My Systems Phase instructor at mech school (a retired USAF fighter pilot) said making an approach in a 104 to anything less than a two mile runway was "like driving your Hemi 'Cuda down a residential street and into your driveway with the two aux barrels of your four barrel carb stuck wide open. Whoa, Nellie!" If you reduced power, your BLC quit abruptly and you fell out of the sky. Not good with a downward ejection seat. If you wanted to keep the BLC working, you had a hard time getting the dang thing to go down AND slow down. He said the speed brakes and the drogue chute were both inadequate to the job. He called the plane "a bucket of gotchas". He also said that during his tour at SAGE they were a PITA to work on GCI, as they were severely range limited and had a very short range radar set. Pretty much a base defense interceptor. You had to wait their scramble until bogies were definitely targeted on their area, then "Buster!" them to altitude to make the intercept, burning up most of their fuel and requiring a PDQ RTB.