[Trent772]

When that one first appeared at Sun n Fun (2 seater) the announcer was hyping the crowd saying the pilot had been warned not to go supersonic.

Did his ‘blown’ howling slow pass at 220kts, cleaned up and went round the pattern. I started to pay attention because the coal smoke was pouring out of the back and it had gone silent. As he came past show centre, he popped the cloud at .999 Mach.

The crown went wild - so he did it again then had to land for fuel

[Flyin'Dutch']

Qs:

1. Why does the leading edge flap stay down for so long?
2. What's the squared flappy bit just ahead of the tail fin do?

[skydriller]

I'm not an F104 expert, but I do know that the wing design was cutting edge (literally with that "razor sharp" wing) tech of the time, optimised for high speed, but this gave high landing speeds and poor low speed control, which meant the wing was augumented by leading edge flaps and is "blown" with engine bleed-air and so I suspect that it may be part of its Boundry Layer Control System??

Regards, SD..

[Trent772]

Min clean speed was around 200kts I think. The flappy thing is discussed in the comments on YT