On Sat, 3 Jan 2004 16:58:30 -0500, (Peter Stickney)
wrote:

In article ,
"Gord Beaman" ) writes:
Scott Ferrin wrote:

On 29 Dec 2003 20:44:43 -0800, (Paul A. Suhler)
wrote:

They certainly *looked* like they'd be very maneuverable with all
that anhedral...did they have some sort of computer controlled
autopilot to handle all the unstability that the high anhedral
would have given them?

No computers. The anhedral was there to reduce the stability of the
airplane. If They'd built it with a flat wing, it would have ended up
too stable, laterally.

Well, it was common for all high performance aircraft of the period to
have stability augmentation. Some had single axis while others had
full three-axis stab aug. It wasn't as fully in-the-loop as todays FBW
systems, but definitely added control inputs to reduce pilot workload
on inherently unstable systems.

The F-104G (and probably a number of the other Euro variants) carried
the same multi-mode autopilot system that the F-105D had with altitude
hold, attitude hold, mach hold, nav-track, autoss (nuclear
over-the-shoulder) and autoILS.


In all fairness, it really ought to be pointed out that the F-104 was
only unmaneuverable at low EAS. (FOr values of low 500 kts or so)
If you kept the speed up, it would maneuver with anything else. After
all, when maximum lift isn't the limiting factor, all that wing
loading stuff isn't as important. (Note - I'm not saying it isn't
important, but low wing loading favors the slower airplane) IIRC, it
was a lot easier for a well-flown F-104 to keep its energy up than any
of its competitors. The drawback, is, though, that in order to go fas
& stay fast, you've got to be in afterburner all the time, and that
limits your endurance. (And also makes it a bit hard to escort
anything - There's no point if your F-104 strike escort flies to hanoi
& back in 25 minutes, sweeping all i front of it, if the F-105s with
the bombs are still chugging along at 550-600 kts. )

Actually, at low altitude and high-Q, the 104 would begin to get inlet
overtemps when trying to escort F-105s. The losses of the two escort
F-104s weren't associated with bomb dropper escort, but with Wild
Weasel escort. They might have been more successful in the counter-air
role if flown as CAP sorties with GCI to run them toward the threat.



Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8