Feb 142011
As with the Bell X-1, the configuration of the Lockheed F-104 was also granted a design patent by the US Patent Office. Note that this shows the early, pre-spike inlet configuration. Design Patent 179,348 was applied for on April 22, 1954 and granted on December 4, 1956. The first F-104 prototype flew in March of 1954, so the patent application process was well after the plane was known.
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For its first public photos they put fairings over the air intakes to hide their layout, and it looked like it was rocket powered:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4059/4538921271_165a899171.jpg
http://www.edwardsflighttest.com/F-104/YF-104_01.jpg
Here’s a couple of oddball ones:
http://www.edwardsflighttest.com/F-104/F-104_VTOL.jpg
http://www.edwardsflighttest.com/F-104/NLF-104_Art.jpg
The aircraft sure had a bad safety record; I did some research on its loss rate among air forces that used it, and it averaged right around 30% in all of them.
The VTOL version has a “NATO insignia” on the side.
What was the designation of the unbuilt VTOL triangular wing version?
That was a Ryan/Lockheed co-project called the Ryan F-104 VTOL Project; maybe Scott knows a more complete designation for it. It was designed by Ryan’s Peter Girard.
The one in the painting is the CL-704, it had seven Rolls-Royce RB181 (other sources say RB191) lift engines in each of the wingtip pods.
Note the tail numbers on the aircraft in the painting are 7041 and 7042.
The reason for the NATO insignia is probably due to that being the intended customer countries, back in that time period they were trying to figure out things with atomic weapons on them that could come flying out of German forests and attack the Russian tanks in case the cold war went hot. They actually did tests of launching a F-104 like a Mace cruise missile:
http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/LRG/images/lrg0605.jpg
See the thing like a drop tank ahead of the RATO booster?
That’s not a drop tank, that’s a dummy Mk 28EX thermonuclear bomb.
Yield could range from 350 kilotons to 1.45 megatons depending on the model.
There was another version of a F-104 VTOL that was built called the
EWR VJ 101C that was very similar to the one that Scott had written the book about.
That would be the Bell D-188A.
The little-known EWR VJ 101C was built and did flight tests, showing it had a Mach 2 max speed potential (the prototype did get supersonic).
One major difference between it and the Bell concept is that it lacked the fuselage tail engines of the D-188A design:
http://www.aviastar.org/air/germany/vj-101.php
I actually got to talk to a test pilot who flew the VFW VAK 191B German VTOL, the competition to the Harrier: http://www.aviastar.org/air/inter/vak-191.php
He was a member of the Tripartite Evaluation Squadron, which assessed it and the Kestrel (early Harrier) for possible US military acquisition.
He wasn’t fond of the VAK 191 at all, saying it was a lot more complex to take off and land than the Kestrel due to the seperate dedicated lift engines, and had the sink rate of a brick because of the tiny wings.
One oddity of the design was that it had an internal bomb bay, strange on such a small aircraft that already had so much packed into its fuselage. Range was also pretty poor.
Some nice VJ-101 photos here: http://nhungdoicanh.blogspot.com/2008/09/ewr-vj-101c.html