It is strange that in Denmark I think that the F-104G was the fighter plane with the lowest accident rate. Maybe surpassed slightly by the SAAB Draken. But unlike Germany we used the Starfighters only as interceptors.
We lost several Gloster Meteors, but they flew a lot, soon they cracked all over and were scrapped. We got 252 F-84E/G - a gift - by far the most common a/c in the country ever. They fell from the sky like a hailstorm. On one bad day we lost half a dozen due to unexpected weather change. They were equipped for flying only in the three summer months, but the Cold War lasted 12 months a year.
We had plenty of engine related F-100D/F crashes. Hawker Hunter, F-86K and RF-84F did far better.
We haven't been especially lucky with the F-16s, but that is mostly due to four planes lost due to two midair collisions.
Our Starfighters were among the quite few G models built by Lockheed. Most others including the German ones were produced on license at various other plants around the world. There may have been quality issues involved in the various accident rates.
Late in the F-104 era, when we retired our T-33s, we bought a handful of second hand Canadian produced TF-104G two seat trainers. I remember having read that it was a real headache to modify them to near "Lockheed production standard".
Сообщение от ykcyc
Ответить с цитированием
