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And you would be right. The starfighter was widely deployed in Western Germany and had a terrible safety record (>100 pilots and >200 planes lost out of 900). I

And you would be right. The starfighter was widely deployed in Western Germany and had a terrible safety record (>100 pilots and >200 planes lost out of 900). I recall it widely being discussed in the media when I was young and the plane was called the widowmaker for that reason.

hef19898 4y ago
Iy was, a common joke was that if you wanted a Starfighter all you had to do was to buy an acre of land and wait for a while... Truth be told, the Starfighter was an interceptor, designed to carry air-to-air missiles fast towards approaching Soviet strategic bombers. That's it, nothing else. The German Airforce wanted a multi-role fighter, some creative Lockheed marketing assured the the Starfighter was bought in the F-104G variant. At that G-variant turned it into a brick to fly, stall speeds close to minimum take off speeds among other things. The starfighter's safety record with other operators was a lot better.
- tokai 4y ago
  >creative Lockheed marketing assured It was bribery and corruption - not marketing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_bribery_scandals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_bribery_scandals
  - hef19898 4y ago
    There is a reason Franz-Josef Strauss became as rich as he did being a "mere" minister and state prime minister. He never got caught so... In the end his insistence on a multirole fighter and the fighter being the F-104G (already almost oboslete at the time) killed a lot of pilots. Great example to show the cost of corruption.
    - rob74 4y ago
      Don't mention that in Bavaria though, or you risk being driven out of town. He's still a legend here, especially for the ruling party (CSU) of this virtual one-party state. The Munich airport is named after him, and AFAIK the current state prime minister still has a bust of him on his desk.
      - mschuster91 4y ago
        > He's still a legend here, especially for the ruling party (CSU) of this virtual one-party state. The CSU, thank God, hasn't been ruling alone since 2018 and it is highly unlikely that they will ever be able to do so again. They will be in government for a long time though, mostly because the SPD in Bavaria is an ongoing clusterfuck and won't rise high enough to form a red-green coalition. > The Munich airport is named after him, and AFAIK the current state prime minister still has a bust of him on his desk. It's even worse. When normal young people had posters of semi-naked stars and starlets, Söder's bed was adorned by a FJS poster [1]. [1] https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/markus-soeder-spott-fuer-facebook-post-mit-franz-josef-strauss-a-1044424.html https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/markus-soeder-spo...
        hef19898 4y ago
        Oh yeah, the CSU woreships this guy... And after all certain CSU poloticians, including, allegedly, Strauss own daughter, did during the pandemic with mask deliveries, the CSU really learned well from him. You don't get driven from town so for calling him out anymore. That moved to villages a while ago, otherwise I would have had some serious issues back at school.
        rob74 4y ago
        Let's see... they already had a coalition government once (2008-20013) with the FDP, with the result that during the next elections the FDP lost so many votes that they weren't represented in the next parliament. Then they ruled alone for 5 more years, and since 2018 they have a coalition with the "Freie Wähler", which is a loose grouping of ex-CSU members. Let's see how well they will fare in the next elections. So far the only remarkable thing about them that the press reported is that their boss and now deputy prime minister Hubert Aiwanger is a vaccine skeptic...
        hef19898 4y ago
        Aiwanger is also a general weirdo, profited heavily from increased wood prices (he is after all a not to small farmer and owns considerably sized forests). I loved his comment about good Bavarians carrying a knife. Good thing about the FW is that the AfD has some serious, and arguably less critical, competition.
- implements 4y ago
  > a common joke was that if you wanted a Starfighter all you had to do was to buy an acre of land and wait for a while … Which gave it the nickname ”The Lawn Dart”, I believe.
GekkePrutser 4y ago
They called it the lawn dart too. In Holland it also had a very bad name due to Lockheed's bribery of the royal family, which shouldn't even have had any influence on such matters anyway.

hef19898 4y ago

Iy was, a common joke was that if you wanted a Starfighter all you had to do was to buy an acre of land and wait for a while... Truth be told, the Starfighter was an interceptor, designed to carry air-to-air missiles fast towards approaching Soviet strategic bombers. That's it, nothing else. The German Airforce wanted a multi-role fighter, some creative Lockheed marketing assured the the Starfighter was bought in the F-104G variant. At that G-variant turned it into a brick to fly, stall speeds close to minimum take off speeds among other things. The starfighter's safety record with other operators was a lot better.

tokai 4y ago
>creative Lockheed marketing assured It was bribery and corruption - not marketing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_bribery_scandals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_bribery_scandals
- hef19898 4y ago
  There is a reason Franz-Josef Strauss became as rich as he did being a "mere" minister and state prime minister. He never got caught so... In the end his insistence on a multirole fighter and the fighter being the F-104G (already almost oboslete at the time) killed a lot of pilots. Great example to show the cost of corruption.
  - rob74 4y ago
    Don't mention that in Bavaria though, or you risk being driven out of town. He's still a legend here, especially for the ruling party (CSU) of this virtual one-party state. The Munich airport is named after him, and AFAIK the current state prime minister still has a bust of him on his desk.
    - mschuster91 4y ago
      > He's still a legend here, especially for the ruling party (CSU) of this virtual one-party state. The CSU, thank God, hasn't been ruling alone since 2018 and it is highly unlikely that they will ever be able to do so again. They will be in government for a long time though, mostly because the SPD in Bavaria is an ongoing clusterfuck and won't rise high enough to form a red-green coalition. > The Munich airport is named after him, and AFAIK the current state prime minister still has a bust of him on his desk. It's even worse. When normal young people had posters of semi-naked stars and starlets, Söder's bed was adorned by a FJS poster [1]. [1] https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/markus-soeder-spott-fuer-facebook-post-mit-franz-josef-strauss-a-1044424.html https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/markus-soeder-spo...
      - hef19898 4y ago
        Oh yeah, the CSU woreships this guy... And after all certain CSU poloticians, including, allegedly, Strauss own daughter, did during the pandemic with mask deliveries, the CSU really learned well from him. You don't get driven from town so for calling him out anymore. That moved to villages a while ago, otherwise I would have had some serious issues back at school.
      - rob74 4y ago
        Let's see... they already had a coalition government once (2008-20013) with the FDP, with the result that during the next elections the FDP lost so many votes that they weren't represented in the next parliament. Then they ruled alone for 5 more years, and since 2018 they have a coalition with the "Freie Wähler", which is a loose grouping of ex-CSU members. Let's see how well they will fare in the next elections. So far the only remarkable thing about them that the press reported is that their boss and now deputy prime minister Hubert Aiwanger is a vaccine skeptic...
        hef19898 4y ago
        Aiwanger is also a general weirdo, profited heavily from increased wood prices (he is after all a not to small farmer and owns considerably sized forests). I loved his comment about good Bavarians carrying a knife. Good thing about the FW is that the AfD has some serious, and arguably less critical, competition.
implements 4y ago
> a common joke was that if you wanted a Starfighter all you had to do was to buy an acre of land and wait for a while … Which gave it the nickname ”The Lawn Dart”, I believe.

GekkePrutser 4y ago

They called it the lawn dart too. In Holland it also had a very bad name due to Lockheed's bribery of the royal family, which shouldn't even have had any influence on such matters anyway.