Externally, the aircraft retained the same design lines of the F-104G models including their tubular, sleek fuselages, short wing mainplanes, and T-style tail unit. The wings were always of considerable interest to onlookers for they were purposely designed as thin with small-an-area as possible so as to reduce drag at high speeds. While this helped the aircraft achieve its amazing performance for the time, it also forced fuel stores to reside within the body of the aircraft alongside avionics, systems, and the like. A single Avro Canada Orenda J79-OEL-7 afterburning turbojet engine powered the type - so a flameout meant that the pilot had no choice to eject and the aircraft was more or less a total loss beyond that. The engine outputted at 10,000lbf on dry thrust and up to 15,800lbf thrust using afterburner.
Once in practice, the aircraft was quickly arranged for the interception role. As a country, the RCAF had to manage a vast airspace locally as well as support ongoing commitments to NORAD and the United States in North America while also continuing its participation with NATO in Europe. The enemy of the day remained the Soviet Union and incursions into North American and European airspace were commonplace throughout the Cold War years. As such, the high, straight line speed and fast rate-of-climb of the CF-104 played well to the strengths of interception - the aircraft could manage speeds reaching 1,145 miles per hour with a 48,000 feet-per-second rate-of-climb. However, the CF-104 initially proved a handful to fly for Canadian airmen as accidents dotting the career of this memorable aircraft with some resulting in deaths during over a quarter century of use by the RCAF. The operating speeds of the aircraft were also a strongpoint along with its relatively contained profile at any approach angle. The 20mm cannon was eventually added back into the CF-104 design when its nuclear-strike role days were behind it.
Operators of CF-104s beyond Canada became Denmark and Norway. The Turkish Air Force received a stock of ex-RCAF aircraft before the end. All RCAF CF-104s were retired and replaced by the CF-18 Hornet line during the 1980s. Turkish use of the CF-104 ended as recently as 1995.
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