Impractical weapons, armour, and equipment - Mike Sparks spinoff

[TiggerNits]

Oh god, the F-104... I'll admit it looks sexy as fuck, especially with those wingtip droptanks, but it was just so poorly handled all around.

In the role of a very light and fast interceptor, this thing would have been decent (and a lot of german pilots praised it for this role), but thehigher ups also wanted to use it as a multi-role Fighter Bomber and the Bundeswehr (or rather Josef Strauß, the Minister of Defense at the time) was looking for a fighter that could be equipped with nuclear weapons.
So Lockheed just glued some more hardpoints under the wings, which fucked up pretty much everything from its maneuverability to the handling during regular flight and the stress during curves could tear that thing asunder. (Though the German version did get some notable improvements here and there, such as a reinforced fuselage and wings).
In 1965 alone, there were 27 accidents with 17 fatalities.

You already mentioned a couple of mind-blowing flaws, but there's 2 things that I need to add:

1) The engineers at Lockheed feared that the pilot might strike the T-shaped wings at the back of the plane when using the ejection seat, so the first version came with an ejection seat (called C1) that propelled you downwards. The C2 propelled you upwards, but it could only be used at a minimum speed of roughly 70mph. Below that speed, chances of survival were abyssmally low.
Due to its poor design, the seat could get entangled in the parachute during pilot-seat-seperation.
They switched to a british ejection seat that could reliably eject the pilot even from a parked plane with a decent chance of survival.

2) The take-off speed of this plane was 250mph. At 260mph, the air resistance was strong enough to make the landing gear jam. That meant that after takeoff, the pilot had roughly 2 seconds to stow the landing gear before it would get stuck. If it did get stuck, he'd have to go around the airport, put the plane into landing configuration and try to stow the gear again once the speed dropped low enough, if successful, the pilot could throttle up and continue as planned. It was also possible that the gear could become stuck completely or get otherwise damaged. Enjoy landing a plane with the glide characterisitcs of a phone booth, broken landing gear and a minimum landing speed of 170mph...

Extra Fun Fact Time: the most accomplished combat pilot of all time, Erich Hartmann (352 verified aerial victories, was never shot down) was send to America to see how well the F-104 performed and whether it was suitable for the Bundeswehr or not. The pilots and ground crew that he talked to during official meetings were praising that thing like crazy, however in the evenings, Hartmann would hang out in the same bars that the pilots and crew would frequent and here he heard about the atrocious state of the F-104 and all the problems that it had.
He came back and advised against buying the F-104 but Günther Rall (275 Aerial victories, was shot down a couple of times) said -I shit you not!- that Hartmann lacked experience and thus recommended to ignore his advise.
This was an important factor when Hartmann later left the Bundeswehr in 1970.

In a lot of ways, the F-104 (and in a way, the F-5) and its numerous failures to perform as advertised is directly responsible for the F-16 and F/A-18 programs being so successful. General Dynamics and McDonald Douglas looked at the debacle caused by the F-104 and realized that having a marketing team working harder than the engineering and QC teams was a recipe for disaster, so instead of doing what Lockheed had done in selling the aircraft directly to diplomats and heads of state, they went to the heads of Air Forces and Armies to actually ask what they wanted their next gen of multi-role fighters to be. Almost everyone wanted something more maneuverable at sub-mach than an F-4, with a lower rate of fuel consumption than a Mig-21 and with better bomber qualifications than the aging A-4.

Both accomplished this in different ways. GD's F16 was the better interceptor and fast mover, with a giant engine and low weight like the F-104, but larger fuel tanks, and the ability to carry far more ordnance it was in a great many ways what the F-104 was sold as. McD's Hornet was the option for countries that already had sufficient aerial intercept abilities and just wanted a highly fuel efficient and astonishingly low maintenance fighter that had the right amount of engines for extended usage in combat (ie more than one) and the ability to drop almost any weapon NATO had available with astonishing accuracy thanks to the aircraft's ability to maintain stability at any speed. Both were excellent choices and complete upgrades for any country looking to get rid of the century series and other 2-3 gen fighters and owed all their success to their management's ability to see where Lockheed fucked up.

 

[DrunkJoe]

I saw a 10,000 dollar barrel for a custom built shotgun at a gun show. Over under hand forged damascus. I wish I took a picture, it was beautiful but when your making such an expensive gun becomes so un practical. Me personally Im not shelling out that much money to have a custom gun I would never want to shoot.