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Yeager's NF-104 Crash

On December 10th, 1963, test pilot Charles Elwood Yeager climbed into a modified Lockheed NF-104A equipped with a supplementary rocket engine and a reaction control system. The purpose of the test flight was to continue the testing of RCS to compensate for normal aircraft control surfaces having little or no effect in the thin air of the upper stratosphere and when operating at extremely high altitudes.
 
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The NF104 was powered by a General Electric J79-GE-3B turbojet, producing 9,600 lbf, along with her new reaction control systems Rocketdyne AR2-3 liquid-fuelled rocket engine, rated at 6,000 lbf. The Rocketdyne rocket engine burned a mixture of JP-4 jet fuel and 90% hydrogen peroxide oxidizer solution. For the flight, the NF-104 carried enough oxidizer for approximately 100 seconds of rocket engine operation.
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An NF-104 test profile involved a level acceleration at 35,000 feet to Mach 1.9, where the rocket engine would be ignited, and upon reaching Mach 2.1, the Starfighter would be pitched nose up to a climb angle of 50-70° by slowly applying a G load equal to 3.5. The burners would start to be throttled down at approximately 70,000 feet, followed by manual fuel cutoff at 85,000 feet to prevent fast-climbing engine temperatures from damaging the turbine stages. 
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After silently coasting over the top of its ballistic arc, the Starfighter would then descend back into lower altitudes and denser air where the main engine could be restarted using the windmill restart technique for recovery to a normal landing at Edwards Air Force Base.
 
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That day, Yeager was following the test profile that began with an acceleration to Mach 1.9. The Starfighter’s nose pitched up into her zoom climb, and she quickly passed through 37,000 feet. At that altitude, Yeager lit the NF-104A Starfighter’s rocket engine and continued the profiled acceleration to Mach 2.2 at 40,000 feet.

Passing through 70,000 feet in altitude and climbing over twice the speed of sound, Yeager was advised by ground control that his climb profile was a little shallow. To correct, Yeager applied the reaction control system to get back on the climb profile. Neither the RCS nor the flight controls would respond to Yeager's inputs…and the Starfighter, now on a ballistic path, entered a violent spin.
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As the Starfighter tumbled towards the surface, Yeager pulled the ejection handle and left the out-of-control rocket plane as it twisted and rolled along all its axes.

The F-104 slammed into the desert floor, with Yeager landing nearby. He was still intact but unfortunately burned after his parachute deployed. Yeager had been inadvertently struck in the face by the base of his ejection seat, breaking his helmet’s visor and allowing burning residue from the rocket to enter the pure O2 environment inside his helmet. This sequence of events actually ignited a flame inside his visor, causing Yeager to suffer multiple burns to his face and hands. Moments after touching down under his canopy, a helicopter and flight surgeon arrived, and thankfully, Yeager survived to fly another day...

Although Yeager survived, the program did not, and many blamed Yeager for asking the aircraft to do things it was never meant to do that day. Amid accusations of improper checklists and aircraft procedures, contrary to Yeager's claims that the NF-104 was not fit for flight, other test pilots, like Apollo astronaut Frank Borman, directly blamed Yeager for the crash.

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17 comments

  • Charles Krakosky

    F104 as a fast aircraft

  • David

    This is the official spin. The facts are quite different. The procedure was developed by the test pilot Captain Bob Smith, who made two successful flights to 120000’ before being tasked with training Yeager to do the same. Yeager did not follow the procedure and instead of aborting the flight, tried to correct with a steep climb. I respect Yeager but he screwed up and was too arrogant to admit it. The AF brass was too cowardly to put Yeager in a bad light and so the destroyed the career of a fine test pilot instead.

  • stijn vandamme

    @Christopher Freeze

    That last photo came from the US governement , as did all photos of that era, in flight, during such experiments.

  • stijn vandamme

    factual error, he did not eject high over the desert, but lower, as you would expect trying to get out of the spin…
    The fact that his parachute landed near his wrecked plane is proof.. had he ejected high, there would have been more distance between them.

  • Grant

    I think the 104 only has one burner to throttle down. 😁

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