Wings - F-104 Starfighter - Part 1

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Remember the documentary series called Wings that the Discovery Channel used to air over a decade ago? It also translated into series named Wings Over the Gulf, Wings of the Red Star, Wings Over the Pacific, and even spawned a weekday edition at 6 pm called Weekday Wings. Remember the Wings Marathon on New Year's Day? Here is a little bit of nostalgia from those days. My best friend's uncle taped all of the episodes from one or two marathons and he (the best friend) gave them to me literally days before he went off to basic training. I didn't edit out most of the commercials you see since, well, they do show their age.

Here is part 1 of 2 of the F-104 Starfighter.

Channel: Autos & Vehicles
Uploaded: June 14, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Author: airshowfansh

Length: 00:17:13
Rating: 4.79
Views: 22390

Tags: Wings Over Gulf Red Star Pacific Weekday Documentary Discovery Channel F-104 F104 Starfighter Fighter

Video Comments:
NomadHeart1985 (October 11, 2008 at 7:51 am)
and the great xb70 valkyrie was destroyed by this shit
NomadHeart1985 (October 11, 2008 at 7:48 am)
worst aircraft ever.widow maker,flying coffin...
irschenberg (September 25, 2008 at 12:02 am)
my father flew it in the german air force..and survived^^
hwoods01 (September 29, 2008 at 4:03 am)
cuz he bailed and ran, like most germans
irschenberg (September 29, 2008 at 10:05 am)
*plonk*
AugustusLarch (August 23, 2008 at 10:00 pm)
This plane is a great perfomer, has low intial cost, is easy to maintain compared to other types and holds a considerable amont of fuel for it's size. However it did have less than desireable handling characteristics and it's agility was less than par. It had inertia coupling tendancies and dutch roll problems. The machine nearly killed Chuck Yeager in a test flight beacause of this.
In the hands of a pro it did it's job.
arfywarfy (April 29, 2008 at 8:05 pm)
The F104 was designed by a genius and did exactly what it was designed to do. It still holds world records, 50 years after first flight. Comments here are entirely correct - once the 'agenda-driven' idiot generals got their way with it, it became junk. It was NEVER designed to be a 'bomber' - and when they bolted the kitchen sink on this plane, they ruined it, it's capabilities, and it's future. Figures!
cybercow222 (March 5, 2008 at 1:38 am)
thnx for videos man ! i love retro aviation documentaries from 60`s 70`s, cold war era ...
cputnam71 (February 24, 2008 at 2:58 am)
Yeah, but, remember some asswipe air force major general told Robin Olds that the days of dog fighting were over. That was the career ist politics ridden mind set of the air force brass, real american idiots. If it is not big, heavy, full of all kinds of crap and above all expensive the air force brass does not like it.
grazyarnie (February 20, 2008 at 8:07 pm)
The german Starfighter F-104 G was called widowmaker....not because germans could not handle aircrafts...but because politcs made an all weather fighter bomber out of an air superiority fighter...typical for german suit...dumb asses