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Norwegian Starfighter


rob Lyttle

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Met a customer in The Old Fashioned Sweetie Shop in Winchester today, with an interesting Tee shirt.

For a minute I thought it was the silhouette of a 101Voodoo, but a better look revealed a104 and the caption..." The need for speed."

 

I engaged him in conversation, obviously!

 

Turns out he's the chosen pilot of the Norwegian Starfighter that's just been given airworthy Certification, and is the only airframe in the air, this side of the Atlantic!

I knew nothing about this project!

Didn't want to detain him long, but Wow... What a gig!

Found it on Facebook under Starfighter.no

 

Any body know any thing about this project?

 

I did ask him about the plane's reputation. 

He put it down to new flight technologies and young men pilots!

Says she's a treat to fly.

I think he said it was 13years worth of restoration work to achieve airworthiness.

I'm delighted there's one in the air again at last.

Those bars of toffee are going to be the fastest bars in the world!

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This CF-104D actually got its airworthy certificate and flew post-restoration first time last year. 

 

Check out www.Starfighter.no and you will be able to read all about her 

 

 

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The howl and the smoke , takes me back to airshows in the late 60s.

 

If you want a closer look someone posts videos of the test flights taken from the ramp where it is parked quite regularly on the Scale Aircraft Modelling  Facebook page , think there was one in the past week or so , although I imagine that they are probably on You Tube as well.

 

The losses while in service with some air forces were indeed a mix of inexperience meeting new technology for both air and ground crews coupled with a lack of proper heated covered storage especially during the European winter although compared with losses among other users Norway fared quite well and only lost six.

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Reminded me of the old joke in Germany:  “How does one acquire a Starfighter?  Buy a hectare of land and wait!”  They were a quantum leap from earlier German aircraft.

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On 14 June 2018 at 9:34 PM, Brian said:

Reminded me of the old joke in Germany:  “How does one acquire a Starfighter?  Buy a hectare of land and wait!”  They were a quantum leap from earlier German aircraft.

More chance of getting a Harrier! They had a higher attrition rate but the Starfighters nigglers love to bang the same old drum...

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On 14/06/2018 at 15:51, Boman said:

This CF-104D actually got its airworthy certificate and flew post-restoration first time last year. 

 

Check out www.Starfighter.no and you will be able to read all about her 

 

 

Sadly she rarely flies. A friend, and Eskin Amdal's check pilot, got me to Stavanger last year to see and touch her but she went AOG ..... :(

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4 minutes ago, RidgeRunner said:

More chance of getting a Harrier! They had a higher attrition rate but the Starfighters nigglers love to bang the same old drum...

I recall from reading The Arms Bazaar by Anthony Sampson that the attrition rate of the Starfighter in Luftwaffe service was due to its being operated in the strike role.  Is high attrition a characteristic of strike and ground-attack aircraft in general?  It would appear intuitive.  What were Jaguar or Canberra losses like?

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45 minutes ago, RidgeRunner said:

More chance of getting a Harrier! They had a higher attrition rate but the Starfighters nigglers love to bang the same old drum...

Couldn't agree more, Martin !

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7 hours ago, JosephLalor said:

I recall from reading The Arms Bazaar by Anthony Sampson that the attrition rate of the Starfighter in Luftwaffe service was due to its being operated in the strike role.  Is high attrition a characteristic of strike and ground-attack aircraft in general?  It would appear intuitive.  What were Jaguar or Canberra losses like?

It really wasn't that. It was a mix of being a very advanced aircraft at the time of its introduction and a young reformed Luftwaffe with a hint of arrogance. Take the mass crash in Germany in the early days, as a example. Yes she continued to add to the losses table through out her life but latterly losses were on a par with its equals in service. She was very capable, although nothing compared to modern machinery, but then no aircraft of that era would stand up technically nowadays. There is no doubt, though, that she was a great aircraft. I've known many Starfighters pilots - Canadians, Turks, Dutch and Italians - and they all loved her! They wouldn't do that if she had been the tainted machine that she is purported to be.

 

ah, the perennial Starfighter debate! ;)

 

Martin

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7 hours ago, JosephLalor said:

I recall from reading The Arms Bazaar by Anthony Sampson that the attrition rate of the Starfighter in Luftwaffe service was due to its being operated in the strike role.  Is high attrition a characteristic of strike and ground-attack aircraft in general?  It would appear intuitive.  What were Jaguar or Canberra losses like?

 

That wasn't really the case. The German F-104 attrition was highest early on and Luftwaffe boss, Johannes Steinhoff, correctly identified the problem as the training sylabus being inadequate to the true learning curve of the aircraft.

 

After the training sylabus was reworked, Luftwaffe F-104 attrition went down almost overnight.

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