Joe B. Jordan - 14 dicembre 1959 - Lockheed F-104C
English Version
THE F-104 C STARFIGHTER ALTITUDE RECORD December 14, 1959
Joe's masterpiece
by Roberto Raffaelli
Notice
This post is dedicated to the fantastic altitude record that Capt. Joe B. Jordan achieved on December 14, 1959 at the controls of a Lockheed F-104C prepared in record time by Lockheed of Burbank. However, I wanted to tell this story following the suggestions that other authors have inspired in me. So, thanks to them, I have traveled a very particular path.
Enjoy the reading.
There is only one official and detailed account of the record. It is entitled: “F-104C World's Altitude Record”, written by Johnny G. Armstrong 1st Lieutenant, USAF, Project Manager and Joe B. Jordan Captain, Project Pilot and was published by the ARDC (Air Research and Development Command) and the AFFTC (Air Force Flight Test Center) in April 1960. Unfortunately, the efforts made by the Author to find a copy of the aforementioned report were in vain, therefore the present work is based mainly on information drawn from two sources* that have had different but important roles in the analysis of this remarkable and in some ways controversial aviation event:
1) The Second World Altitude Record -Bob Elliott, Lockheed Engineer - April 2011
2) Analysis of F-104C World's Altitude Record Flight – William J. Day, Senior Aerospace Engineering Sudent - California Polytechnic State University
(*) Both sources that I have cited, incidentally, were able to use this fundamental report as a basis for their deductions unlike the Author.
Prologue
Joe closed the canopy and the only thing he continued to perceive was the high-pitched hiss of the very powerful J79 that was regularly circling a few meters behind him, emitting a dull and powerful hiss, like that of a beast ready to spring to bite its prey. Joe knew that the engine was not like the others, it had been modified, strengthened, reinforced and in its entrails, in addition to the normal JP4, a secret additive was burning, but despite everything he was worried. This was the fifth attempt, he did not have much time left, only three days and if he did not succeed the situation would become really problematic. He asked the control tower for the “clearance” for alignment and take-off, in response he heard in his earphones the crackling voice of the controller who repeated the data on atmospheric pressure, wind speed and direction, the runway in use, etc. Joe double-clicked the microphone button to confirm he understood the instructions, pushed both feet on the pedals once more to apply the brakes and at the same time gently moved the throttle forward with his left hand to the Military position. Immediately the engine screamed with all its force, the structure of the plane vibrated around him as if to urge him to release the brakes and allow that silver missile to develop all the enormous power contained in its very streamlined structure. He quickly checked the instruments positioned in front of him:
RPM – Normal
EGT – Normal
Fuel Flow – Check
Oil Pressure – Check
Throttle – Full Military+Afterburner (A/B)
Brake – Release
The sky above him was clear, streaked only by a very light layer of clouds. He moved the throttle to Full A/B, released the brakes and felt the classic kick due to the ignition of the afterburner. The Starfighter leaped forward like a prowling feline, rapidly gaining speed, followed by a brilliant flame several meters long that gushed from the jet nozzle. As the pilot gently pulled the control stick toward him, the glittering monster howled into the blue sky. On that cold but beautiful morning of December 14, 1959, Captain Joe B. Jordan would attempt for the fifth time in a matter of days to break the altitude record for “Category C jet aircraft.” The international FAI rules stipulated that the record would be valid if the altitude reached was at least three percent (3%) higher than the previous record which had belonged since December 6 to Commander Lawrence E. Flint, Jr. who, as part of the "Top Flight" mission, had achieved it, on his twenty-first attempt, at the controls of a McDonnell YF4H-1 Phantom II twin-engine prototype of the US Navy, reaching an altitude of 30,040 m (98,557 ft).
The Pilot
Joe Bailey Jordan was born in Huntsville, Texas, on June 12, 1929. He entered the Air Force in 1949 and received his pilot training. He received his pilot wings on September 15, 1950. He served in combat in the Korean War, where he distinguished himself at the controls of the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star. After returning home, he served as an instructor. He earned two degrees, from the Air Force Test Pilot School and the Air Force Test Weapon School. He later became a Project Test Pilot on the F-104. With the rank of colonel, he was the first Western pilot to fly the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 and his reports and evaluations allowed American pilots to exploit the MiG's weaknesses during the Vietnam War. While testing an F-111 at Edwards AFB, Jordan and his co-pilot were forced to eject due to a fire on board. The ejection procedure did not work properly and Jordan suffered several injuries. After retiring from the Air Force he became an engineering test pilot for Northrop Corporation on the YF-17 program.
The aircraft
The design philosophy of the F-104 was based on the primary need - characteristic of the 1950s - to quickly and accurately hit enemy aircraft at all altitudes with a fast and very versatile aircraft. In 1951, Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, chief designer of ADP (Advanced Development Projects - the advanced projects section of Lockheed in Burbank, California), which in the following years would become universally known as the “Skunk Works” - at the end of a “tour” during which fighter pilots fighting on the Yalu River in the Korean War confirmed to him the need for a high-performance light fighter, designed a relatively small aircraft, extremely fast and with climb performance to operational altitude decidedly out of the ordinary, a fireball that was to take off armed with two Sidewinder missiles on the wing tips and only ammunition for the Vulcan cannon, reach attack altitude in a few minutes starting from a standstill, unload its armament and immediately return to the ground to rearm and take off again.
The Technique
Jordan's record has a dual technical aspect: that of the aircraft and that of the record flight:
The Lockheed F-104C s/n 56-0885
The aircraft used by Captain Jordan was the Lockheed F-104C s/n 560885, a production aircraft delivered from the Burbank factory to the 409th TFW at George AFB, California, which was extensively modified at Lockheed's Burbank facilities in record time between November 24 and December 1, 1959. The modifications involved the airframe and the engine. Externally, the most obvious changes were the double-cone spikes of the engine air intakes, called “shock on lip”, optimized for speeds above Mach 2.2 and the complete replacement of the fin with the installation of one with a larger area, coming from the F-104B, which increased the overall surface area by almost 8 square meters, useful for improving directional stability at high Mach numbers; for this reason the rudder protruded beyond the end of the nozzle in a configuration called “ducktail” (a modification that would become standard starting from the F-104G) that allowed the pilot to select a significant increase in “authority”, that is, the effectiveness of the rudder, in “flaps up” flight, going from a normal +/- 6° to +/- 20° in flight at very high speed and altitude; furthermore, the radar had been removed from the front “radome”, replaced by a series of devices for recording data relating to the record itself. The Vulcan cannon was also eliminated with all its firing apparatus, in addition to a significant number of lightening and minor modifications never specified in detail.
General Electric also made a series of modifications to the J-79-GE-7 engine, even if it had to give up - due to the very short time - on acquiring the GE-2 version, the same one used by the Mc Donnell F-4H Phantom II of the US Navy that had conquered the record only ten days before, after 21 attempts. One of the reasons for this preference was due to the fact that the CIT (Compressor Inlet Temperature) of the GE-7 was 121 degrees Celsius because the “framework” and the front “case” of the compressor were made of magnesium, while the GE-2 was able to withstand a CIT of 153°C for about 5 minutes because the most problematic elements were made of stainless steel, a difference that allowed for the use of an additional power boost. However, the manufacturer claimed to be able to apply modifications to the GE-7 that would make it suitable for the record attempt, imposing however the condition that, after use, the company's technicians would be the first to disassemble and check the engine itself in the post-mission phase. Which duly occurred.
The record engine had the following settings:
- Maximum speed 103.5% of normal speed
- Maximum top reset at 104.5% to increase thrust and delay compressor stall
- The A/B could provide a fuel flow 10% higher than normal power.
Before the “pull up” the pilot would have had to:
- activate the continuous ignition switch
- activate the minimum fuel reset
- switch ON the test instrumentation switches
Continuous ignition would have allowed to maintain the ability to automatically restart in case of engine flame out. With the ON switch it was only necessary to act on the throttle (open the throttle) to have an immediate restart of the engine. The AFFTC (Air Force Flight Test Center) was responsible for setting the maximum engine speed at 103.5% of normal speed and the maximum top reset at 104.5% to increase both thrust and the stall margin (of the compressor). The afterburner was set to provide a fuel flow 10% higher than normal at full power.*
* All technical data quoted in this paragraph are from the report by Bill Elliott.
The zoom technique
The internal manual of the TF-104G qualification course of the20° Gruppo, 4° Stormo of the Italian Air Force described the very special (and very dangerous...) zoom technique in this way:
“Zooming at maximum aircraft performance is a maneuver at the limit of safety. Zooming represents the fastest way to reach the highest possible altitude, even beyond the maximum tangency of the aircraft, in the shortest possible time and space. Zooming can start from any point within the thrust envelope curve, it is clear, however, that the final altitude and speed will be a direct function of the speed and altitude possessed at the time of the start of the maneuver. Starting from an altitude between 40,000 ft and 45,000 ft and a speed of Mach 2.0, you can gain up to 4000 ft for every 0.1 Mach of speed lost. Any pitch and roll maneuver, once the zoom has begun, will decrease the total energy available for the zoom itself. The maneuver will be initiated by applying a load factor of about 2.0 G - 2.5 G. The maximum climb angle (about 45°) will be around 50,000 ft.”
So, having agreed and established that the “zoom” is an extreme maneuver with any aircraft, performing it with the Starfighter required the pilot to have a particular skill to avoid that loss of total energy that is feared in the last two lines of the quote above. In the hunt for the world altitude record this skill was in the hands (and in the butt) of a few, very select civilian test pilots employed by the various aeronautical industries and an equally small group of very expert military pilots: Joe B. Jordan was part of this second, small group. In fact, reliable sources that I was able to draw on confirm that the development of the record flight followed quite faithfully the general indications given in the “4° Stormo0 Manual”. But how is it possible that an F-104C, despite having significant modifications to the external aerodynamics and the engine, had no problems replicating the performance of the NF-104A at least five years in advance?
The NF-104A AST (Air Space Trainer) was in fact a completely redesigned F-104A with extensive modifications to the external aerodynamics and to that of the internal flows, which had integrated all the modifications of Jordan's aircraft but with the addition of a wingspan increased by one meter, the RCS (Reaction Control System) a directional system based on impulse rockets applied to the nose and wingtips for the control of the "roll and pitch" at maximum altitudes where "q", the dynamic pressure is minimal, in addition to the addition of a rocket positioned at the base of the fin to give the decisive impulse in the initial phase of the zoom. The choice to use a 6000 lbs Rocketdyne AR2-3 rocket (also known as LR121-NA-1) demonstrates the need for adequate thrust to reach altitudes above 100,000 ft. This is also proof that without dedicated aids, the power expressed by the J79 alone was not enough to put the Starfighter on the trajectory that would have led it to beat the world record. The NF-104A had been redesigned to be used as a trainer (AST – AeroSpace Trainer) for the pilots of the North American X-15 rocket plane, for this reason it had to be able to systematically reach altitudes above 120,000 ft. and for this reason it also had different avionics from the standard F-104s. The various tests carried out during numerous flights had shown that the NF-104A AST starting from an altitude of 50,000 ft. , variable speeds from Mach 1.92 to 2.18 over a range of pitch up angles from 27 to 61 degrees, a reactor EGT (Exaust Gas Temperature) of 625°C at 63,000 ft., a J79 shutdown at 80,000 ft with an EGT of 610°C and a maximum pitch up angle of 50 degrees with a pullup at Mach 2.1 and a “q” of 20 psf (pounds per square foot) at a minimum Mach number of 1.22, the reachable altitude was 105,500 ft., an altitude absolutely similar to the 103,395.5 ft reached by Jordan. From this we can also understand the importance of the extra thrust due to the rocket positioned at the tail of the NF-104A. So, back to the original question, we need to understand how Jordan's "885" achieved the record by reaching an altitude characterized by insufficient entry speed in the "pull up" of insertion into the final trajectory and by a "q" too low at the top of the trajectory to maintain the effectiveness (authority) of the control surfaces.
The answer to this question can have an easy part that can be found in a series of favorable circumstances that perfectly and coincidentally aligned allowing a fantastic performance to occur, or an extremely difficult one to the point that - despite some sophisticated studies subsequently carried out on the tracks produced by the Askania plotter at Edwards AFB at the time of the record, made by physicists, mathematicians and even a university team - the simulations calculated by computers almost never match the real tracks taken during Jordan's record flight. The value that systematically does not correspond to the total flight performance of the aircraft mainly concerns the insufficient power of the engine and this does not coincide with the fact that General Electric actually operated modifications on the engine to increase especially the power output, but the scarce data on this matter released by the manufacturer have never allowed to ascertain whether the available power was adequate to achieve the record.
In the study carried out by William J. Day of the California Polytechnic State University it is possible to read: "Further analysis of the aircraft performance characteristics is necessary to determine the accuracy of the engine deck model; however, the modeled drag polar provides an accurate representation of the data throughout the flight envelope", in fact "Unlike the aerodynamic data of the F-104, little information was readily available for the J79-GE-7 engine used on the aircraft". Day, using a program based on a mathematical model developed by Jack Mattingly and William Heiser, explored various types of engine use with the aim of making the theoretical data coincide with the real flight data recorded by the Askania plotter. Unfortunately: "it was found that the engine deck modeling equations used did not provide an accurate representation of the engine without significant increases in maximum thrust", in fact the calculations showed a completely disproportionate power requirement, even using a correction factor in order to make the flight data match those of the thrust produced by the engine. Day concluded by stating that: "...a more complete data set for the J79 would be desirable to make a full analysis of this historic flight. Overall, the results of the aircraft drag polar and the design itself appear reasonable; however, it is believed that with more data more could have been done to more accurately model the engine performance".
Bill Elliott also touches on this issue when he writes: “We later obtained thrust analysis data from our propulsion engineers (the AFFTC specialists responsible for the engine – editor’s note) for the specific engine configuration in the record airplane. In the legend I labeled this thrust “SU” for “Souped Up.” I don’t remember what the other labels in the legend are, but SU is the top plot and it shows considerably more thrust than the others, especially between Mach 1.6 and 2.2 where it really mattered.” In the graph comparing thrust levels at various Mach numbers referred to in this note, it is clear that the curve labeled “SU” is the one producing the most thrust at the key points between Mach 1.6 and 2.2. “Souped up” means “souped up, altered, modified”, and it is intuitive that all the labels in the legend regarding this graph refer to various types of fuel used in the modified J79 of Jordan’s Starfighter. Elliot specifies that he does not remember what the other labels refer to but certainly the “SU” is the one that provided the right thrust to reach the record altitude! The obvious consideration that derives from this is that if the engine in the special setup was not powerful enough, General Electric must have resorted to using something that satisfied the power requirements necessary in the very short time they had available for the preparation of the engine itself. Something truly special that intervened at the most important moment, when the “885” would have needed to draw on maximum power in the phase close to Mach 2, in order to express the peak of propulsive power a handful of seconds before setting the pull up that would have inserted it into the ballistic trajectory, with the maximum potential energy available. Something that none of the parties involved in this enterprise has ever even vaguely mentioned and that at the time was top secret, a “trick” that still does not clearly show its contours. But this story had begun the year before, when...
NF-101A Voodoo
September 29, 1954 is the date of the first flight of the McDonnell F-101A Voodoo. After having carried out a series of tests, the aircraft with s/n 53-2414 was sold to General Electric to allow the testing of the J79, the new engine that was supposed to replace the previous J47, and to be subsequently installed on the Lockheed F-104A and the Convair B-58A bisonic bomber. The production Voodoo was equipped with two Pratt & Whitney J57-P-13 turbojets of 5397 kg/s dry and 7665 kg/s with afterburner each, but the P&W engine was subject to recurrent compressor stalls that had caused numerous emergencies, for this reason the G.E. J79 had aroused considerable interest from McDonnell. In fact, the General Electric engine, thanks to the stator equipped with variable incidence vanes, did not stall at the compressor, produced more thrust and was lighter, even if less efficient in fuel consumption. In 1957, General Electric won the contract to supply the special engines that would equip the future XB-70 Valkyrie, the first bomber that was supposed to carry out its missions flying at Mach 3. The project was born with the acronym GE J79-X275 which then evolved into “279” to indicate the number of Mach achievable, and was finally christened with the final acronym G.E. J93. This engine was basically an enlarged version of the J79 designed to run on the famous HiCal, Zip or HEF superfuels, so while General Electric was testing this engine, at the same time an F-101A equipped with YJ79 engines - starting in 1958 - began to experiment with the use of what at the beginning of the 1950s were called "exotic fuels", that is, boron-based fuels, the so-called "boranes".
The NF-101A Voodoo began testing in this configuration on 28 September 1958 using modified YJ79 engines, which were successful as far as propulsion was concerned, but borate deposits in the nozzle and afterburner had seriously compromised the efficiency of the engines. It is not known how GE engineers restored the efficiency of the engines; perhaps, by using a method suggested by one of the many NACA studies based on this line of research. Research Memorandum “RM E5K09”, for example, states: “After operation on pentaborane fuel, the engine (a GE J47) was shut down and inspected for boric oxide deposition. After this inspection, the engine was operated on JP-4 fuel to determine the rate of dissipation of the boric oxide deposits.” In this test the fuel mixture was composed of 85% pentaborane and 15% JP4 for a total engine run time of 6 minutes at 100% power. Apparently a short run time with only JP4 after the test had removed a good portion of the clinker present in the engine. But the fact that the use of pentaborane injected downstream of the power turbine created a smaller amount of waste was already discovered by NACA in 1954, in fact in the Research Memorandum “NACA RM E55B01” in the paragraph dedicated to the tests carried out using a General Electric J47 reactor it was written: “Therefore, with the afterburner, high combustion efficiencies were obtained and the combustion system was only slightly compromised by the presence of the combustion products of boron oxide (clinker). The simplicity of the afterburner makes the application of this fuel seem simple”.
Superfuels
In the early 1950s, following the new Soviet strategy that included bombing from high altitude and speed, the USAF needed to use much more calorific fuels than normal JP4 in the engines of the new bombers - which at that time were still on the drawing boards of the various industries interested in the Pentagon's Request for Proposal. Research on the superfuels HiCal and ZIP (US Navy) and HEF (USAF) intended to power the engines of aircraft that would fly at Mach 3 (in particular the North American XB-70 Valkyrie bomber and the North American XF-108 Rapier interceptor fighter) for which the adoption of the new and very powerful General Electric YJ-93 engines was planned, had reached maturity after more than a decade of experimentation and research,
Boranes
Boranes are compounds of boron and hydrogen, the best known (although there are many others) are diborane, B2H6; pentaborane, B5H9; and decaborane, B10H14. At room temperature the first is a gas, the second a liquid and the third a solid. (Ignition – John D, Clark – Rutgers University Press - 1972)
After numerous studies both the US Navy and the USAF identified in the borane family (HEF – High Energy Fuels) the suitable fuels to inject into the combustion chambers of future trisonic engines that would provide intercontinental autonomy. The "Zip" Project was started in 1952, by the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer) with the aim of developing a high energy fuel based on boron calibrated for use in jet engines. By 1956 the program had expanded to the point that the Navy had to divide it with the Air Force that monitored the work of the Olin Mathieson Chemical Corp. on the "HEF" program while the Navy's BuAer controlled the "Zip" program of Callery Chemicals.
It soon became clear that to achieve the desired physical properties (similar to those of hydrocarbon jet fuels) the new fuels would have to be alkyl derivatives of boranes. Numerous studies and tests led to the conclusion that only three of these “exotic fuels” were worth developing for large-scale production: Mathieson’s HEF-2 (propylpentaborane), Callery’s HiCal-3, Mathieson’s HEF-3 (mixtures of mono, di, and triethyl decaborane), and HiCal-4 and HEF-4 (mixtures of mono, di, tri, and tetramethyl decaborane). The characteristic of these substances is that they react with oxygen like hydrocarbon fuels but provide almost double the energy per unit weight of fuel, i.e., less consumption and greater thrust, therefore, a greater range with the same amount of fuel. It is easy to understand why the Pentagon began to invest huge sums in this research. The first contractors, each with multimillion-dollar contracts, were OIin Mathieson Chemical Corporation and Callery Chemical Co., but within a few years other chemical companies, engine manufacturers and academic institutions were involved, mostly as subcontractors. Unfortunately, it did not take long to realize that in addition to their numerous propulsive qualities, boranes also showed several defects from an operational and logistical point of view. In addition to being extremely toxic, they were also extremely reactive and this explains why they do not exist in nature: boranes are decidedly unstable. Furthermore, it was discovered that the combustion of boranes produces waste (clinker) such as boron carbide, a substance slightly less hard than diamond, which, depositing rapidly on the internal organs of the engine, would quickly cause a notable decrease in performance and, ultimately, an intolerable coefficient of mechanical friction on the rotating parts, in addition to a partial obstruction of the combustion chambers. It became clear that in order to be usable, boranes had to be injected directly into the non-rotating part of the engine: the afterburner and also in this case for times that were on average not too long. In fact, this was the General Electric design solution for the YJ93.
The Evendale boys
So the technicians at General Electric in Evendale, Ohio, had long known that injecting boranes into the afterburner was only possible for relatively short periods, so it is not illogical to suppose that they thought of using one or two of these compounds to give, in the short time they had available, that surplus of power to the J79 that equipped Jordan's "885". Probably the choice fell on two of the most "tractable", that is, on pentaborane or, less probably, on decaborane*, which, injected into the afterburner in a precise phase of the flight would have provided the necessary excess of thrust, thus also limiting the problem of the deadly solid residues of boron oxide (B2O3). It is clear that in December 1959, General Electric had the know-how - derived from years of experiments on boranes carried out in collaboration with the NACA and other entities, both military and university - to insert on board Jordan's F-104C with the necessary executive speed an additional system that would serve this purpose. The hardware was the same (or very similar) to that which they had successfully used on the NF101A Voodoo until a few months earlier and on that occasion they would also have done a further test on the possibilities offered by this class of fuels at altitudes exceeding 50 thousand feet, which was the standard altitude of all tests carried out in flight and on test benches carried out up to that point. From this perspective, it would also explain General Electric's peremptory request to view/disassemble the engine immediately after the record flight, before anyone else got their hands on it, and it also explains the company's reticence to release, even today, the specific technical data on the engine mounted on Jordan's "885".
* Under standard conditions, decaborane (B10H14) is a solid (it is a white crystalline solid), stable in air but easily flammable. However, its possible use as a propellant would have required atomization and dilution in liquid form before being injected into the afterburner section through the injectors. A complication that, given the short time available for the development of the J79, would suggest a preventive exclusion of this borane. Unless residual quantities from the tests carried out by the NF-101A were not readily available.
Conclusions
As Bill Elliot writes in his report: "I have not seen such a frenzy for record attempts at Edwards since. It was not just USA vs. Russia, but also Lockheed vs. McDonnell, and probably more importantly: USAF vs. USNavy." The technical and human commitment of the two superpowers was well represented by the technological challenge between the manufacturing industries McDonnell, Lockheed and Sukhoi in that historical period represented the top of aerospace know-how and the search for technical supremacy was a systematic commitment that engaged both superpowers 24 hours a day. On another level but with similar methods, the USAF and USNavy were engaged in positioning themselves in the best way to access the multi-million dollar funding provided by the Pentagon in order to finance and support their war and peace strategies as well as serve as an economic driver to engage companies, research centers and universities to win one of the many RFPs (Request for Proposal) continuously issued by the countless government institutions connected to the Pentagon. The record that Russian Vladimir Ilyushin had achieved on September 4, 1959 flying a Sukhoi T-431 (a highly modified Su-9), had cancelled out with 28,852 m the previous feat that belonged to Major Howard “Scrappy” Johnson, the commander, on May 7, 1958, aboard his Lockheed F-104A, who had reached 27,811 m. This had tarnished the image of the brand new fighter produced by the Burbank company, which had immediately moved its intermediaries at the Air Force Flight Test Center (AFFTC) at Edwards AFB to obtain permission to attempt a new record with the F-104. At the same time, the US Navy was engaged in the same attempt with the new McDonnell YF-4H-1 Phantom II, on the "Top Flight" mission. In October 1959, the AFFTC formalized the request to the competent offices of the Pentagon, specifying that the F-104C used in the hunt for the record would be modified on the basis of a very recent project by Lockheed's ADP (Advanced Development Projects, the official name of Kelly Johnson's "Skunk Works"). In the meantime, the days passed, the attempts by the US Navy's YF-4H Phantom II multiplied, but the Sukhoi T-431's record remained unbeaten. At this point the Pentagon allowed the AFFTC to make the attempt with the stipulation that the record had to be achieved by 17 December 1959, but on the twenty-first attempt, on 6 December 1959 Commander Lawrence E. Flint, at the controls of the second prototype of the McDonnell YF4H-1 Phantom II of the US Navy, raised the bar to 98,557 ft (30,040 m), providing the opportunity for the company's lobbyists - which had production facilities in St. Louis, Missouri - operating inside the Pentagon, to boast about the superiority of the twin-engine multirole fighter compared to the single-engine interceptor for point defense (a task that today is completely delegated to missile defense systems). Lockheed, cornered, was forced to act quickly. The Starfighter had been in service for less than a year and was already at risk of being shelved. Between November 24 and December 1, 1959, the Burbank company directly modified a standard F-104C taken directly from the flight line of an air base, following the designs of the Skunk Works, but the biggest problem was caused by General Electric which in the very short time available had not proved capable of finding a J79-GE-2 that the technicians of the Evendale company considered the most suitable for the assault on the record, for this reason they had to use a J79-GE-7 to which they hastily applied a long series of modifications. US Navy officials close to McDonnell, having noted the quality and speed with which the F-104C had been prepared for the record in Burbank, took action by pressuring the Pentagon to revoke Lockheed and the AFFTC's permission to improve on a record that McDonnell had laboriously achieved only a few days earlier, but all they got from the military authorities was the imposition of an extremely short deadline for achieving the record. Knowing the difficulty of the attempt, McDonnell believed that in such a short space of time Lockheed's attempt would be reduced to a great flop. Never had such a prediction been so wrong; Lockheed emerged victorious in extremis in achieving the altitude record for 1959. McDonnell had to chew bitterly, seeing as the much vaunted YF-4H-1 Phantom II had failed to exceed the fateful altitude of 100,000 ft. On the international level, the US had twice destroyed the record of the brand new and feared Sukhoi T-431 in a very short time - leaving the Soviet technicians the task of studying a new aircraft, which achieved the record only two years later - sending a very clear signal to the leaders of the Kremlin. The USAF, as far as it was concerned, had demonstrated to the right circles of the Pentagon that it could dispose of men and energy of absolute value, to the great disgrace of the USNavy. All's well that ends well, but this story lacks a definitive understanding of the work of General Electric and how its technicians managed to transform a standard engine into a superior category engine in just a few days. What modifications, what grafts, what technical compromises and above all, what fuel provided the energy necessary to project Jordan's "885" to more than 31 kilometers of altitude? And why did General Electric technicians claim to be the first to get their hands on and in the engine after the record? It is on this technological mystery that I conceived this post, a mystery in which the three protagonists: AFFTC, Lockheed and General Electric after 65 years still have not given a definitive answer.
Epilogue
With the plane in a nosedive and the speed constantly increasing, at 70,000 ft Joe gently brought the power throttle to Idle, the continuous ignition system did its job and after a few seconds the RPM, the engine revolutions indicator, revived. Joe satisfied understood that now it was done. He still did not know if the “885” had broken the record, unfortunately the altimeter had entered “failure” at 100,000 ft, in any case he knew with certainty that now the engine, whatever magic General Electric had invented, was able to systematically bring him back above the “100 thousand”. While he was on short final, with the runway now cluttering the entire forward view, he took a last, quick look upwards, towards those thin wisps of cloud beyond which only a few minutes before he had climbed to the top of the ziggurat. He heard the familiar meow of the wheels hitting the runway at over 300 kilometers per hour and relaxed as he wheeled his now tame shiny monster into the parking lot in front of the main hangar. Exactly where he had taken off only twenty-five minutes earlier.
Bibliografia
Ignition – John D, Clark – Rutgers University Press - 1972
http://fighterwriter101.blogspot.com/ - Ron Easley Aviation Blog
NACA Research Memorandum (vari)
F-104 Starfighter Pilot's Flight Operating Manual - U.S. Air Force e NASA
The Second F-104 World Altitude Record - Bill Elliott - Aprile 2011
Analysis of F-104C World's Altitude Record Flight - William J. Day California Polytechnic State University
Boom and Zoom: The History of the NF-104A AST - John Terry White - AIAA 20058
NF-104 Aerospace Trainer Evaluation Technical Report - C.L. Hendrickson, Project Engineer ; R.W. Smith, Major USAF Project Pilot - 412th Test Wing, Edwards AFB - 1965
F-104A Weapon System - Lockheed Aircraft Corp.- 1957
Aeronautica Militare Italiana - 4° Stormo, 20° Gruppo - Istruzione Teorica Corso Abilitazione TF 104G
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