That’s also my reason from staying away from a lot of modern fighters. Some simple things like MiG-21s turn out nicely cus they have that round inlet. @RamboJutter

@Mustang51 yeah I thought about that, but the angled fus is a pain hence why I havnt touched an f35 or f22

Just had an idea, you should build a Tempest II

Good old British jets. They were either fantastic or horrific. I hope our new Tempest II turns out well @RamboJutter

@Mustang51 yep. I remember seeing the vid of the tsr2 taking off and out accelerating the lightning, oh what if...

Yeah it really is! It’s a very odd but satisfying shape. Are you English as well by chance? @RamboJutter

@Mustang51 yeah I've seen it at Cosford and duxford, bigger than you think isn't it?

Seeing this plane in real life is incredibly impressive. If you haven’t seen this one in person, I highly recommend a trip to the IWM Duxford in England

@Alpha029 That too.

@Alpha029 Yeah, the concept is well researched, and continues to occupy quite a few engineers. We will see.

Nasty Americans?? How could we b- 2016, oh.....

cool!

Looks great and oh yeah thanks for clearing up the discrepancies about the starfighter's safety record.

@RamboJutter That's no fault of the design. Japan lost only three of its 230 Starfighters in the 24 years of service, two to a mid-air collision. Italy, while losing about 38% of its fleet over a 50 year span, had an accident rate of 14.2 flight hours per 100,000 hours, a fairly average rate for an aircraft of its era. Spain, who flew 17,000 flight hours with its 21 aircraft over 12 years, lost none.

As the above statistics show, it's not exactly an unsafe aircraft when flown correctly. The fault for the accidents were Lockheed's unscrupulous marketing, which in my opinion should not mar an objective assessment of the aircraft.

@Pilotmario at the risk of starting this off again, One common saying / question asked was how you could get your own F-104. The answer was, “Buy a plot of land and wait for a Starfighter to crash on it.” Canada lost over 100 of its 200 aircraft, Germany had 917 and lost 270 with 110 pilots lost..... I think it earned it's reputation. Yes they may have been using it for multiple roles that it wasn't initially designed for BUT it was sold to them as capable of those roles.

@F104Deathtrap I think we cancelled Valkyrie because of things like the S-75 Dvina SAM. You know, Francis Gary Powers and his U-2 spyplane got knocked out of the sky.

Because of things like that, the meta changed to low-altitude penetration with cruise missiles. In that role, the projected performance of B-52, B-58, and XB-70 would be not much greater. And the B-52 was a far more versatile system.

Development thus went toward low-altitude, high-speed systems such as the F-111 and B-1, which served the US well.

As for the F-104 being a deathtrap, the aircraft was relatively safe as long as you weren't an idiot. I believe in the 17,000 flight hours in the Spanish Air Force, they did not lose a single aircraft. Likewise, the JASDF only lost three out of their 210+ machines in their 24 years of fending off frequent Soviet intrusions.

Then again, these guys only used them as interceptors, as intended. The air forces that suffered the most losses were those who did not use the plane ot their strengths.

The US didn't use the F-104 because the idea of a relatively lightweight air superiority fighter was not desirable. The US Air Force wanted heavier fighter-bombers and missile-laden interceptors, something which the F-104 isn't that good for. That being said, they did see service in Vietnam. They didn't bring down any MiGs and lost three (one from a Chinese MiG-19 copy and two which crashed into each other trying to chase it down) in combat, but they were considered effective at protecting strike aircraft.

looks at comments

Glad I wasn't in that shitstorm of political discourse.

@RamboJutter Right on. Good build. Sorry.

@F104Deathtrap you are correct, sir!

Guys/girls, end of argument, I like both tsr2 and the valkerie. I'd have posted my simpleplanes valkerie before this but I did it without mods so needs adapting. No more arguments plix, interesting as they are (ps wiki shouldn't be used for referencing as my degree lecturers kept telling me :p )

@F104Deathtrap why you sent me a youtube link lol just accept your wrong i have checked every bit of imformation what i have sent to you and its all right if you dont believe look it all up on wiki

@ChiChiWerx It is apples to oranges, the TSR has more in common with the F-105 or the A-5 Vigilante, except for one main similarity: they were both expensive strategic strike projects that got cancelled because they were more expensive and less effective than missiles. Could the TSR have soldiered on as a recon aircraft? Sure, just like the A-5. But would that have justified the enormous effort it took to bring such a cutting edge plane into production? Unlikely. In many ways, the UK sidestepped quite a few of the expensive boondoggles that the US undertook during the second generation of jet aircraft.

Not bad and such controversy in the comments! wow!!!!

@F104Deathtrap @superdeltaforce it's all cool...comparing the XB-70 to the TSR2 is comparing apples to oranges. One was a high altitude Mach 3 heavy bomber, the other a Mach 2 low altitude tactical/small to medium sized bomber penetrating bomber more akin to a Tornado or F-111. IMHO it was a tragedy to cancel either; politics and dirty play factored in both cancellations, though I do agree that US orgs or gov't probably did push for the U.K. To cnx the TSR2. Bottom line the XB-70 and TSR2 did not compete against each other and they were both amazing aircraft in their own right.

@superdeltaforce https://youtu.be/R7uC5m-IRns