The only remaining starfighters in use are those that are in the USA
and owned by private individuals........I had the opportunity to work
for such a company and parts overall were extremely hard to get. The
company I worked for bought 8 from Jordan, which were FMS when parked
for over 10 years at that time at a far end of a taxiway and covered
in sand...we had to use dozers and much hand labvor to get them out,
but two of them were put back in flying condition. The best one the
company got was a F-104K which came from Norway, and delivered by the
Norwegian AF dissmantled in a C-130........It too was removed from
flying condition and shipped and once reassembled it had many many
more flight hours put on it.....Talk about a transition. The chielf
pilots n the company were former U S Army and Marine pilots who only
ever flew Cobra and Apache helicopters and small civil aviation
aircraft, now they made the leap to high performance jet
aircraft......we (company) had a total of 12 Starfighters, 1 MIG-15, 3
Hawker Hunters (both 1 and two seaters) as well as a Mitsubishi
support aircraft (looks like a miniature C-130 but with 2 engines
nstead of 4) as well as a host of other Beech and Cessna's. The
company used to be called NOrthern Lights and its main office wa in
Wisconsin, however its aircraft and support facilites were in
Alabama......We used to fly a lot of spin tests and other missions for
the U S Navy with the Hunters, up at Pauxatant River, Va. (sp?) as
well as Tyndoll AFB usiing the F-104's as enemy aircraft.....also did
quite a few airshows.....Company eventually went bankrupt due to a
power struggle, and the F-104's were sold to a fellow named Cliff
Robertson, and the another company in Vermont......The Hawker Hunters
went to the Vermont company as well (Vintage Aircraft Inc) and the
only 2 seater in existence later crashed when it bingoed on fuel right
at the end of the runway, bellied in and the pilot killed, but the
plane was able to be flown again after repairs.........

The last countries to use the Starfighter was Canada, and Germany and
Norway.It also uses the same basic engine as the F-4, a General
Electric J-79 GE-15 (if I remember correctly) which was mainly just
the augmentor(afterburner assembly) assembly and a few other little
odds and ends, but the core engine was the same. I have quite a few
hours in a F-104K in the back seat, as well as quite a few hours
flight time in the RF and F-4 aircraft......My unit used to fly wrench
benders in the back seat all the time to go cross country to fix the
ones that broke down at various bases, and of course n weekends, most
pilots wanted to do a cross country, and a lot of times the back seat
was vacant and needing an occupant to fill it, so going along for the
ride and a trip to another base for a weekend was pretty easy to get.
Of course this was a National Guard unit, and they play by a different
set of rules than the regular airforce does........The airforce calls
these rides "incentive rides" the guard called them filling an empty
seat.

On Sat, 06 Aug 2005 02:16:39 GMT, "Tom Gardner"
wrote:

===I beleive there are still a fair number of Starfighters in use around the
===world with small air forces.
===
===
wrote in message
glegroups.com...
=== Starfighters rule.... truely a "manned missile"
=== The ultimate in the concept of wrapping a bit of sheet metal around a
=== real big engine...and let 'er rip.
===
=== al in colorado
===
=== ps...But NOTHING ....absolutely NOTHING is as impressive as being near
=== an SR-71 Blackbird when the "Sled-Driver" slips the sticks into full AB.
===
===


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