To kick us off, I’m at Edwards Air Force Base in California’s Mojave Desert, with a reincarnation of the same plane that Chuck Yeager crashed trying to set a new altitude record here in 1963.

The story of the F-104 begins in the skies over Korea, where U.S. pilots in F-86 Sabres battled MiG-15s, many of them secretly flown by Russian pilots. While the F-86 held its own, pilots reported that they wanted a jet fighter that could fly faster and higher than the MiG. The challenge was taken up by Kelly Johnson, the famous head of Lockheed’s Skunk Works, who designed many of the company’s most groundbreaking planes, including the L-10 Electra and P-38 Lighting, and later the U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird spy planes.

The F-104 Starfighter would be propelled by a single General Electric J79 jet engine, an absolute monster that produced over 14,000 pounds of thrust. The main wings of the F-104 were stubby, extremely thin, and tilted downward (anhedral) as a counter to the T-tail behind. The forward edges of the wings were so sharp they created a safety hazard to ground crew—accidentally bang into them, and they could cut like a knife.

When flying at high angles of attack, the wings could potentially mask the T-tail from the airflow, rendering the elevators useless and making it impossible to pitch down to recover—something I learned I really had to watch out for.

The cockpit is all analog gauges. The most important are the artificial horizon to the middle right, the altimeter to the middle left, and the airspeed indicator just above it. The engine gauges to the far right are important too, because this thing is easy to overheat.

The throttle to the left is pretty simple. Just next to it is the level for flaps. There’s only one stage of flaps, about 10 degrees, for takeoff and landing.

The first F-104 prototype took to the skies in March 1954 at Edwards AFB and quickly earned its reputation as a “missile with a man on it.” In the first few months, the F-104 set numerous altitude and speed records, becoming the first jet fighter to exceed Mach 2.

But it also soon revealed a number of flaws and limitations that would plague it throughout its career. First, while it was extremely fast, it had a very wide turning radius, which made it unsuitable for close-in dogfighting. This became evident when I made a 180-degree turn to land and kept way overshooting the runway.

Second, when you have the engine on full throttle, it’s very easy for the compressor to stall and cause the engine to flame out. This happened several times, throwing me violently forward in the cockpit. I was high enough, so I could restart.

Finally, there’s angle of attack, the angle at which the wing meets the air. The higher that angle, the more lift. But beyond a certain point the wing will stall and cease providing any lift at all. The angle of attack indicator is the dial to the far right. It’s on “3” here. When it goes to “5” or more, the stick starts shaking to warn me. And if it goes into the red, the stick will automatically push forward, causing the airplane to lurch nose down.

At first, I found it a challenge to manage the angle of attack at speeds below 200 knots. In fact, that’s why the F-104 was known for having to land at a relatively fast speed. In fact, this was the result of my first attempt to land it. Needless to say, it was a closed-casket funeral.

For all these reasons, the F-104 was one of the first jet fighters to feature an ejection seat. Pull the cord down between my legs and away we go. F-104 pilots wore spurs, which clipped into wires that, when they ejected, pulled their legs in from the rudder pedals so they wouldn’t get ripped off. The pilots loved these because when they walked around it made them look and feel like cowboys.

The problem was the first explosive charges for the F-104’s ejection seat couldn’t propel the pilot above the oncoming T-tail. So the pilot was ejected downward out the bottom of the fuselage. Ejecting downward at high altitudes wasn’t a problem, but it became deadly at low altitudes on final approach. The ejection would slam you right into the ground before the parachute could open. Eventually this was changed, and new explosive charges were rigged to blow off the canopy and eject the pilot skyward, which has remained the practice ever since.

The F-104 is probably most familiar from the scene in the 1983 film The Right Stuff, where Yeager, played by Sam Shepard, tries to fly one to the edge of space and ends up losing control and ejecting just before it crashes. This was a real event, and the airplane he flew (NF-756) was actually an experimental version of the F-104 with a rocket (not depicted) attached to the tail, providing an additional boost to reach maximum altitude.

Yeager actually began his run level at 40,000 feet to build up speed to Mach 2.2 before starting his climb. Then he nosed up 45 degrees or more and shot for the sky. At 78,000 feet he shut off the main engine and let the tail rocket propel him higher. 

In the movie, it makes it look like the problem was that his engine failed. In fact, that wasn’t the issue. The trouble was that around 107,000 feet for some reason the elevators became locked, and he couldn’t nose down as he lost speed. Unable to regain speed by nosing back down, the airplane went into a flat spin, and Yeager ultimately had to eject. The seat hit him and caused the rubber in his helmet to catch fire, burning his face and one of his fingers badly, but he survived.

I don’t have an extra tail rocket and was still learning the ropes with the finicky engine, so the highest I was able to go in the F-104 was to about 50,000 feet. The view was pretty wild, though. The fastest I could get the F-104 on my first flight was Mach 1.4. Though I think with a little practice I could probably figure out how to get past Mach 2.

Time to come back down to earth and try to land right this time. Barreling in at 200 knots is a little unnerving (a Cessna lands at about 60 knots, a Boeing 737 at about 130). Once you do touch down, the F-104 has a parachute you can deploy to help slow you down in time before you run out of runway. Later versions of the F-104 also featured a tailhook that could catch wires on certain airfields to come to a halt. Either way, even in the sim you definitely feel being slammed forward as you decelerate.

The F-104 was initially deployed as a high-speed interceptor and played a key deterrent role in the 1958 Taiwan Straits Crisis, the 1961 Berlin Wall Crisis, and the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. But the limitations of the F-104 in an actual combat role became evident during the Vietnam War, which is why I’m at the giant U.S. airbase at Da Nang (now a civilian airport, VVDN).

One big drawback was limited range. The F-104 guzzled fuel and would quickly run out if it didn’t carry an array of extra tanks on its wings to supplement. The jet was designed to intercept and shoot down other fighters. But there were few enemy fighters that posed a direct threat in the skies over Vietnam. As a result, the F-104 scored zero direct air-to-air kills in almost 3,000 sorties during the Vietnam War, though several were lost due to accidents and enemy fire (one was reported shot down by a Chinese fighter jet after straying into China airspace).

It can be argued that F-104 Starfighters performed their job well. By patrolling the skies, they deterred North Vietnamese fighter jets, which largely avoided them, ensuring the safety of other U.S. aircraft involved in providing close-air support to troops fighting on the ground. Nevertheless, the F-104 was soon phased out of the U.S. Air Force, replaced by other jets such as the F-4 Phantom which, while not as fast, could serve in a more versatile range of roles, from dogfighting to bombing to landing on aircraft carriers.

That was hardly the end of the F-104, however. Just as its life with the Air Force was ending, it gained popularity in export markets, including the American-recognized Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan. On January 13, 1967, four Republic of China Air Force Starfighters engaged a formation of People’s Liberation Army Air Force MiG-19s  over the island of Kinmen (Quemoy) just off the coast of mainland China. One F-104 did not return to base and was presumably shot down. But two Taiwanese pilots each shot down a MiG-19.

Johnson said this aerial battle illustrated both the strengths and weaknesses of the fighter he designed for Lockheed. It had the advantage in speed and altitude but could not turn with the MiGs. This particular airplane (4344) survived and remains on display at the ROC Air Force Museum in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

Several other countries also adopted the F-104 in the mid-1960s. One of the most important was Canada, which acquired a license from Lockheed to produce it domestically as the CF-104. This CF-104 being refueled belongs to the 3rd Fighter Wing once based at Zweibrücken in southwest Germany.

At the time, Canada actually had the fourth-largest air force in the world, with four bases in Western Europe, two in France, and two (including Zweibrücken) in what was then West Germany. The Canadian CF-104s at all four bases replaced F-86 Sabres and took on two special missions, with the first being aerial reconnaissance.

The second mission— a unique one—was a nuclear strike. The Canadian CF-104s carried a single, compact nuclear bomb under its fuselage, like a drop-tank, which unfortunately I’m not able to depict. In wartime, the job of the Canadian CF-104s was to take off and fly straight to targets inside the former Soviet Union and drop their nuclear load.

Even with wingtip fuel tanks, the CF-104s didn’t have the range to fly to Russia and back. The pilot would be expected to bail out somewhere near the target and hide until the war ended. That’s a pretty rough assignment. I’m glad I’m not that guy and that this guy never actually had to perform his mission. Canada operated the CF-104 for 25 years from 1962-1987, when it was replaced by the F-18 Hornet.

Like many other countries that flew the Starfighter, Canada saw a very high accident rate—110 major accidents and 37 fatalities—which gained it the nickname “The Widow Maker.” But the country that ordered the largest number of export F-104s, and had the highest accident rate, was West Germany.

The Starfighter we’re looking at is a little different. It’s a two-seat TF-104 used as a trainer. When countries deployed the F-104, they typically bought a few TF-104s as part of the package. This TF-104 belongs to JaboG 34, a fighter-bomber squadron once based at Memmingerberg in Bavaria and now a civilian airport.

Starting in 1960, the Germans bought 915 Starfighters, 35 percent of all F-104s ever produced, as part of a plan to quickly ramp up their contribution to NATO’s fighting force. Of these 915 planes, 292 (almost one-third) were destroyed in accidents and 116 pilots were killed. At one point, there was an accident happening almost every week.

This was the worst safety record of any country operating the F-104. Why was it so bad? There are several reasons that probably contributed. First, many pilots in the new Luftwaffe were inexperienced, with only a few older veterans signing on who had flown in World War II. Many of the F-104 problems persisted: engines flaming out, stalling at high speeds, T-tail elevators becoming ineffective, etc. Even at its best, the Starfighter was considered an unforgiving aircraft. In the hands of an inexperienced pilot, this could be deadly.

Second, to save money, the Germans made the F-104 their one and only type of airplane. Originally designed as a high-altitude interceptor, they had it play a wide variety of roles, including low-altitude combat support bomber. This role led to many accidents where pilots couldn’t pull up fast enough from a dive and crashed.

Third, many German pilots received their F-104 training in the American Southwest, where the weather was clear and ideal. When they came back to Europe, they found themselves operating in poor weather conditions close to the ground. Many accidents were weather related.

Finally, there’s that ejector seat. Many German pilots trained on F-104s with a downward ejecting seat. They learned to adapt at low altitude by turning the airplane upside down before ejecting, so they would be propelled away from the ground. By the time the Germans received their planes, though, many had been changed to upward ejecting seats. But by force of habit, some pilots would still turn upside down before ejecting at low altitude and…well, you know.

If this ongoing bloodbath wasn’t enough, West Germany’s F-104 purchases became the center of a major bribery scandal. In the 1970s, several German politicians, including the defense minister, were accused of taking multimillion-dollar bribes from Lockheed to choose the F-104 over its rivals. Similar charges were made against Lockheed in other countries, involving the F-104 and other aircraft.

For all its flaws, the West German Luftwaffe continued to rely on the F-104 as its primary warbird until it was replaced by the Panavia Tornado in the 1980s. British pilot Eric Brown said the F-104 was an airplane that “has to be flown every inch of the way.” The U.S. required pilots to have 1,500 flight hours before climbing into the F-104. German pilots typically had 400—and it showed.

Now if all of this makes you want to jump into a F-104 and try it out, you may be in luck. An outfit called Starfighters Inc. offers a two-day program of flight training in one out of Kennedy Space Center in Florida for $29,900. Its small fleet of former Canadian TF-104s operates out of a hangar at the space shuttle landing facility. If you have that kind of money lying around, all you need is a private pilot certificate, medical certificate, be within certain maximum height and weight limits, and be able to pass a security check to get on-site.

For what you’re paying, I certainly hope they let you go Mach 2. I don’t have that kind of coin, but at least in the sim I can fly over Kennedy Space Center and wave hello to Elon Musk. So, yeah, your dreams can come true and it can happen to you—if money is no object. In the meantime, the rest of us will have to make do with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this feature on the F-104 Starfighter and its interesting history. And maybe at least one of you will go to Florida and fly one. Good luck!

If you’d like to see a version of this article with more historical photos and screenshots, you can check out my original post here.

This story was told utilizing the Sim Skunk Works TF-104G and FRF-104G add-ons to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, along with liveries and sceneries produced by fellow users and shared on flightsim.to for free.

The post Exploring the Checkered History of the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

This is also the story of the Schneider Trophy, one of the most prestigious prizes in early aviation that sparked fierce international competition to develop the fastest airplanes in the world. The trophy was the brainchild of Jacques Schneider, a French hydroplane boat racer and balloon pilot who was sidelined by a crash injury. Originally an annual contest, starting in 1912, it promised 1,000 British pounds (more than $100,000 today) to the seaplane that could complete a 280-kilometer (107-mile) course in the fastest time. Interrupted by World War I, the contest resumed in 1919 with a new provision: Any country that won three times in a row would keep the trophy permanently. The prize quickly became the focus of intense international rivalry.

Until 1922, the contest was dominated by flying boats—with their fuselages serving as the floating hull—and by the hard-charging Italians—led by the companies Savoia and Macchi, which came close to walking away with three wins and the trophy, scoring average speeds just over 100 mph. But starting in 1923, the Americans introduced floatplanes (streamlined biplanes on pontoons) and took speeds to an entirely new level. Jimmy Doolittle—the famous racer who later led the first World War II bombing raid on Tokyo—won the 1925 race at 232.57 mph, putting the U.S. one step from final victory.

The sole British victory had come in 1922 in a flying boat built by Supermarine Aviation Ltd. Founded in 1913, the Southampton, England-based company had a disappointing record designing aircraft during WWI but since then had enjoyed some limited success ferrying passengers across the English Channel. The company’s chief designer was a young man still in his 20s named Reginald Joseph “R.J.” Mitchell. Desperate not to be shut out by the Italians and Americans, the British Air Ministry backed Mitchell’s efforts to experiment with some radical new designs.

The Supermarine S.4 (the “S” being for Schneider) was a streamlined floatplane, like the American entries, but a monoplane instead of a biplane, constructed mostly of wood and powered by a 680 hp Napier Lion engine. In 1925 it set a world speed record of 226.752 mph, but it proved highly unstable and crashed during trials for the Schneider Trophy race that year. Two years later, Supermarine and Mitchell were back with a revised design: the Supermarine S.5. Three were built and entered in the Schneider competition, numbered 219, 220, and 221. I’ll be flying No. 220 today.

I’ll talk about some of the differences between the S.4 and S.5, but first let’s set the scene. The Schneider Trophy race was hosted by whichever country won the last time. The Italians were victorious in 1926, so the 1927 race was held in Venice. This time, not only was the British government providing financial support, it also sponsored a team of Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots to fly the airplanes.

One of the more curious conditions of the Schneider contest was that the aircraft first had to prove they were seaworthy by floating for six hours at anchor and traveling 550 yards over water. I found taxiing, takeoff, and landing quite bouncy. With its powerful engine and high center of gravity, the S.5 had a tendency to porpoise up and down over the smallest waves.

For all the entries, just keeping the fragile airframes together and the high-powered engines functioning was half the battle. Often, the finicky aircraft broke down or crashed (like the S.4 did in 1925) before they could even begin the race.

The crowds still came. It’s been barely a few months since American Charles Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic, creating a wave of popular enthusiasm for aviation. More than 250,000 spectators have gathered to see the 1927 Schneider race. The course itself is located outside the lagoon, along the Lido. The airplanes must fly seven 47-kilometer laps around the course for a total distance of 320 kilometers (just over 204 miles).

And here we go at full speed across the starting line across from the Hotel Excelsior.

We fly south along the shoreline of the Lido, past the lighthouse at Alberoni, and toward Chioggia.

A steep 180-degree turn at Chioggia, a miniature Venice that built its medieval wealth on its adjoining salt pans…

…then north on the seaward straightaway.

Another hard left turn around the San Nicolo lighthouse…

…then back across the starting line to begin the next lap.

Unlike the S.4, the S.5’s wings are strongly braced by wires. These may add unwanted drag, but they keep the airplane from breaking up under the stress of those high-speed turns.

The S.5 I’m flying, No. 220, is powered by an improved 900 hp Napier Lion piston engine, delivering 220 horsepower more than its predecessor. It has 12 cylinders, arranged in three lines of four cylinders each in the shape of a W, creating the three distinct humps along the nose. The propeller has a fixed pitch.

Fuel was carried inside the two floats, while the oil tank was located inside the tail. The engine was cooled by water, which circulated its heat to copper plates on the wings that served as radiators. Corrugated metal plates along the fuselage served as radiators for the engine oil.

The cockpit is mainly designed to monitor if the engine is overheating—and little else. The goal is to keep rpm close to 3,300, radiator temperature below 95 degrees, and oil temperature below 140 degrees. I’ve found that while the engine may not be air cooled, the flow of air over the radiator surfaces matters a lot. So maintaining a relatively high speed at an efficient engine setting actually helps keep things cool. There’s an airspeed indicator, but it tops out at 400 kilometers per hour, well below our racing speed. There’s no altimeter, and only a rudimentary inclinometer (bubble level) to indicate bank. It’s also nearly impossible to see straight ahead over the engine cowling.

In the cockpit to my right, I have a paper punch card. Every time I pass the finish line, I poke a new hole in it to keep track of how many laps I’ve completed.

Another little twist in the rules: Twice during the race, the aircraft had to “come in contact” with the water—typically a kind of bounce without slowing, which could be very tricky at high speed.

It so happens that  every single airplane except two—both Supermarine S.5s—failed to finish the race in 1927 for one reason or another. Our No. 220, flown by Flight Lieutenant Sidney Webster, finished first with an average speed of 281.66 mph.

The British had won the trophy, but they would have to repeat their performance two more times to keep it for good. To allow more time for aircraft development, participants agreed to hold future competitions every two years, with the next race coming in 1929.

The contest would take place in Supermarine’s home waters off Southampton. The company entered one S.5 and two S.6s. The latter, which had roughly the same design, were now all-metal planes with a new engine with more than twice the horsepower—the 1,900 hp Rolls-Royce R. To keep this monster engine cool, the S.6 needed surface radiators built into its pontoons as well as wings. Not only did one of the S.6s win the 1929 trophy with an average speed of 328.64 mph, but just before the race it set a new world speed record of 357.7 mph.

The British were now one win away from keeping the trophy for good. But with the onset of the Great Depression, the Labour Party-led British government pulled its funding and forbade RAF pilots to fly in the next race in 1931. The decision was wildly unpopular and led to public outcry. Into the fray stepped Lady Lucy Houston, a former suffragette and the second-richest woman in England. Fiercely critical of the Labour Party, she personally pledged to donate whatever funding was needed for Britain to compete in the race.

Backed by 100,000 pounds from Houston (and renewed participation by an embarrassed British government), Supermarine entered six aircraft in the race—two S.5s (including No. 220, which won at Venice), two S.6s, and two brand-new S.6Bs. The S.6B had redesigned floats, but most importantly, an improved Rolls-Royce R engine that delivered an astounding 2,350 horsepower. As it turned out, no other countries entered the competition that year. The S.6B raced alone, achieving an average speed of 340.08 mph. The next day, the S.6B set a new world speed record of 407.5 mph.

There would be no more Schneider Trophy races. With three straight, the trophy was Britain’s to keep, and it remains on display at the Science Museum in London, though few visitors may appreciate what it means. Besides a boost to national pride, the Schneider races propelled aviation forward by leaps and bounds. Today, it might be surprising to realize that the world speed record was consistently set by seaplanes from 1927 to 1935, when the Hughes H-1 Racer finally surpassed them.

The Supermarine S-planes provided Mitchell experience and confidence with incorporating all-metal construction, streamlined monoplane design, innovative wing shapes, and high-performance, liquid-cooled engines. And the S.6s introduced him to working with Rolls-Royce, which built on the lessons learned from its “R” engine to develop a new mass-production engine, starting at 1,000 horsepower, called the Merlin. In the early 1930s, Mitchell would marry these proven high-speed design ideas to the Merlin engine to create the Supermarine Spitfire, the legendary aircraft credited with winning the Battle of Britain during WWII. As for Lady Houston, who supported Supermarine’s entry in the final race, she was later lauded as the “Mother of the Spitfire” for keeping Mitchell’s development efforts alive.

In 1942, the British produced a wartime movie called The First of the Few. It tells the story of Mitchell’s development of the Spitfire, including the key role of the Schneider Trophy races. But the raceplanes themselves were mostly abandoned and ultimately scrapped. Only the Supermarine S.6B that won the 1931 race still survives—now on display at the Solent Sky Museum in Southampton. 

In 1975, Ray Hilborne built a replica of the Supermarine S.5, which was damaged a few years later. Bob Hosie rebuilt it to fly again, inspiring a folk song by Archie Fisher. Sadly, Hosie was killed in 1987 when it crashed. Today his son William Hosie is part of a project to build a new replica of the Supermarine S.5, with hopes to have it flying by 2027. You can learn more about it here.

Meanwhile, the Schneider Trophy race was revived in 1981. Instead of seaplanes, it features small general aviation airplanes as part of the annual British Air Racing Championship.

I hope you enjoyed the story of the Supermarine S.5 and its amazing legacy. If you’d like to see a version of this article with more historical photos and screenshots, you can check out my original post here.

This story was told utilizing the freeware Supermarine S.5 add-on to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 created by sail1800 and downloaded from flightsim.to.

The post The Story of the Schneider Trophy and the Supermarine S.5 appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Originally produced by General Dynamics, which has since sold its aircraft business to Lockheed Martin, the F-16 came about in the early 1970s in response to the shortcomings of the F-4 Phantom, which saw murderous attrition rates in the skies over Vietnam, and the introduction of new, more advanced Soviet fighters such as the MiG-25.

While the primary response took the form of the twin-engine F-15 Eagle, a “fourth generation” fighter billed as the ultimate air superiority fighter, a small cadre within the U.S. Air Force argued for also developing a smaller, single-engine fighter as a complement to the top-shelf (but expensive) F-15.

Known as the “Fighter Mafia,” this group, led by Korean War fighter pilot John Boyd and mathematician Thomas Christie, developed a formula called “energy-maneuverability theory” to quantify and model a fighter’s combat performance. Their theory called for an agile, lightweight fighter that could make fast changes in direction to get inside the enemy’s decision-making loop.

The project gave rise to a competition, which ultimately came down to two contenders: the General Dynamics YF-16 and the Northrop YF-17. In part because it shared the same engine with the F-15, the Air Force chose the F-16. But the YF-17 didn’t fade into history as it went on to become the Navy’s F-18 Hornet.

The F-16 that the Fighter Mafia inspired was immediately recognizable as a fighter pilot’s fighter. The bubble canopy provided unobstructed views in every direction, while the seat angled back 30 degrees to mitigate the effect of G-forces on the pilot.

The heads-up display (HUD), press-button display screens, and automated start-up checklist all simplified tasks for the pilot. The F-16 was the first fighter that was fly-by-wire. The traditional stick, mechanically connected to aircraft’s controls, was replaced with a sidestick—almost like a gaming joystick— from which gentle nudges are enough to transmit electronic instructions to the computerized flight control system.

Computerized flight control was a necessity as well as a convenience, because the F-16 was designed to be aerodynamically unstable to maximize agility. Its single Pratt & Whitney F-100 turbofan produces a thrust-to-weight ratio greater than 1-to-1, boosting its maneuverability even further.

The wings and belly featured 11 hard points for attaching a wide array of missiles, bombs, extra fuel tanks, and electronics pods—up to 8 tons worth—for different types of missions. Unlike the F-4 Phantom, which initially lacked any guns for close-in dogfighting, the F-16 was also armed with a 20 mm M61 Vulcan six-barrel rotary cannon on the left shoulder of the cockpit, capable of firing 100 rounds per minute.

Dubbed the “Fighting Falcon” by General Dynamics, the F-16 quickly became known to its pilots and crew as the “Viper.” Perhaps its profile reminded them of a snake ready to strike, but for many, it also called to mind the Viper starfighters in the original Battlestar Galactica TV series.

Overall, the F-16, was about a quarter the size of the F-15, about a third the weight, and initially cost $12.7 million per airplane, less than half the $28 million sticker price for an F-15—a fact that made it immediately attractive to export customers looking to buy a modern multipurpose fighter.

With General Dynamics’ production facility in Fort Worth, Texas, gearing up to deliver a large initial order for the U.S. Air Force, one of the first American allies to place an order was the Shah of Iran. But when Islamic revolutionaries overthrew the shah and took U.S. diplomats hostage, that order was placed on hold, and the airplanes were offered to Israel instead.

For the Israelis, the F-16s were a godsend, because they already had a mission in mind for them. It’s the mission we’re preparing to depart on, at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon on June 7, 1981, at Etzion Airbase—now Taba International Airport (HETB) in Egypt—in the then-Israeli-occupied Sinai peninsula.

The target—nearly 1,000 miles away—was the Osirak nuclear power plant on the southeast outskirts of Baghdad. Purchased from the French, protected by sand berms and dozens of advanced antiaircraft missiles, the huge project was nearly ready to go online and start producing plutonium for an Iraqi nuclear bomb that Israel’s leaders viewed as a mortal threat.

There were eight F-16s in the strike force, and I’m flying tail number 107. Originally, it was going to be flown by strike leader Zeev Raz, but he worried that something might be wrong with its navigation system, so he turned it over to his wingman, Amos Yadlin.

To have any chance of reaching their target and returning, the F-16s are heavily laden with extra fuel tanks mounted on each wing (compatible with ones the Israelis already used for their F-4s), as well as centerline fuel tanks they were able to urgently wheedle out of an unwitting Pentagon.

To lighten the load, they tossed out all the electronic countermeasure (EC) equipment normally used to protect against surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and carried only a single heat-seeking Sidewinder air-to-air missile on each wingtip, as well as two 1,000-pound dumb bombs, one under each wing. (I can’t depict bombs here, so their place is taken by HARM missiles).

The F-16’s range was being stretched to its very limit. As they waited on the ramp for the word to take off, each F-16 was “hot refueled”—topped off with fuel while its engine was running—a highly dangerous procedure.

The airplanes were well over their maximum takeoff weight and would take the entire length of the 13,000-foot (4,000-meter) runway to lift off. At 4 p.m., the order came, and one by one the F-16s, on full afterburner, began their excruciatingly slow roll down the runway. And the F-16 is off on its very first flight in anger…

From the Sinai, the airplanes will skirt Jordanian airspace, flying across the Saudi Arabia desert to reach Iraq. To avoid radar detection—and interception by the Jordanian, Saudi, or Iraqi air forces—we’ll fly the entire route there at just 100 feet above ground level. That means we must immediately descend from Etzion Air Base (at 2,415 feet above sea level) to the Gulf of Aqaba on the Red Sea.

By sheer coincidence, King Hussein of Jordan happened to be out on his yacht in the Gulf and watched in shock as the eight low-flying F-16s thundered right over him. While their Israeli markings had actually been removed, he immediately guessed they were an Israeli strike bound for Osirak. Hussein called to alert his country’s air defenses and pass the word to Baghdad, but apparently the message never got through.

Within minutes, the airplanes had crossed—otherwise undetected—into Saudi Arabia, where they followed the twisting route of the waddis (dry desert ravines) through the coastal mountain range.

Practicing for the mission had posed quite a challenge, because the distance was far longer than Israel’s entire length. They had to run multiple laps from the northern border with Lebanon down to the tip of the (then-occupied) Sinai and out over the Mediterranean Sea to simulate the mission. 

While the Israeli pilots were all combat veterans, they were used to brief sorties to Israel’s threatened borders and back—rarely more than an hour in the cockpit from start to finish. In training, they found the experience of flying long distances extremely fatiguing.

The concentration required to fly at just 100 feet off the ground at 360 knots for nearly 90 minutes to Baghdad was exhausting. I’m flying so low, at times, that I’m kicking up a cloud of dust behind me.

Apparently undetected, we can send back the one-word radio transmission, “Moscow,” that will inform our superior waiting anxiously back at Etzion that we have reached roughly a quarter of the way to Baghdad.

In a few more minutes, we face a moment of truth. To reduce weight and conserve remaining fuel, we must jettison the empty auxiliary tanks under our wings. However, this has never been done before at these speeds and altitudes next to live bombs. The technicians say it should work, but there’s also a chance the tanks, once released, could topple over the wings and damage the controls or bang into and set off the bombs next to them. As it turns out, though, the jettison goes smoothly, and the wing tanks fall harmlessly into the middle of the Saudi desert. Without their weight, the F-16s speed up slightly to around 380 knots.

Mile after mile of trackless desert passes just 100 feet below. Almost 45 minutes into our flight, as we hurl ourselves closer to the Iraqi border, it’s time to transmit the one-word code, “Zebra,” which indicates we are half of the way to our target—right under the noses of Saudi radar. There are no landmarks to indicate that we’ve crossed into Iraqi airspace, except for the sun gradually moving lower in the sky. Baghdad is an hour ahead of Israel, and the strike is planned to hit right around dinnertime.

Suddenly, out of the desert, a vital mission landmark: the Bahr al-Milh (“Sea of Salt”), also known as Lake Razazza, a vast artificial body of water created in the 1970s to contain the overspill from the Euphrates River about 60 miles southwest of Baghdad. An island in the lake is supposed to serve as the initial point (IP), where the pilots will arm their bombs and begin the attack sequence. But because of fluctuating water levels, the critical island is submerged and nowhere to be seen, and this has thrown trike commander Raz, off his stride. There’s little time to absorb this as the F-16s cross the Euphrates River and enter the famed Fertile Crescent. Six F-15 fighters that have escorted the F-16 strike force now streak upward to 20,000 feet to provide air cover and electronic jamming for the bombing run. That—and their own speed—are the only real defense the F-16s will have.

The attack itself plays out in a matter of seconds.  At a designated point 4 miles northwest of the target, we punch the afterburners and pop up in a climb, taking us to roughly 8,000 feet. To avoid negative Gs, we roll inverted at the top. At this moment,  Yadlin (in our plane, 107) realizes that Raz, who was supposed to be first, has overshot the target and is starting a loop to come up and over behind him. 

Not delaying a moment, Yadlin begins his bombing run, aiming at a 30-degree dive straight toward the Osirak reactor. At roughly 3,500 feet, with his HUD’s target indicator directly on the dome of the reactor, he releases his bombs…

…and, to avoid both the ground and the (delayed-fuse) blast, punches the afterburner and pulls up immediately into a steep-turning climb to the left. While the rest of the F-16s drop their bombs in turn, we fly as fast and high as possible, straining right up to the airplane’s 9G limit.

In fact, the strike had caught the Iraqi air force and air defenses sleeping. While later waves caught some antiaircraft fire, not a single Israeli F-16 was hit. At least eight of the 16 bombs they carried scored direct hits on the Osirak reactor, completely destroying it. Ten Iraqi soldiers and one French nuclear technician were killed, mostly by misdirected ground fire. The raid had lasted a total of two minutes.

Reassembling at 30,000 feet over Baghdad, the F-16s expected to be pursued by Iraqi fighters, but not one took off. Instead, the element of surprise obliterated, they climbed to 38,000 feet for the return trip home. Flying at higher altitude in thinner air would help conserve the fuel they needed for the task. Rather than fly at 40,000 feet as planned and face a headwind, they stay at 38,000 even though that creates a visible contrail in the moister air.

Tired but elated, they made a direct beeline across Jordanian airspace, hoping they would be long gone before fighters could scramble to high altitude to intercept them. Finally, as the sun set, they crossed back into Israeli airspace and initiated their landing patterns back at Etzion Air Base. All eight F-16s returned unscathed, with barely a drop of fuel left in their tanks. The daring success of the raid stunned both Israeli’s enemies and allies and earned the F-16 its combat spurs.

The markings you may have noticed on the nose of 107 show the Osirak raid plus 6.5 later air-to-air kills against Syrian MiGs and helicopters in Lebanon. The airplane is currently displayed at the Israeli Air Force Museum in Hatzerim. For details of the mission, I highly recommend the book Raid on the Sun by Rodger Claire.

The U.S. Air Force ordered more than 2,200 F-16s, which served on the front lines of the Cold War as well as both wars with Iraq and no-fly zones over Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Libya. Most F-16s are single-seat fighters, but every order usually comes with a few two-seat variants, either for flight instruction or more complex, demanding missions. The earliest round of F-16s were designated A (single seat) and B (two seat), while later, upgraded versions of the airplane were designated C/D and E/F, each with its one-seat and two-seat variants.

Most U.S. F-16s are painted various shades of gray. This particular aircraft was given a special “desert camouflage” paint job to commemorate the first air-to-air kill by an F-16 in U.S. Air Force service during Operation Southern Watch.

After the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein used his air force to strafe and bomb uprisings against him by Kurds in the north and Shiites in the south. In response, the United Nations passed a resolution authorizing coalition aircraft to enforce a no-fly zone over both parts of the country. On December 27, 1992, an Iraqi MiG-25 crossed into the southern no-fly zone, only to find itself trapped by a group of F-16s of the 33rd Fighter Squadron led by then-Lieutenant Colonel Gary North. North fired an AIM-120 AMRAAM missile that took down the MiG. It was not only the first kill for an F-16 in U.S. Air Force service but the first for the new AIM-120 missile as well.

The message was sent and received. After that, Air National Guard and active-duty squadrons rotated through the region, patrolling the skies over Iraq for more than a decade until the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The role of the F-16 in the skies over Iraq complemented the F-15. While the F-15 tended to operate above 15,000 feet, focusing on air superiority, the F-16 made optimal use of its power and agility at lower altitudes to perform a variety of missions, from lower-level interdiction to bombing and strafing enemy units on the ground.

One of the most dangerous missions the F-16 performed was pairing with older F-4s as “Wild Weasels,” whose job it was to find and destroy SAM sites. In this case, they did use the AG-88 HARM missile, referred to when fired as “Magnum.” F-16 pilot Dan Hampton related his colorful experiences as a Wild Weasel over Iraq—including with the 77th Fighter Squadron “Gamblers” depicted above—in his memoir Viper Pilot.

Meanwhile, back home, since 1983 the F-16 has been the public face of the U.S. Air Force, flown by its Thunderbirds demonstration team that performs aerobatics at sports games and other major events.

In popular culture, the F-16 was also featured in the 1984 action-adventure film Iron Eagle, starring Louis Gossett Jr.. The movie fared poorly against the far more popular Top Gun than year. Interestingly, Iron Eagle was filmed in Israel using Israeli F-16s, because (unlike the Navy) the U.S. Air Force refused to sign on to the movie.

At the real Top Gun, the Navy has recruited the F-16 to play “aggressor” against its own top pilots, at its new location at NAS Fallon in Nevada. So has the U.S. Air Force at its own exercise range at Nellis AFB in Nevada. Even the U.S. Space Force now has its own squadron of aggressor F-16s.

Top Aces, a private company founded by Canadian fighter pilots, recently purchased a batch of older F-16s from Israel. From its operating base in Mesa, Arizona, the company has contracts with Canada, Germany, and Australia to provide “aggressor” training for their air forces.

Meanwhile, starting in 2003, Israel has ordered 102 of its own specially designed F-16I model, dubbed “Sufa,meaning “Storm”. All of them are two-seaters and feature a distinctive “spine” carrying a suite of electronics and equipment uniquely suited for Israeli Air Force needs.

Besides the U.S. and Israel, 24 other countries have purchased the F-16. One of the earliest to do so was Pakistan in the wake of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. During the 1980s, Pakistani F-16s shot down several Soviet aircraft intruding over the border from Afghanistan. However, in response to Pakistan’s pursuit of a nuclear bomb to rival India, starting in 1990 the U.S. imposed sanctions on Pakistan. New aircraft were impounded, and spare parts for existing airplanes were cut off, effectively grounding Pakistan’s F-16 fleet.

These sanctions were quickly tossed aside in the wake of the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Pakistan now fields a total of 75 new and upgraded F-16s as its primary fighter. It has fought in both air-to-air battles with India’s mainly Russian-designed aircraft and in ground bombing operations against Taliban militants in places like the Swat Valley.

The world’s third largest user of F-16s, after the U.S. and Israel, is Turkey, which boasts a total of 245. Only the first eight of these, in fact, were made in the U.S. Along with Belgium, the Netherlands, and South Korea, Pakistan manufactures its own F-16s under license from Lockheed Martin, though they are regulated under U.S. arms export laws. Turkish F-16s have been used extensively in bombing campaigns against Kurdish rebels, as well as aerial skirmishes during the Syrian civil war. Most notably, one shot down a Russian Air Force Su-24 along the Turkish-Syrian border in 2015.

Like many countries fielding F-16s, Turkey hoped to replace it with the new F-35, placing an initial order for 30. However, the U.S. Congress, angered at Turkey’s purchase of the Russian-made S-400 air defense system, barred F-35 sales to Turkey. While the U.S. has offered to use Turkey’s $1.4 billion payment (already made) to upgrade its F-16s, the Turkish government has announced that it is working on its own homegrown, fifth-generation jet fighter, called the TF Kaan, to replace its F-16s as well as for export.

Greece also maintains a sizable fleet of F-16s, 135 total. Although they are both NATO allies, tensions between Greece and Turkey have led to a striking occurrence: “mock” dogfights between the two countries’ F-16s that are intense enough to lead to tragedy. In May 2006, two Greek F-16s intercepted a Turkish reconnaissance airplane along with its two F-16 escorts off the Aegean Sea island of Karpathos. A dogfight ensued in which a Greek F-16 and Turkish F-16 collided. The Turkish pilot ejected safely, but the Greek pilot was killed.

Speaking of international tensions, some of the most hotly contested sales of F-16s over the years have been to Taiwan. During a visit there, I was able to spot several of them taxiing to and from their protective concrete bunkers while arriving at Hualien Airport (RCYU) on the island’s east coast.

The Republic of China on Taiwan, which the Chinese government sees as a rebel province and many view as a vital U.S. ally, has accumulated a fleet of roughly 150 F-16s, starting in the early 1990s. Each time the U.S. sells more F-16s to Taiwan, upgrades existing ones, or sells the advanced missiles they use, it must weigh the boost to Taiwan’s defenses (to aid in a long-awaited Chinese invasion) versus the risk of upsetting relations with Beijing. In recent years, however, with U.S.-China tensions on the rise, the instinct in Washington, D.C., has been to give Taiwan more of the weapons it wants, including (in 2019) 66 new aircraft plus upgrading older A/B models to the improved F-16V.

If the F-16 I’m flying out of Hualien looks like it’s wearing shoulder pads, those are conformal fuel tanks (CFTs), which make up part of the new upgrades and add to the F-16s range without an appreciable negative effect on aerodynamic performance. Several countries have adopted the CFTs for their F-16s, but somewhat curiously, the U.S. Air Force has not. Perhaps that’s because the F-16 plays a more specialized role as part of a much larger air force, especially as it is gradually phased out in favor of the F-35.

These days, Taiwan’s F-16s are regularly scrambled to intercept Chinese incursions into the ADIZ (Air Defense Identification Zone) surrounding its airspace, an average of more than four per day in 2022. In fact, nearly 9 percent of Taiwan’s entire defense budget now goes to responding to these incursions. If any actual invasion ever happened, Taiwan’s F-16s would be at the pointy end of the spear, operating from secret and improvised airfields to contest air superiority and, ideally, strafe and bomb the Chinese landing forces until, the Taiwanese hope, U.S. forces could arrive and join them.

That day may or may not come, but with more and more U.S. allies in Europe looking to transition to F-35s, they are laying the groundwork for sending their F-16s to join the fight in Ukraine. The Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway have all pledged to send their surplus F-16s to Ukraine, and Ukrainian pilots have been training in Romania to fly them. So while this Ukrainian F-16 I’m flying over Kyiv might be fiction today, very soon it may be writing the latest epic chapter in the 40-plus year history of the Viper.

More than 4,600 F-16s have been produced, making it the world’s most numerous fixed-wing aircraft in military service. I hope you enjoyed learning more about its ongoing story.

If you’d like to see a version of this article with more historical photos and screenshots, you can check out my original post here.

• READ MORE: Recreating the Final Flight of the Red Baron

Note: This story was told utilizing the F-16 add-on to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 by SC Designs, along with liveries and sceneries produced by fellow users and shared on flightsim.to for free.

The post Simulating a Bombing Raid in an F-16 appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Claude Dornier, born in 1884, was the son of a French wine merchant and his German wife. Dornier grew up in Bavaria and graduated from engineering school in Munich. He went to work for Ferdinand von Zeppelin at his base in Friedrichshafen and soon rose to become the count’s top technical adviser, helping design dirigibles and airplanes. In 1914, Dornier formed his own airplane company, also based in Friedrichshafen. A museum is located on the site today.

After Germany’s defeat in World War I, all aircraft production in the country was prohibited. Dornier continued to design aircraft but had to produce them in Italy. The Dornier Do J flying boat represented his first major success.

The Do J was powered by two piston engines placed in tandem (front and back) over the wing. A variety of different types of engines were used, depending on availability and needs. These are British-made Napier Lion 12 cylinders, putting out 450 hp each. The engines were accessible via a ladder on the platform behind the cockpit.

The floats on either side of the fuselage, supporting the wing struts, are Dornier’s patented “sponsons,” which made it more stable in the water than the more common side pontoons.

The cockpit itself was completely open and exposed to the elements. Keep that in mind during the long journey ahead. What’s more, sitting in the cockpit, that big propeller is turning right above your head.

Inside the cockpit, the main pilot’s seat is on the right, not the usual left. The throttle and fuel mixture levers for both engines are on the pilot’s right side. Note the mechanical wires and pulleys connecting the controls to the control surfaces. The position of the instruments, directly behind the “wheel,” makes them a bit difficult to see.

The Dornier Do J made its maiden flight in 1922. The nickname “Wal” means “whale” in German.

The specific airplane we’re looking at right now was called the “Plus Ultra.” And we’re joining it just as it prepares to take off from the Rio Tinto in front of Palos de la Frontera in southern Spain for a historic flight on January 22, 1926.

The pilot was Captain Ramon Franco, brother of future Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. Both were officers in the Spanish army, though in 1920, Ramon had joined the country’s new air force. The co-pilot was Captain Julio Ruiz de Alda, who later helped found Spain’s fascist Falangist movement and was executed by anarchists in the Spanish Civil War. There were also two more crewmembers, a lieutenant and a mechanic, who I presume were located inside the hull.

Their goal was to fly from Spain across the south Atlantic to Buenos Aires, Argentina, in a series of stages. Their point of departure, Palos de la Frontera, was symbolic because it is where Christopher Columbus sailed from on his first voyage to the Americas.

Rio Tinto is also the name of a large British mining company that operated the famous copper mines here, just outside of Huelva, starting in the late 1800s. These were its loading piers below me. At the very tip of the peninsula, where the rivers converge, is a monument to Columbus’ voyages.

“Plus Ultra” means “further beyond” in Latin and is the national motto of Spain. The first leg of this journey was 1,300 kilometers to the Canary Islands, all by sea. Weight is everything on a journey like this. Before departing Spain, they actually discovered a stowaway on board—a newspaper reporter—who could have ruined their plans.

The journey to the Canary Islands took eight hours. Consider that’s an awfully long time to be in an open cockpit, completely exposed to the elements, over the ocean.

We’ve arrived at the port of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. The Plus Ultra landed a bit farther south along the shore, at the Bay of Gando, where Gran Canaria’s modern international airport is located.

On the 26th, they took off from Gran Canaria on the second leg: 1,745 kilometers to Cabo Verde, off the western tip of Africa. This time, the journey lasted nine hours and 50 minutes over the ocean before reaching land. I’m arriving at Praia, at Cabo Verde, just as the sun is setting.

From Cabo Verde, the Plus Ultra took off for the third and longest stage across the Atlantic to Brazil. On this leg, the airplane ran into serious headwinds that slowed its progress considerably and pushed it off course.

Almost out of fuel, they fortunately came across the tiny islands of Fernando de Noronha, 350 kilometers off the northeast tip of Brazil. It must have been an extremely welcome sight. Today the islands are still very remote and mainly popular for ecotourism. They had traveled 2,305 kilometers in 12 hours and 40 minutes.

I have no idea how they refueled here, but somehow they did, and by January 31 were ready to depart on their next stage. You’d think that the next leg, 540 kilometers to Recife on the mainland coast of Brazil, would be easy by comparison. In fact, the rear propeller broke and had to be fixed in mid-flight. Unless they landed in the ocean, I assume they had the mechanic climb up there while still in the air. I tried it, and the plane can still fly on one engine—barely. After three hours and 38 minutes, though, they made it safely to Recife.

From here it was a matter of following the coast for 2,100 kilometers to Rio de Janeiro, which took 12 hours and 15 minutes. They arrived in Rio to a rapturous welcome on February 4. The crew of the Plus Ultra were not, in fact, the first pilots to fly across the south Atlantic to Rio. Two Portuguese aviators had done so, from Lisbon, in 1922. But they had used three different airplanes. This was the first crossing in a single plane.

From there, another 2,060 kilometers to Montevideo, Uruguay, greeted by another huge crowd on February 9. And, finally, across the River Plate to their destination: Buenos Aires, Argentina. It had been a journey of 10,270 kilometers in 59 hours and 30 minutes in the air, at an average speed of 172 km/h.

Their arrival in Buenos Aires on February 10, 1926, was a major news event in Spain and throughout Latin America, which was now linked to Europe by air. The Argentinian songwriter Carlos Gardel composed a popular tango to celebrate the flight of the Plus Ultra, “La Gloria del Águila” (Glory of the Eagle). The Plus Ultra itself is preserved in a museum just outside of Buenos Aires. The crew returned to Spain as national heroes.

• READ MORE: A Fanciful Flight in the ‘Spruce Goose’

Ramon Franco’s subsequent story is a curious one. Far from sharing his brother’s right-wing politics, he entered that realm as a left-wing republican anarchist, involved in conspiracies to overthrow the monarchy. But blood proved thicker, and he sided with his brother Francisco in the Spanish Civil War. Ramon was killed in 1938, when his seaplane crashed during a bombing mission against Valencia.

The journey of the Plus Ultra was not the only famous voyage undertaken by the Dornier Do J. Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen attempted to fly two of them to the North Pole in 1925. Amundsen took off and landed them directly on the polar ice sheet but unfortunately landed somewhat short of his goal. Their plan was to fly two (N24 and N25) to the North Pole, transfer the fuel, and fly only one of them (N25) back, which they did. Their failure to reach the North Pole opened the door for the American Richard Byrd’s attempt the following year, which I covered in another post on the Fokker F.VII.

Like the Fokker F.VIII, the Dornier Do J also served as an airliner. The passenger versions had a cabin in the front of the hull, pushing the cockpit back a bit behind the front propeller. Here’s a look at the interior of the Dornier Do J’s passenger cabin.

Passengers and mail would arrive on other airplanes down from Europe, transfer at Bathurst to the Dornier Do J for the ocean crossing, then once in South America, catch yet another airplane to their final destinations.

Lufthansa competed with the predecessor of Air France on what became known as the “Southern Mail” (from Europe to Latin America), though the French did not fly Dorniers. Antoine de Saint-Exupery, famous for writing The Little Prince, flew this route for the French rival to Lufthansa. His books imbued the Southern Mail with an aura of romance and daring.

Initially, the Dornier Do J couldn’t make the crossing in one go. It has to land in the ocean midway to meet up with a prepositioned ship to refuel. However, landing and taking off in the deep ocean swells proved hazardous and also consumed a lot of fuel. So by 1934 they were making the flight directly, though the airline maintained support ships if needed.

Claude Dornier went on to build even larger seaplanes, including the 12-engine Dornier Do X in 1929. Dornier also built bombers and other aircraft for the new German Luftwaffe, including the Do 17 “Flying Pencil” that took part in the Spanish Civil War and the Battle of Britain. In contrast to Hugo Junkers, who opposed the Nazis and lost his company to them, Dornier joined the Nazi Party in 1940 to secure his aircraft contracts. 

Dornier escaped prosecution as a war criminal but was classified as a Nazi “follower”—an ignominious end to his career. He died in 1969, but his company still exists in various forms, as subsidiaries of larger firms, including EADS Group.

I hope you enjoyed the story of the Dornier Do J Wal, an airplane whose bulky, boat-like shape belies its pioneering role in the history of early aviation.

If you’d like to see a version of this story with many more screenshots and historical images, you can check out my original post here.

This story was told utilizing the Dornier Do J Wal add-on to MSFS 2020, along with sceneries produced by Romantic Wings, as well as by fellow users and shared on flghtsim.to for free.

The post Simulating the Voyage of the Plus Ultra appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Anthony Fokker was Dutch, born in the colonial East Indies (present-day Indonesia). In 1910, when he was 20, his father sent him to Germany to train as an auto mechanic. But inspired by the Wright Brothers’ demonstration flights in Europe, his passion soon shifted to aviation, and he began learning to fly and building his own airplanes. He soon set up his own aircraft manufacturing company in Berlin.

With the outbreak of World War I, Fokker’s company was taken over by the German government, but he remained as its director and lead designer. As the airplane was just being introduced into combat, he designed—and test flew—several successful models, including the single-wing “Eindecker.” Fokker was well regarded by German aces as a daring and skilled pilot in his own right, though his shortcomings in managing a business often caused problems.

During World War I, most airplanes (Fokker’s Eindecker excluded) were biplanes with two sets of wings, one above the other. The main reason for this design choice was that the available engines were underpowered. This airplane’s nine-cylinder rotary piston engine, for instance, produces just 110 horsepower, compared to a Cessna 172 today normally found with a 160 or 180 hp engine.

This lack of power meant aircraft needed more surface area to produce enough lift, at slower speeds. One way to achieve this would be to make the wings longer, but the weakness of the main construction materials they had, wood and fabric, made this impractical. The more practical alternative was to add a second set of wings, even though it increased drag.

The Fokker Dr.I took this thinking a step further, adding a distinctive third set of wings. Introduced in 1917, it was a response to the rapid advance of new Allied biplanes such as the Sopwith Camel. It was directly inspired, however, by another Allied airplane, a Sopwith Triplane (or “Tripe”), which the Germans had shot down and Fokker was able to examine.

In fact, the Fokker Dr.I had a fourth wing, a smaller airfoil connecting its wheels that also contributed significantly to lift.

I’ll talk more about the advantages and disadvantages all these wings brought with them, but for now, let’s get into the air. I’m at an airfield near Albert, in northern France, to reenact the Red Baron’s last fatal flight on April 21, 1918.

One disadvantage of all these wings is apparent right away. When taxiing, they almost completely block any view forward. Some pilots compare the Dr.I’s wings to a Venetian blind that closes when the tail is down.

It’s not just that you can’t see. The airflow disrupted by all three wings gives you very poor rudder control. There are no brakes, so it tends to make you wobble all over the place. It was often said Dr.I pilots faced more danger on the ground than in combat.

Manfred von Richthofen was a young Prussian aristocrat from Silesia, what is today part of Poland. He started the war as a cavalry officer, but soon joined the new German air force, where he gained a reputation as a cold and calculating hunter in the air.

For easy recognition, German pilots often painted their airplanes in distinct and colorful designs, like the heraldry of a medieval knight. Richthofen came to paint his mounts bright red, earning him the nickname The Red Baron (though he sometimes borrowed other airplanes for combat).

For most of his career, Richthofen did not fly the Dr.I, but earlier biplane fighters. But after he began flying the triplane in November 1917, he became a firm and vocal advocate. It was his favorite airplane.

Why? For one thing, the lift from all those wings gave it a 50 percent better climb rate than any Allied foe. The ability to dive down onto your opponent from the higher position was a crucial advantage in combat.

Second, if you look head-on, the wings of the Fokker Dr.I are absolutely straight. Normally they tilt slightly up to provide some stability. But an unstable airplane is more agile, more responsive—as long as you can retain control.

The Dr.I is very unstable. Many pilots compare it to flying a helicopter. It does not want to fly in a straight line. You have to keep your hands on the controls, making constant adjustments all the time.

Now I was able, without too much difficulty, to do a loop. But every time I tried to roll, I couldn’t get it out, and it just went into an unrecoverable spin. That’s a stability issue, and you’d have to be a master to overcome it.

Last but not least, all those wings continued to block your view in the air, leaving major blind spots. The Dr.I might be a better dogfighter, but that didn’t matter if the enemy saw you first—or you lost sight of him in the midst of battle.

One potential advantage of the triplane was the middle wing provided a lot of structural support, making it possible to do away with the vulnerable wires keeping the wings in place. In theory, it could take more damage and still hold together. But designers may have overestimated the feature because the Dr.I’s wings became notorious for breaking apart under stress, compelling Fokker to make expensive repairs and modifications.

In any case, all those wings created a lot of drag, which made the Dr.I slow. The Sopwith Camel, for instance, could outpace it by at least 15 mph, which meant it could engage or run away from the Fokker triplane at will.

In the Spring of 1918, the Germans launched a huge offensive in France. The revolution in Russia the previous year had taken that Allied country out of the war, allowing the Germans to shift their focus almost entirely to the Western Front. They gained substantial ground, pushing the Allies back almost all the way back to Amiens.

We’re flying over some of the ground they won now. The town below is Cappy, a village along a bend in the River Somme where the Red Baron’s fighter squadron was based in April 1918. The airfield no longer exists.

On April 21, 1918, Richthofen was just 25 years old. He had 80 confirmed kills. He had become a huge celebrity in Germany and the high command feared that should anything happen to him, it could be a serious blow to morale.

That morning, wearing monogrammed silk pajamas beneath his fur-lined flying suit, Richthofen flew over the small ridge at Morlancourt, where his younger cousin Wolfram was engaged in a dogfight with enemy aircraft.

Richthofen would have climbed for advantage, probably a lot higher than I’m doing here. Once he saw one of the British airplanes’ guns jam, he descended for what he thought would be one more easy kill.

The Dr.I was armed with twin Spandau LMG 08/15 7.92x57mm machine guns. They, too, were prone to jamming, which is why they carried two.

Another British airplane, a Camel flown by Canadian Captain Arthur Roy Brown (with 10 confirmed kills himself), swooped down behind Richthofen himself and fired, observing several hits.

Richthofen continued flying for well over a minute. It was not clear that Brown’s bullets had done him in. Then, a few moments later, Richthofen’s triplane crashed in the small notch of tan field immediately below me between the road and the trees, just outside the French village of Vaux-sur-Somme.

You can see the field just ahead of me here, to the left of the road before the trees. Brown was credited with the kill, but there is a lot of mystery and controversy over who truly shot the Red Baron down.

The thinking these days is that Richthofen was most likely killed by a bullet fired by Australian anti-aircraft gunners on the ground, which punctured his chest and killed him immediately, causing his airplane to crash.

I’m going to try to land the Fokker Dr.I now, in a somewhat larger field just beyond where the Red Baron went down.

One interesting thing about the rotary engines of the time is something called the “blip switch”. Rather than reducing power to land, the pilot uses this thumb switch to temporarily turn off the ignition magnetos for a few seconds, reducing rpm. Because the rotary engine is still spinning, releasing the blip switch immediately re-engages engine power. This method of managing power and speed is why World War I planes sounded like their engines were “stuttering” when they came in to land when they were functioning just as intended.

The Dr.I was—and is—known as notoriously difficult to land, mainly because you can’t see a darn thing straight ahead, especially once you level off. It also wants to float, because of all the lift from its wings.

I ended up ground looping almost immediately on landing, and nearly tipping over, because especially in 2D (on a computer screen) you just can’t tell if you’re veering off, and the rudder offers little control anyway.

Richthofen loved the Dr.I because it was an extremely agile dogfighter, with an incredible climb rate. But that was because he was an excellent pilot who could overcome most of its disadvantages by sheer skill. Even so, the major obstructions to the view from the cockpit may have rendered him vulnerable to surprise attack and contributed to his demise. Soon after the Red Baron’s death, the German air force—and Fokker—went back to reliable biplanes.

The Red Baron’s death was a blow to German morale—and took place just as the tide was turning against Germany’s final offensive on the Western Front. The Allies took the counteroffensive, pushing the German army to the verge of collapse, and the war was over by November.

Though 320 Fokker Dr.Is were built (and 171 went into combat service), only three of them survived the war. They were all destroyed later, and only fragments of them remain on display in museums. The only Fokker triplanes still flying today are replicas inspired by the original—and its famed association with the Red Baron.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this short excursion into the skies over France in early 1918, as well as a closer look at an iconic airplane, the Fokker Dr.I triplane.

If you’d like to see a version of this story with more historical photos and screenshots, you can check out my original post.

This story was told utilizing the freeware Fokker Dr.I created by mykrode and downloaded from the flightsim.to community.

The post Recreating the Final Flight of the Red Baron appeared first on FLYING Magazine.