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From: fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Yet More F-104 Trivia
Message-ID: <1990Aug29.014433.7348@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 29 Aug 90 01:44:33 GMT
References: <1990Aug18.182728.24742@cbnews.att.com> <1990Aug23.014401.1193@cbnews.att.com>
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From: fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix)

In article <1990Aug23.014401.1193@cbnews.att.com>, phil@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Phil Gustafson) writes:
> 
> 
> From: phil@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Phil Gustafson)
> In article <1990Aug18.182728.24742@cbnews.att.com> shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov (Mary Shafer) writes:
> >Everyone talks about the F-104 in the past tense, but we're still
> >flying two of them in research projects.  Don't say the F-104 _had_,
> >say it _has_ or you'll make me nervous. :-)  They're also still being
> >flown by a number of foreign air forces.
> >
> A decade or so ago, a civilian in (naturally) Southern California had
> managed to get hold of a flyable F-104.  

That would have been Darryl Greenamyer.  He was, at one time, a test pilot
for Lockheed, or so I've heard.  He (a team of people, actually) didn't
"find a flyable F-104" though, they built one flying one out of several
non-flying ones.

I believe that he had some support from ex-Lockheed people.  Quite a few
of them had strong feelings about the Starfighter.  As in it could go a
good deal faster than the official record for the type.  And it could...
it has enough thrust to do something over 1800mph or so.  It's limited
by engine inlet temperature though.

> (This is difficult  --  the
> services go to considerable effort to see that combat aircraft being
> scrapped will never fly again.  The old fighter in your playground with
> kids crawling over it most likely has a big chunk cut out of its main
> strut.)

Appently they couldn't agree on which piece to trash, or Greenamyer and
Co. couldn't have built a flying version.  :}

> Last I heard, he was was using it at airshows and attempts at low-level
> speed records.  Anyone seen him lately?

He set some new records.  The F-104 was eventually retired from the business.
Don't know where it is now.  Darryl was flying Unlimited racers last I heard.

He also set the absolute speed record for prop-driven aircraft some years
back.  In this case, a modified Grumman F8F Bearcat.  Took the old 469+ mph
record set by the Germans in 1939 to something around 483 or so.

He likes to go fast.

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  The only drawback with morning is that it comes 
    at such an inconvenient time of day.
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