CF-104 Development Notes

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Credits:
Thanks to Luca Zappala for his work on the camouflage texture, normal maps, interior texture improvements and ambient occlusion additions.  The plane really benefits from these enhancements.  Thanks to to Bob Feaver of Shade Tree Micro Aviation for his pilot which sits in the plane.  This is another very nice addition.

Me and the CF-104:
I still remember attending the Saskatchewan Air Show back in 1972 at CFB Moose Jaw.  I was 7-years-old and I had never been to an air show and had no idea what to expect.  Before the show started we were walking around looking at various military aircraft including some fighter jets that looked pretty space-age to me.  Finally the air show began with the singing of the National Anthem and about half way through a small dot became visible over the horizon and started growing very rapidly.  Soon we could see that it was a CF-104 and it was approaching very rapidly.  It was very quiet though.  The plane was in front of us and still now sound, and then WHAM!  Finally as the plane was past us did the sound catch up and was it loud!  I was completely amazed.  I had never imagined that aircraft were flown like this.  Later in the show the CF-104 flew a couple more times and I was in total awe of this machine and the CF-104 was about all I could think about for the next several years.  Even flying slow the Starfighter made wonderful noises, this sad moaning kind of sound that added to the magic.


CF-104s from CFB Cold Lake in the Seventies

The years went by and eventually the CF-104 was taken out of service and replaced by the CF-18 Hornet.  I didn't miss the 104 at first as the CF-18 put on quite a show with its amazing performance.  I did begin to miss the 104 though with its incredible speed and its wonderful music.  As an adult I collected any Starfighter book, model, patch, whatever, that I could find.  During the mean time, civilian operators in the U.S. had begun to purchase a few of the ex-Canadians CF-104s.  If I had known then how our paths would cross I wouldn't have been able to sleep for the next 9 years.  Starfighters Inc. out of Florida and Mark Sherman in Phoenix have now the only flying Starfighters on the continent.  I hadn't known this until about 10 or 12 years ago when the air show at CFB Cold Lake in northern Alberta announced the return of the Starfighters.  I was very excited and drove the 6 hours to get there to watch them fly again.  It was really great to see their high speed show and hear them again as well.


CF-104D flown by Starfighters Inc. in around 1998 - 2000
After this I became interested in flight simulation and began building aircraft for X-Plane.  They were pretty bad at first but my work improved over the years.  I had a fascination with all of the old jet aircraft that I saw at air shows when I was a child and focused mainly on building those.  My work caught the attention of John Kezele, a civilian pilot in the U.S. flying an ex-Canadian T-33.  He asked if I was interested in helping them with a simlulator that could be used for training.  I spent a couple of years working on that for them and during that time John and I became very good friends.  I went down several times to go flying with them and now have a few hours in the T-33 and can fly from the front seat.  It was really a dream come true for me flying in this jet.


Kay Ekhardt's T-33 in Wendover Utah
John and Kay, who actually owns the jet, are both members of the Classic Jet Aircraft Association.  I joined as well and over the past many years have attended fly-ins and conventions and have had the chance to meet other jet owners.  It was at a convention at Davis Monthan AFB in Tucson, Arizona where I first met Mark Sherman who owned an ex-Canadian CF-104D!  He also happens to be a very nice guy and we've become friends over the years.  It was a year ago that I actually got to go for a ride in Mark's 104.  This event was surely one of the highlights of my life and something I won't ever forget.  Flying in the manned missile is a bit intimidating.  This plane held the world speed and altitude records simultaneously.  It was probably the 1st fighter jet that had a thrust-to-weight ratio greater than 1:1.  This was with a light fuel load but is still impressive.  I believe it still holds the low-altitude speed record.  With its short, thin wings and low aerodynamic profile, it really moves at low level and is immune to turbulence unlike the modern fighters with their huge wings and low wing loading.  There are many stories regarding the Starfighter that make it legendary.  It was able to intercept U-2s at 75,000' from above.  Although the placarded speed limit was M 2.0 due to heat limitations, it has been flown up to M 2.35 and was still accelerating.

During our flight we flew from Phoenix out to the Grand Canyon at 18000' and did some aerobatics.  The takeoff was breathtaking.  The acceleration put any race car I've ever been in to shame.  Mark told me that the acceleration would be much better when we came back and did some touch and gos with a light fuel load.  It's no wonder that Gilles Villeneuve had a hard time keeping up with an Italian 104 in his Formula-1 car during a promotional event.  See this video on youtube.  They traded victories and Gilles had to take the wing off his car to win in the end.  Anyway, Mark let me fly for a while on the way out.  I did some turns and rolls and Mark said my rolls were very good which made me quite happy.  The stick forces are quite heavy compared to the T-33 which I am most familiar with but that adds to the stability.  The plane is very stable and stays in pretty much any attitude you put it in.  Roll rate is very rapid even with full tip tanks.  After turning around at the Grand Canyon, we dived down low over the desert.  Mark mentioned to me at this time that there was an airport just over the next hill that we were not able to cross over below 18,000'.  So Mark lit the afterburner pointed up at 45 degrees and accelerated during the climb.  In only 45 seconds we were at 20,000' looking way down at this airport.  The video on my web page shows this.  It makes airliner flight seem kind of silly.  We flew back through the valleys at low level at speeds up to 500 knots.  It was fun to watch the aircraft shadow on the ground blasting over at such high speed.  The sensation of speed is really great at this altitude.  Finally we arrived back in Phoenix and did some touch-and-gos.  Mark was right.  The acceleration was much more rapid now.  Finally we landed and $4000 later the plane was fuelled up ready to go for next time.


Mark (on the left) and I after our flight.  I look wretched.  I had a horrible cold but there was no bloody way I was not going flying


My son tries to drag me away to go home


Mark's CF-104D currently registered as N104 and formerly serial number 104633 in the Canadian Armed Forces

Finally some notes about the simulator.  The aircraft manuals have been used to obtain most of the data in regards to systems and performance.  Some performance data not found in the manual was obtained from flight tests.  Mark has been very helpful in explaining things to me.  Sounds were recorded using a professional sound recorder and these were built into the sim.  I think you'll quite like the startup sounds.  Level speeds, acceleration numbers for subsonic and supersonic flight, fuel burn, climb rates, etc. match what it is in the manual within half a percent.  I developed a custom engine model to achieve these results.  Other interesting characteristcs such as pitch-up due to high angles of attack, rolloff when the throttle is reduced rapidly with flaps down, Boundary Layer Control flap characteristics are all modeled in the sim.  I even tried to model other interesting characteristics.  If you do an APU start, you'll notice the engine rpm gauge reading moves up in a non-linear way.  This matches the recording I made of rpm gauge when the engine was starting.  Little things like this add to the realism.  This plane has been a passion of mine for years and that has gone into the development of this simulator.  I hope you enjoy it and please send me any comments or questions.  I'm always more than happy to talk about the plane and to help out.  Have fun with this!

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