How many Widow Makers are there?

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SaparotRob said:
Some of those "widow makers" were a surprise to me, especially the F-100 and the MiG-21.
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I worked around a later model MiG-21 for a brief period. From what I recall, it had to keep the centerline tank on or else it would have C/G issues when internal fuel got below a certain point. I don't think the earlier versions or the trainer versions had this issue.
 
MiTasol said:
I only met one who flew the CF-104 and he was killed in one a few weeks later. He loved everything except the engine out performance. I never did hear what exactly happened in his accident.
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Sorry to hear about this!

From what I was told and engine out on a 104 was disastrous. If you didn't have the airspeed or the altitude to point the nose down, the aircraft wanted to invert and fly backwards
 
MiTasol said:
Wow - F-47 and F-82 numbers are frightening. I wonder why the F-61 hours went up so fast
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I believe the F-61 was being used as a primary all weather interceptor as the Soviet threat was becoming apparent, this in the late 40s and were eventually replaced by the F-82
 
SaparotRob said:
Some of those "widow makers" were a surprise to me, especially the F-100 and the MiG-21.
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The MiG-21 suffered similar operational incidents as the F-104 did. If used and flown as designed, it was a solid platform, operate it ouside of that zone and gravity will come looking for you.

The F-100 had a quirk where if it enters a stall condition, the nose would pitch up violently. At low altitudes, this would prive to be deadly.
It was called the "Saber Dance".
 
Well, I am speculating so get the rocks ready

F-61 is a Northrop P-61 and when you go from "Night fighter" to " all weather interceptor" the interpretation of "all weather" may get a little loose and/or expectations may have changed. At what kind of weather did night fighters stop flying it?
The spare parts situation didn't help and in the last few years they were resorting to cannibalization of other aircraft.

As for the F-84F, it was something of a lead sled and they may have tried to fly with a too a heavy load. The wing wasn't that much bigger than an F-86 but they loaded it up with bombs/rockets and were sometimes at around 25% heavier than the Sabre. Take-off speed was commonly 160kts (wiki?)
 
Jagdflieger said:
not modified or tampered with by the Luftwaffe.
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The F-104G was designed specifically by Lockheed for the multi-role, not "tampered with by" the Luftwaffe. While the Germans issued a multi-role specification, it was Lockheed who designed the G-model to fit, the Germans at one time were interested in the British still-born Saunders Roe P.177 combined rocket/gas turbine powered aircraft and the Blackburn Buccaneer, but Lockheed pipped them to the post and put the F-104 into the mix.

The aircraft below certainly doesn't help the type's reputation, but again, zero-length launches, although designed for the German theatre were not specifically a German idea.

Gatow 124

Read the following for a bit of background behind Lockheed's "Deal of the Century" surrounding F-104 sales.

Lockheed bribery scandals - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org
 
Semantics! In 1947 when the Air Defense Command was established and later the Continental Air Command, the name/ mission of a "night fighter" was rolled into "all weather interceptor." I think the 318th Fighter-All Weather Squadron (which operated P/F-61s) were one of the first units that underwent this name change.
 
FLYBOYJ said:
Sorry to hear about this!

From what I was told and engine out on a 104 was disastrous. If you didn't have the airspeed or the altitude to point the nose down, the aircraft wanted to invert and fly backwards
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Yeah. He joked something like you had to be half way to the moon to make a safe engine out landing IF you were top centre over your base.
 
SaparotRob said:
Some of those "widow makers" were a surprise to me, especially the F-100 and the MiG-21.
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There's something about the Sabre Dance that will dig a pilot in:


My understanding, and correction is welcome if I'm wrong, is that it's caused by differential stalling between wingtips and wingroots, resulting in the fluttering seen above, mainly as a result of low airspeed -- which yeah, will cause problems on approach.
 
This is not a correction by any means - just a comment that may or may not be relevant.

The commentary to that video notes A US Air force F-100 Supersabre jet rounds out high in nose-high attitude, during attempted emergency landing at Edwards Air Force Base, California. The pilot applies power to go around without success as the F-100 enters a state known as a "Sabre Dance".

In 1972 when the Canadair Sabre crashed into the ice cream parlor in Sacramento the film footage was shown by FAA to Bob Hoover at Leroy Penhall's hangar at Chino and Bob's comment was that during testing they over-rotated a NAA Saber at Edwards (I think) and it would not become airborne before it ran out of runway.

To me that F-100 may have also been over-rotated but become "airborne" because of ground effect.

Flyboy's comments on this thought would be most welcome.
 
Thank you!

Here's the details of the F-100 crash. I was going to comment from memory but this link nails it.

One of the most notorious incidents was the loss of F-100C-20-NA Super Sabre 54-1907 and its pilot during an attempted emergency landing at Edwards AFB, California on Jan. 10, 1956. By chance, this particular incident was recorded in detail on 16 mm film by cameras set up to cover an unrelated test. The pilot fought desperately to regain control due to faulty landing technique, finally rolling and yawing to the right before striking the ground with the fuselage turned approximately 90 degrees to the line of flight. The F-100 was noticeably underpowered for its day and had very pronounced "backside" tendencies if airspeed was allowed to decay too much.


The brand new F-100C was flown by Lt. Barty R. Brooks, a native of Martha, Oklahoma and a Texas A&M graduate, of the 1708th Ferrying Wing, Detachment 12, Kelly AFB, Texas. The aircraft was one of three being delivered from North American's Palmdale plant to George AFB, California, but the nose gear pivot pin worked loose, allowing the wheel to swivel at random, so he diverted to Edwards, which had a longer runway. On approach, at a high angle of attack, the fighter exceeded its flight envelope, and, too far into stall condition, lost directional control with fatal results.


I worked for a company that operated F-100s. You never got them "low and slow" and this includes the later F-100D, comments from our pilots.

As far as the Saber crash - the moron flying the aircraft had under 4 hours in the aircraft. IIRC in his court trial he recalled a "vibration" when he put back pressure on the stick, but it subsided. He decided to keep going down the runway and tried to hard rotate too slow. The jet did not get airborne and crashed through a fence into an ice cream parlor. IIRC 20+ people died.

2nd generation jets like the F-86 or MiG-15 have to fly themselves off the runway, you can't jerk them into the air. The L29 (which I've flown from the front seat) behaved the same way.
 
Hi nuuumann,

In December 1957 Lt.Col. Albert Werner und Major Walter Krupinski tested the USAF version F – 104A/B and decided it to be the prime candidate for the Luftwaffe. After having evaluated and tested almost a Dozen US and European candidates. That corruption was involved is undeniable (especially Belgium) but according to the vast majority of Luftwaffe
pilots, the top military brass and Germany's government it was the best and most suitable candidate. That the aircraft came about 4-5 years to early for the rather inexperienced Luftwaffe is also undeniable. But the threat existing from the East, unfortunately did not permit the feasible reasons of a stage by stage enhancement.

On 6th​ November 1958 the German parliament gave the green light. But at that time the specifications demanded/forwarded by the Luftwaffe did not meet the existing F-104A/B
the then dubbed Super-Starfighter F-104G was only existing on paper.
Therefore during the Starfighter crisis the political opposition reverted to saying – you bought the cat in the sack.

The first 50-70 F-104G's were produced by Lookheed and the remaining 850 in Germany under a License program. Internal Luftwaffe reports stated clearly that there was nothing wrong with the aircraft's configuration and technical layout – but that foremost German/Luftwaffe developed and deployed avionics and flight-thrust control suits installed systems caused the crash rates – not being suitable and adequate for a 4500-5000lbs weapon load carrying F-104G
So clearly a screw up on the German side. The vast majority of crashes were due to engine stalls and jet turbine fires.

Generally Luftwaffe pilots said; a great but sensible aircraft – and unforgiving towards flight handling errors, and also in a kind of defying humor referred to the F-104G as the
"Der schoene Tod", (beautiful death) the press/Media brought up the slogans "death coffin" and "widow-maker"

Regarding SATS and Zell, - those projects were actually very helpful and justified.

SATS was a co-project that was run by the USMC and Luftwaffe in regards to catapult sledge aided starts (using a J-79 jet engine) and arrester-hook landings – from 1962-65 in the final evaluation the F-104G was used, and all prior tests were conducted at Naval Air Test Facility in Lakehurst.
Initially it was of interest to the Marine Luftwaffe wings who had send a Sea Hawk aircraft in 1961 for trials. The SATS system where then implemented at the Luftwaffe airfields Jever and my father's unit JaboG 32 Lechfeld in 1964. The project was ended and the SATS systems were removed in 1966.

Zell (Zero Length Launch) incl. ATC – (Automatic Throttle Control). The first was in view of enhancing QRA issues and was a co-project conducted by the USAF and Luftwaffe, respectively by Lockheed and Messerschmitt/Erp.St.61 at Manching.

Initial testing began 1963 at Edwards AFB, and then from 1966 onward also by JaboG 32 at Lechfeld. BTW every test start at that time cost around $40,000 – big money at the time.
In Germany 7 test starts were conducted by Ed Brown USAF (5) and Horst Philipp Luftwaffe (2). However due to NATO's change in strategy towards Flexible Response – the project
was ended even though 14 aircraft's had been technically outfitted for a mass demonstration. The same reasons for ending the project also applied towards SATS.

Regards
Jagdflieger
 

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