfighter, the RJAF would use them for 15 years before replacing them with the Dassault Mirage F.1C in the late 1970s. This aircraft shows the tan/green/brown desert camouflage adopted by the RJAF's F-104s towards the end of their career, with a British-style squadron symbol on the forward fuselage. This aircraft flew with 25 Squadron based at Azraq. It is equipped for the point-defense interceptor role, with only two AIM-9B Sidewinders. This model is in the possession of Mr. Adam Pehl.

The fourth of the 1950s era “Century Series,” the F-104 Starfighter was designed around one single element: speed. Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, head of Lockheed’s famous “Skunk Works” factory, had interviewed US Air Force pilots during the Korean War, seeking their input on any new fighter. Since the pilots reported that they wanted high performance more than anything else, Johnson returned to the United States determined to deliver exactly that: a simple, point-defense interceptor marrying the lightest airframe to the most powerful engine then available, the superb General Electric J79.

When Johnson offered the L-098 design to the USAF in 1952, the service was so impressed that they created an entire competition for the aircraft to be accepted, ostensibly as a F-100 Super Sabre replacement. The Lockheed design had the clear edge, though both North American’s and Northrop’s design went on to be built themselves—the North American F-107A Ultra Sabre and the Northrop T-38 Talon. The USAF purchased the L-098 as the F-104A Starfighter. The design changed very little from initial design to prototype to operational aircraft, which was done in the astonishing time of two years.

When the first F-104As reached the USAF in 1958, pilots quickly found that it was indeed a hot fighter—too hot. The Starfighter’s design philosophy of speed above all else resulted in an aircraft with a long fuselage, T-tail for stability, and small wings, which were so thin that special guards had to be put on the leading edges to avoid injuring ground personnel. Because of its small wing, the F-104 required a lot of runway, and blown flaps (which vents airflow from the engine over the flaps to increase lift) were a necessity; unfortunately, the airflow system often failed, which meant that the F-104 pilot would be coming in at a dangerous rate of speed. Because it was feared that a pilot who ejected from a F-104 would never clear the tail, a downward-ejection seat was fitted, but after killing over 20 pilots, the seat was retrofitted with a more reliable, upward-firing type. The design also was not very maneuverable in the horizontal, though it was difficult to match in the vertical. Its shape earned it the moniker “Missile With a Man In It” and “Zipper.”

One thing pilots did not complain about was its speed—the listed top speed of the F-104 was Mach 2.2, but this was because above that the fuselage would melt. The J79 was a near flawless engine that gave the Starfighter an excellent thrust-to-weight ratio; uniquely, the intake design of the Starfighter gave the engine a bansheelike wail. So superb was the F-104 at level speed and climbing that NASA leased several as trainers for the X-15 program, and in setting a number of speed and time-to-climb records.

If the F-104 had gotten a mixed reception at best in the USAF, Lockheed felt that it had potential as an export aircraft. Beating out several excellent British and other American designs in a 1961 competition, every NATO nation except France and Great Britain bought F-104s and manufactured their own as the F-104G; Japan also license-built Starfighters as F-104Js, while still more were supplied to Pakistan and Taiwan. Just as in USAF service, accident rates were incredibly high, particularly in West German and Canadian service—Germany lost 30 percent of its initial batch, and the Canadians over half. Worries that the F-104 was too “hot” for pilots usually transitioning from the F-86 were ignored, and later it was learned why: German, Dutch, and Japanese politicians later admitted to being bribed by Lockheed into buying the Starfighter.

Its high accident rate earned such nicknames as “Widowmaker,” “Flying Coffin,” and “Ground Nail.” Pakistani pilots simply called it Badmash (“Criminal”) and the Japanese Eiko (“Glory,” inferring that it was the easiest way to reach it). German pilots joked that the quickest way to obtain a F-104 was to buy a patch of land and wait.

Nonetheless, once pilots learned how to tame the beast, the accident rates eased somewhat, and NATO pilots discovered that the Starfighter excelled as a low-level attack aircraft: fitted with bomb racks, the F-104 was remarkably stable at low altitude and high speed, and Luftwaffe pilots in particular found that they could sneak up on a target, launch a simulated attack, and be gone before ground defenses could react. The Italians in particular loved the F-104, building their own as the F-104S: these aircraft were equipped with multimode radar and armed with AIM-7 Sparrow and Aspide radar-guided missiles, making them a superb interceptor. Though most NATO nations reequipped their F-104 units with F-16s, F-18s, or Tornados beginning in 1980, the Italian F-104S fleet was continually upgraded and soldiered on until final retirement in 2004. 2578 F-104s were built, mostly F-104Gs; today over 150 survive in museums, with at least ten flyable examples, making it one of the best preserved of the Century Series.

Though displayed as 57-1312 (which ended up in Pakistan), this two-seat F-104D is actually 57-1330. Its career paralleled most of the Starfighters in USAF service: it started with the 479th Tactical Fighter Wing at George AFB, California, from 1959 to 1972, then was transferred to the 156th TFG (Puerto Rico ANG) at San Juan, where it was retired in 1976. It was stored at MASDC in Arizona until 1982, when it was bought by a private collector, but again languished in storage, this time at Mojave, California. In 1986, it was donated to the Castle Air Museum and refinished back to its 479th colors, with the different tail number.

57-1312 could use a repaint, though the 479th's colors, as always, look good on a F-104.

While the F-16A had proven a success, its lack of long-range missile and true all-weather capability hampered it, especially in projected combat against the Warsaw Pact over Central Europe. General Dynamics began work on the upgraded F-16C/D version, with the first Block 25 F-16C flying in June 1984 and entering USAF service that September.

Externally, the only ways to tell apart the F-16C from the F-16A is the slightly enlarged base of the tail and a UHF radio antenna at the base of the tail. The intake is also slightly larger, though later marks of the F-16A also have this feature. Internally, however, the F-16C is a significantly different aircraft. The earlier APG-66 radar was replaced by the APG-68 multimode radar used by the F/A-18, which gave the F-16C the same capability to switch between ground-attack and dogfight mode and vastly improved all-weather capability. Cockpit layout was also changed in response to pilots’ requests, with a larger Heads-Up Display and movement of the radar display to eye level rather than between the pilot’s legs on the F-16A. The F-16C would also have the capability to carry the AIM-120 AMRAAM, though it would not be until 1992 that the missile entered service. Other small upgrades were made throughout the design, including the engine.

The Block 25 initial production was superseded by the Block 30 F-16C in 1987, which gave it better navigation systems, and the capability to carry the either the General Electric F110 or the Pratt and Whitney F100 turbofan. The Block 40/42 “Night Falcon” followed in 1988, equipped with LANTIRN night attack pods, followed by the Block 50/52, which was a dedicated Wild Weasel variant. In USAF service, the latter are semi-officially known as F-16CG and F-16CJ variants.

The F-16C had replaced the F-16A in nearly all overseas USAF units by the First Gulf War in 1991, and as a result, the aircraft was among the first deployed to the theater in August 1990. During the war, the F-16C was used mainly in ground attack and strike sorties, due to delays in the AIM-120, but it performed superbly in this role. USAF F-16s finally scored kills in the F-16C, beginning in 1992, when an Iraqi MiG-23 was shot down over the southern no-fly zone; the victory was also the first with the AMRAAM. Four Serbian G-4 Super Galebs were shot down over Bosnia in 1994. F-16Cs had replaced the F-16A entirely in regular and Reserve USAF service by 1997, and further service was seen over Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya by 2012. Subsequent upgrades to USAF F-16Cs with GPS allow them to carry advanced precision weapons such as JSOW and JDAM.

Whatever the variant, the F-16 is today the most prolific combat aircraft in existence, with 28 nations operating the type (17 of which operate F-16Cs). Over 4450 have been built, with more in production; the F-16C is also license-produced by Turkey and South Korea. It also forms the basis for the Mitsubishi F-2 fighter for Japan, though the F-2 is significantly different, with a longer nose and larger wing. Though the USAF projects that the F-16C will be replaced by the F-35 beginning in 2020, it will likely remain in service for a very long time.

Here the Thunderbirds make a slow pass for the camera--hence why I was able to get the shot despite owning a fairly cheap camera! The team is in the diamond formation, which is used by the Thunderbirds as their "default" formation. This is a slightly expanded diamond; the team is often no more than three feet from each other in the diamond. This picture was taken at the Wings Over the Falls airshow in Great Falls, MT in July 2017.

While the F-16A had proven a success, its lack of long-range missile and true all-weather capability hampered it, especially in projected combat against the Warsaw Pact over Central Europe. General Dynamics began work on the upgraded F-16C/D version, with the first Block 25 F-16C flying in June 1984 and entering USAF service that September.

Externally, the only ways to tell apart the F-16C from the F-16A is the slightly enlarged base of the tail and a UHF radio antenna at the base of the tail. The intake is also slightly larger, though later marks of the F-16A also have this feature. Internally, however, the F-16C is a significantly different aircraft. The earlier APG-66 radar was replaced by the APG-68 multimode radar used by the F/A-18, which gave the F-16C the same capability to switch between ground-attack and dogfight mode and vastly improved all-weather capability. Cockpit layout was also changed in response to pilots’ requests, with a larger Heads-Up Display and movement of the radar display to eye level rather than between the pilot’s legs on the F-16A. The F-16C would also have the capability to carry the AIM-120 AMRAAM, though it would not be until 1992 that the missile entered service. Other small upgrades were made throughout the design, including the engine.

The Block 25 initial production was superseded by the Block 30 F-16C in 1987, which gave it better navigation systems, and the capability to carry the either the General Electric F110 or the Pratt and Whitney F100 turbofan. The Block 40/42 “Night Falcon” followed in 1988, equipped with LANTIRN night attack pods, followed by the Block 50/52, which was a dedicated Wild Weasel variant. In USAF service, the latter are semi-officially known as F-16CG and F-16CJ variants.

The F-16C had replaced the F-16A in nearly all overseas USAF units by the First Gulf War in 1991, and as a result, the aircraft was among the first deployed to the theater in August 1990. During the war, the F-16C was used mainly in ground attack and strike sorties, due to delays in the AIM-120, but it performed superbly in this role. USAF F-16s finally scored kills in the F-16C, beginning in 1992, when an Iraqi MiG-23 was shot down over the southern no-fly zone; the victory was also the first with the AMRAAM. Four Serbian G-4 Super Galebs were shot down over Bosnia in 1994. F-16Cs had replaced the F-16A entirely in regular and Reserve USAF service by 1997, and further service was seen over Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya by 2012. Subsequent upgrades to USAF F-16Cs with GPS allow them to carry advanced precision weapons such as JSOW and JDAM.

Whatever the variant, the F-16 is today the most prolific combat aircraft in existence, with 28 nations operating the type (17 of which operate F-16Cs). Over 4450 have been built, with more in production; the F-16C is also license-produced by Turkey and South Korea. It also forms the basis for the Mitsubishi F-2 fighter for Japan, though the F-2 is significantly different, with a longer nose and larger wing. Though the USAF projects that the F-16C will be replaced by the F-35 beginning in 2020, it will likely remain in service for a very long time.

The crowd at the Wings Over the Falls airshow in July 2017 were able to get fairly close to where the Thunderbirds taxied out. Here Thunderbird 5, the lead solo aircraft, heads out to the runway, with a little wave to the crowd. The inverted 5 is a Thunderbirds tradition, since the lead solo spends a lot of time upside down during the show. Thunderbird 5 was Major Alex Turner for the 2017 season.

The fourth of the 1950s era “Century Series,” the F-104 Starfighter was designed around one single element: speed. Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, head of Lockheed’s famous “Skunk Works” factory, had interviewed US Air Force pilots during the Korean War, seeking their input on any new fighter. Since the pilots reported that they wanted high performance more than anything else, Johnson returned to the United States determined to deliver exactly that: a simple, point-defense interceptor marrying the lightest airframe to the most powerful engine then available, the superb General Electric J79.

When Johnson offered the L-098 design to the USAF in 1952, the service was so impressed that they created an entire competition for the aircraft to be accepted, ostensibly as a F-100 Super Sabre replacement. The Lockheed design had the clear edge, though both North American’s and Northrop’s design went on to be built themselves—the North American F-107A Ultra Sabre and the Northrop T-38 Talon. The USAF purchased the L-098 as the F-104A Starfighter. The design changed very little from initial design to prototype to operational aircraft, which was done in the astonishing time of two years.

When the first F-104As reached the USAF in 1958, pilots quickly found that it was indeed a hot fighter—too hot. The Starfighter’s design philosophy of speed above all else resulted in an aircraft with a long fuselage, T-tail for stability, and small wings, which were so thin that special guards had to be put on the leading edges to avoid injuring ground personnel. Because of its small wing, the F-104 required a lot of runway, and blown flaps (which vents airflow from the engine over the flaps to increase lift) were a necessity; unfortunately, the airflow system often failed, which meant that the F-104 pilot would be coming in at a dangerous rate of speed. Because it was feared that a pilot who ejected from a F-104 would never clear the tail, a downward-ejection seat was fitted, but after killing over 20 pilots, the seat was retrofitted with a more reliable, upward-firing type. The design also was not very maneuverable in the horizontal, though it was difficult to match in the vertical. Its shape earned it the moniker “Missile With a Man In It” and “Zipper.”

One thing pilots did not complain about was its speed—the listed top speed of the F-104 was Mach 2.2, but this was because above that the fuselage would melt. The J79 was a near flawless engine that gave the Starfighter an excellent thrust-to-weight ratio; uniquely, the intake design of the Starfighter gave the engine a bansheelike wail. So superb was the F-104 at level speed and climbing that NASA leased several as trainers for the X-15 program, and in setting a number of speed and time-to-climb records.

If the F-104 had gotten a mixed reception at best in the USAF, Lockheed felt that it had potential as an export aircraft. Beating out several excellent British and other American designs in a 1961 competition, every NATO nation except France and Great Britain bought F-104s and manufactured their own as the F-104G; Japan also license-built Starfighters as F-104Js, while still more were supplied to Pakistan and Taiwan. Just as in USAF service, accident rates were incredibly high, particularly in West German and Canadian service—Germany lost 30 percent of its initial batch, and the Canadians over half. Worries that the F-104 was too “hot” for pilots usually transitioning from the F-86 were ignored, and later it was learned why: German, Dutch, and Japanese politicians later admitted to being bribed by Lockheed into buying the Starfighter.

Its high accident rate earned such nicknames as “Widowmaker,” “Flying Coffin,” and “Ground Nail.” Pakistani pilots simply called it Badmash (“Criminal”) and the Japanese Eiko (“Glory,” inferring that it was the easiest way to reach it). German pilots joked that the quickest way to obtain a F-104 was to buy a patch of land and wait.

Nonetheless, once pilots learned how to tame the beast, the accident rates eased somewhat, and NATO pilots discovered that the Starfighter excelled as a low-level attack aircraft: fitted with bomb racks, the F-104 was remarkably stable at low altitude and high speed, and Luftwaffe pilots in particular found that they could sneak up on a target, launch a simulated attack, and be gone before ground defenses could react. The Italians in particular loved the F-104, building their own as the F-104S: these aircraft were equipped with multimode radar and armed with AIM-7 Sparrow and Aspide radar-guided missiles, making them a superb interceptor. Though most NATO nations reequipped their F-104 units with F-16s, F-18s, or Tornados beginning in 1980, the Italian F-104S fleet was continually upgraded and soldiered on until final retirement in 2004. 2578 F-104s were built, mostly F-104Gs; today over 150 survive in museums, with at least ten flyable examples, making it one of the best preserved of the Century Series.

Finding this F-104 came as a pleasant surprise--I found it by chance one night fooling around on Google Maps. A friend and I headed up to the sleepy town of Dutton, Montana, and got some pictures of a comparatively rare two-seat F-104D. Despite being in an out of the way town, it is remarkably well--preserved and taken care of by the local VFW chapter. The choice of a F-104D is curious, though--no flying unit in Montana ever flew the Starfighter!

In any case, 57-1332 is painted in the colors of the 479th Tactical Fighter Wing, based at George AFB, California. Though the 479th's F-104s were bare metal most of their career, this one is painted overall light gray as a preservation measure.

While the F-16A had proven a success, its lack of long-range missile and true all-weather capability hampered it, especially in projected combat against the Warsaw Pact over Central Europe. General Dynamics began work on the upgraded F-16C/D version, with the first Block 25 F-16C flying in June 1984 and entering USAF service that September.

Externally, the only ways to tell apart the F-16C from the F-16A is the slightly enlarged base of the tail and a UHF radio antenna at the base of the tail. The intake is also slightly larger, though later marks of the F-16A also have this feature. Internally, however, the F-16C is a significantly different aircraft. The earlier APG-66 radar was replaced by the APG-68 multimode radar used by the F/A-18, which gave the F-16C the same capability to switch between ground-attack and dogfight mode and vastly improved all-weather capability. Cockpit layout was also changed in response to pilots’ requests, with a larger Heads-Up Display and movement of the radar display to eye level rather than between the pilot’s legs on the F-16A. The F-16C would also have the capability to carry the AIM-120 AMRAAM, though it would not be until 1992 that the missile entered service. Other small upgrades were made throughout the design, including the engine.

The Block 25 initial production was superseded by the Block 30 F-16C in 1987, which gave it better navigation systems, and the capability to carry the either the General Electric F110 or the Pratt and Whitney F100 turbofan. The Block 40/42 “Night Falcon” followed in 1988, equipped with LANTIRN night attack pods, followed by the Block 50/52, which was a dedicated Wild Weasel variant. In USAF service, the latter are semi-officially known as F-16CG and F-16CJ variants.

The F-16C had replaced the F-16A in nearly all overseas USAF units by the First Gulf War in 1991, and as a result, the aircraft was among the first deployed to the theater in August 1990. During the war, the F-16C was used mainly in ground attack and strike sorties, due to delays in the AIM-120, but it performed superbly in this role. USAF F-16s finally scored kills in the F-16C, beginning in 1992, when an Iraqi MiG-23 was shot down over the southern no-fly zone; the victory was also the first with the AMRAAM. Four Serbian G-4 Super Galebs were shot down over Bosnia in 1994. F-16Cs had replaced the F-16A entirely in regular and Reserve USAF service by 1997, and further service was seen over Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya by 2012. Subsequent upgrades to USAF F-16Cs with GPS allow them to carry advanced precision weapons such as JSOW and JDAM.

Whatever the variant, the F-16 is today the most prolific combat aircraft in existence, with 28 nations operating the type (17 of which operate F-16Cs). Over 4450 have been built, with more in production; the F-16C is also license-produced by Turkey and South Korea. It also forms the basis for the Mitsubishi F-2 fighter for Japan, though the F-2 is significantly different, with a longer nose and larger wing. Though the USAF projects that the F-16C will be replaced by the F-35 beginning in 2020, it will likely remain in service for a very long time.

The Thunderbirds were parked at show center, which made it easy to get some good pictures of the whole team. This was several hours before the Thunderbirds' performance, so there was very little activity around the aircraft at the time. The F-16D on the right is normally used to fly the narrator and the operations officer for the squadron, but it can serve as a spare aircraft if needed. After the pilots manned their aircraft, Thunderbird 4 experienced engine trouble and was "downed" by the crew chief. They towed the two-seater out, the pilot of Thunderbird 4 switched planes, and he flew the two-seater for the entire show--even though it still had the centerline belly tank attached.

I may be bad luck for the Thunderbirds: the last time I saw them, in 2005, they also had engine trouble, that time with Thunderbird 3, and flew the show with one aircraft missing.

The A-6 Intruder was designed to serve two roles: one, to replace the aging A-1 Skyraider and supplement the A-4 Skyhawk in the carrier-based strike role, and two, to give the US Navy a genuine all-weather strike aircraft. The requirement was issued in 1957, and Grumman’s A2F-1 design selected, with the first flight in 1960. In 1962, just before fleet entry in 1963, the Intruder was redesignated A-6A.

The A-6 was designed to hit targets with pinpoint accuracy in adverse weather, day or night, similar to what the USAF would later require for the F-111 Aardvark. For this reason, it was built around the Digital Integrated Attack/Navigation Equipment (DIANE), which used three radar systems to constantly update the INS and provide attack data to the bombardier/navigator sitting in the right seat. The system proved very complicated and it would be some years before it was perfected. Since the weather and night would be the Intruder’s primary defense, no internal armament equipped the aircraft, though it could carry an impressive 18,000 pound warload.

The Intruder was committed early to the Vietnam War, which showed up the flaws in the DIANE system and a more lethal one in the bomb delivery system, which had a tendency to set off the bombs prematurely, destroying the aircraft. Gradually improvements were made, and despite the loss of 84 Intruders over Vietnam, it proved to be extremely effective: until the bugs were ironed out of the F-111A in 1971, the A-6 remained the only American aircraft that could attack during the monsoon season.

Specialized A-6Bs were also produced specifically for Iron Hand defense suppression missions, and A-6Cs for anti-truck operations on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. All three variants were replaced by the A-6E beginning in 1971: this replaced DIANE with a more advanced solid-state computer and the three radars with a single AN/APQ-148 multimode radar. In 1979, the A-6E was further modified with the installation of Target Recognition Attack Multisensor (TRAM), consisting of a turret in the nose containing FLIR linked to the radar and a new bomb computer. Besides making the already accurate A-6 even more deadly, it also allowed the Intruder to drop laser-guided bombs, hit moving targets with bombs, and also use passive radar to attack a target.

A-6s would find themselves once more heavily employed during the First Gulf War, flying 4700 sorties for the loss of four aircraft; its final roles would find it supporting Marines in Somalia in 1991 and UN forces in Bosnia in 1995. By that time, surviving A-6Es had been partially upgraded to allow them to fire all newer guided weapons in the inventory (namely the AGM-84 Harpoon, AGM-65 Maverick, and AGM-88 HARM), while most of the fleet also received composite wings.

Grumman further proposed an updated version designated A-6F, with new avionics and engines, but the US Navy rejected this in favor of replacing the Intruder with first the cancelled stealthy A-12A Avenger II, then the F/A-18C/D Hornet. The last A-6E left US Navy service by Feburary 1997; the US Marine Corps had retired theirs in 1993. Older, non-modified aircraft were sunk as an artificial reef off Florida; others remain at AMARC for scrapping.

Bureau Number 155713 was originally built as an A-6A in 1969 and made its first deployment with VA-52 ("Knightriders") aboard USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63). While aboard the USS Constellation (CV-64) with VA-165 ("Boomers"), 155713 participated in Operation Linebacker strikes against Vietnam in spring 1972.

In 1977, 155713 was upgraded to an A-6E and would spend most of the 1980s back with VA-165 and again aboard the Kitty Hawk. Its final assignment was with VA-128 ("Golden Intruders"), the Replacement Air Group unit for Pacific Fleet A-6 squadrons at NAS Whidbey Island, Washington. It was retired in 1995 and donated to the Pima Air and Space Museum that year.

When I visited in June 2019, 155713 had been beautifully restored to the two shades of gray camouflage used by A-6s at the end of their career, wearing the tailcode of VA-128. The tiny spikes on the tail and refueling probe are there to discourage birds from sitting on the aircraft. Note the impressive lineup of Harriers in the background!

The age and vulnerability of the RF-101C Voodoo was apparent by the Vietnam War. As losses rose among the Voodoo community, the USAF sought a faster and newer replacement. The solution turned out to be yet another variant of the eminently adaptable F-4C Phantom II. The basic airframe was retained with a new nose, with three cameras placed inside. As the RF-4C was meant to be unarmed, it was not necessary to retain the multimode interception radar of the F-4C, and the RF-4C used the smaller AN/APQ-99 navigation radar. Lighter and more aerodynamic than the F-4C, the RF-4C proved to be the perfect replacement for the RF-101 and remaining RF-84F Thunderstreaks in USAF service. It entered service in 1965.

The RF-4C would be the last dedicated manned tactical reconnaissance aircraft in USAF service. They were used extensively over Vietnam, and in active-duty USAF squadrons until the late 1980s, when they were relegated to Air National Guard units. The last two squadrons of ANG RF-4Cs saw service during the First Gulf War, after which they were retired completely. A number were supplied to foreign air forces afterwards, but the RF-4E (built off of the early F-4E variant) remains the primary foreign RF-4 version. Iran, Greece, Turkey and Japan are the last remaining operators of the RF-4E.

By the time West Germany ordered a reconnaissance version of the F-4 Phantom II to replace their RF-104G Starfighters and RF-84F Thunderflashes, the RF-4C production line had closed. Instead, the Luftwaffe would get the RF-4E, based on the F-4E airframe, with uprated engines, though externally it was difficult to tell the difference between the RF-4C and the RF-4E. They were later modified to be able to act as emergency bombers as well as reconnaissance aircraft.

Dad snapped this picture of an AG 51 RF-4E at Ramstein in 1979. AG 51 used a red owl as their symbol, as seen on the intake; this aircraft also shows the two shades of gray splinter scheme used by the Luftwaffe in the 1970s and 1980s. 35+29 was later passed to the Hellenic (Greek) Air Force around 1993, was finally retired in 2013, and today is in storage in Greece.

One of the lessons of the Six-Day War of 1967 (and to a lesser extent, Vietnam) was that the long runways needed by contemporary fighters were vulnerable targets and could be destroyed, pinning surviving aircraft to a base they could not operate from nor escape. With this in mind, Hawker-Siddeley began research into a vertical/short takeoff and landing (V/STOL) aircraft, the P.1127 Kestrel, which would use a revolutionary new engine—the Rolls-Royce Pegasus, which used vectored thrust, in which nozzles were turned for regular flight or hovering. The Kestrel was proven in a series of tests, and the British Royal Air Force accepted a modified Kestrel as the Harrier GR.1.

Involved in the test process of the Kestrel and the Harrier had been the US Marine Corps, who saw potential in the idea: in cases where the Marines had to land on beaches, often airfields were hard to get to or were so badly damaged by fighting as to be useless for a time. The Harrier would allow the Marines to have air support over the beach, as Harriers could operate from small ships or from shore. The Marines would subsequently adopt the Harrier as the AV-8A. This concept of small-ship operation also led to the development of the Sea Harrier for the British Fleet Air Arm, as the United Kingdom wanted to retire its large carriers in favor of smaller “through-deck cruisers”—light carriers with Harriers aboard.

While the Harrier’s V/STOL capability was impressive and touted by some British aviation enthusiasts as the wave of the future, the early AV-8As and Harrier GR.1/3s were limited by their size and engine power: despite being the same size as the A-4 Skyhawk, the latter could carry more bombs faster and further than the AV-8A. The Harrier was notoriously unforgiving and difficult to fly; the FAA learned that the best Sea Harrier pilots were actually those who had been helicopter pilots. It was also a maintenance nightmare: to change the engine, the wings had to be removed. In an attempt to cure or mitigate these problems, British Aerospace and McDonnell Douglas embarked on a joint project to improve the Harrier, mainly with a new, larger wing and uprated engine. Defense cuts in the UK led to British Aerospace withdrawing from the project, but despite pressure from the US Navy to cancel the “Advanced Harrier” project, McDonnell Douglas persisted, converting two Harriers to YAV-8B standard, with new wings and redesigned nozzles and intakes. While performance was still not up to par, it still had increased range and more bombload.

New administrations—Margaret Thatcher’s in England and Ronald Reagan in the US—led to the British rejoining the project and more momentum, and finally, in 1981, the first AV-8B Harrier II flew. This had all of the improvements of the YAV-8B, with a new forward fuselage with a raised cockpit for better visibility, an uprated engine, heavy use of composites to lighten the weight, and leading-edge extensions of the wings. These solved the Harrier’s range and speed problems, and the AV-8B went into full production in January 1984 in the US, quickly followed by the Harrier GR.4 in the UK. Almost immediately, according to Marine requirements, work began on a dedicated night attack Harrier with FLIR infrared guidance and provision for night-vision goggles. These aircraft—unofficially referred to as “Night Attack” Harriers but retaining the basic AV-8B designation—became the baseline version, with earlier “Day Fighter” AV-8Bs converted to this standard.

Though the Sea Harrier had blooded the type in the 1982 Falklands War with phenomenal success, the first war fought by Marine AV-8Bs was the First Gulf War of 1991. Marine Harriers, operating from offshore amphibious assault ships, regular airfields, and forward operating locations, were instrumental in the Marines’ liberation of Kuwait, sustaining a 90 percent operational rate; five Harriers were shot down during the war. One complaint was that the AV-8B lacked a radar and had no long-range capability: should a Harrier get into a dogfight, it would have to rely on short-range AIM-9 Sidewinders. Subsequently, McDonnell Douglas began a long modification and update program, the so-called AV-8B+, which redesigned the nose to accept the same radar as the F-18 Hornet. This allowed the Harrier to fire the AIM-120 AMRAAM and the AGM-84 Harpoon attack missile. These updated Harriers began entering service in 1993.

Since then, AV-8Bs have served in American service in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq, where they were used heavily to cover the Marine assault into Baghdad. The design was also updated for British service as the Harrier GR.9, and also used in Kosovo and Afghanistan; budget cuts saw the premature retirement of the GR.9s, which have been subsequently taken up by the US Marines, though the GR.9 lacks the multimode radar of the AV-8B+. Spain and Italy have also adopted the AV-8B for use off of their light carriers—Spain’s Principe de Asturias and Italy’s Garibaldi-class; these aircraft are identical to the Marine AV-8B+. Two concerns of the original Harrier—its high accident rate and high maintenance requirements—still exist, and figured into the British retirement of their GR.9s. Nonetheless, the Harrier is scheduled to service for at least another decade, until it is replaced by the F-35C Lightning II. 323 were built and most remain in service.

When designing my fictional air force and navy, it made sense to give them a squadron or two of AV-8Bs for the same reasons the Marines use them. I used the Revell 1/144 scale kit, and gave it a camouflage scheme similar to that of the USMC, though everything from mid-fuselage back is gunship gray, instead of just over the wings. The nose is light gray. I have it configured for the suppression of enemy air defense (SEAD) Wild Weasel mission, with a AGM-88 HARM, AGM-65 Maverick, ALQ-191 ECM pod, and two AIM-9L Sidewinders for self defense.