racing to the red light

This week The Aviationist ran a cool article documenting the first flight of a newly restored CF-104 Starfighter, in RNoAF livery.  It was the culmination of a 13-year-long restoration project – talk about heart!

For those unfamiliar, the F-104 Starfighter was a Cold War-era interceptor designed to fly at high speeds from air bases in the Arctic, to intercept Soviet nuclear bombers.  It could reach 48,000 feet in altitude within one minute after takeoff.  Compare that to the usual 30 minutes or so that it generally takes a modern commercial airliner to reach 30,000 feet (granted, they could do so quicker if they wanted to).

The flight took place in Bodø, Norway.  The videos linked from the Aviationist article have some stunning shots, from which we took some still screen-grabs.  Enjoy.

Check out the smoke trail it leaves behind, especially compared to the F-16 chase plane!

Evidently more is in store for the F-104, overall. In August of 2016, the BBC ran an article stating that a cubist company, CubeCab, is teaming up with Starfighters, Inc. to launch microsatellites into orbit!  What a cool concept!  We will be watching for updates on this topic.

Here are the extraordinary videos that were in the Aviationist article:

This one is for the hardcore aviation buffs (long video taken from the ground, with some great sounds as the planes fly overhead):