F-104 Starfighter.....

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here is a little blurb I found on the 104
"The airplane was extremely reliable. The radar cold be changed in 20 minutes; the engine in 2 hours. Every comm/electronic box could be changed at the end of the runway in the quick check area in matter of a few minutes - and was. Our QC crew had spare boxes in their van and saved many a sortie."
 
Flyboy2 said:
Cool pictures Graeme...
Was the CL-2000 just an upgrade version? Kinda looks like the Dassualt F.1
Click to expand...

IIRC, it was designed to be a competitor in the USAF's LWF program of the early '70's (which was won by the YF-16); I don't think it ever even reached the prototype stage, I don't ever remember seeing any mock-ups of it or anything.
 
Here's the mock up, albeit with one air intake missing. Lockheed also designed a 'Big Starfighter', the L-205, with twin engines mounted on the wings, Canberra fashion, which incidentally, the same position chosen for the SR-71 so it may be possible to draw an evolutionary line from the F-104 to the Blackbird!

 
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Flyboy2 said:
Cool pictures Graeme...
Was the CL-2000 just an upgrade version? Kinda looks like the Dassualt F.1
Click to expand...

Well spotted FB2. I had another look at that article and could find no reference to CL-2000 in the text. I'm wondering if it's a typo? There is of course much on the CL-1200 Lancer but CL-2000 neither googles successfully (for me) nor is mentioned in this site...

List_of_Lockheed_aircraft

Wayne's photo is an extension of the CL-1200, the CL-1600, also known as the X-27?
 
I have a decent source for the F-104 at home, I'll check it when I get there tonight.
 

A few posts ago Stitch said that it was just designed as a competitor, never actually entering a prototype stage, so maybe that can explain why it can't be found anywhere since it technically was never an actually produced aircraft.
 

You're right, I can find no mention of the CL-2000 in my "source"; HOWEVER, I did find a reference to a follow-on to the CL-1200 "Lancer" called the X-27 which, as it's designation indicates, was theoretically capable of Mach 2.7 speeds. However, this proposal never left the drawing board. Perhaps this is the CL-2000? My sources DO indicate that an up-rated P&W TF30-P-1 was to power the CL-1200-2, my guess is it IS a typo; there was probably never such an a/c as the Cl-2000, only the CL-1200-2.
 
It can be very confusing when you are looking into designations, for example in this case, the CL-1200-2 was the original company designation for the X-27 but Johnston changed it to CL-1600 to differentiate it from the earlier CL-1200 programme, all three designations belong to the same design.
 
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