F-104 Starfighter

Modern Combat Aircraft #9

by Arthur Reed

Hardback edition, 112 pages. First US Edition published by Charles Scribner’s Sons 1981, Copyright Ian Allen Ltd. 1981. Taken from inside front dust jacket “F-104 Starfighter, Arthur Reed, The F-104 Starfighter has rightly been described as one of the most controversial aircraft in history. To the Americans it was, as its appearance proclaims, ‘a missile with a man in it’. It was undoubtedly a hot and unforgiving aircraft as the pilots of many NATO and other Western world air forces were to discover. Nonetheless, handling it was well within the capability of the frontline pilot who had mastered the earlier generations of jet fighters but to those who hadn’t had experience with earlier jets, either in the air or on the ground—the newly revived Luftwaffe for example—the F104G which the Germans had bought with such enthusiasm and built under license in vast numbers, became a national scandal and very nearly a national disaster.

112 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1981

Reviews

[Robert Hepple · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 1981, 'F-104 Starfighter' is number 9 in the 'Modern Combat Aircraft' series by publishers Ian Allan. The book gives a brief potted history of the aircraft type, supported by over 130 well captioned photos plus other illustrations, notwithstanding the fact that in 1981 the Starfighter still had many years of service to come. Whilst much of the text is very biased in favour of the F-104, there is some interesting coverage of the traumatic experiences of the Luftwaffe with the type.