[Rooffie]

I don't know why the canadians had so much trouble with the F-104. An explanation I found was the fact that they flew at low altitude in Germany and had to cope with bird, the terrain and poor weather.
As for the poor weather....well.....in Holland we have roughly the same weather conditions as (the western part of) Germany, maybe even worse...unfortunately...
Birds have caused many accidents here as well, but don't explain the difference between the accident rates.
So that leaves the terrain.....and there's a real difference between Germany and Holland. Holland is almost as flat as a pancake but Germany has mountains. If they had to fly at low altitudes I can imagine that the F-104 was not the best plane to be in.

[SKUNKY]

Originally Posted by Rooffie

I don't know why the canadians had so much trouble with the F-104.

Cuz they kept trying to see how well it could fly if they "shut one engine off".....

[kabelace]

I remember reading in a Canadian Air force magazines about an early ground radar navigation system that the RCAF was working on with the F-104 in Germany, so that they could fly low level strike missions no matter what the weather or visibility. They even went so far as to mount the nose of an F-104 onto the front of a cargo aircraft (C-47 I believe)with all the early electronics inside to do the mapping. I'm going to see if I can find that Magazine.

[jim]

I believe that a large number of accidents were on landing. Something about the small wing area at slower speeds caused uneven airflow over the wings and caused starboard wing to lose lift making the plane air/ground loop without warning. I remember reading that the American pilots learnt this lesson early and landed at slightly higher speeds and thus didnt have this problem. I am puzzled as to why this information was not passed on to the other operators of this aircraft.

[SKUNKY]

Originally Posted by jim

I am puzzled as to why this information was not passed on to the other operators of this aircraft.

They probably figured it was so self-evident that they didn't want to risk straining international relations due to insulting anyone else's intelligence by stating the painfully obvious......'course that's just my musings....