Fly By Wire Aviation shows the beginnings of these supersonic aircraft in Spain

Some images of Spanish F-104 Starfighter fighters of the 16th Fighter Wing in 1965

Esp 1·26·2025 · 17:53 0

The F-104 is one of the most beautiful fighters of all those operated by Spain, which had them in service between 1965 and 1972.

The history of the F-104 Starfighter that the Spanish Air Force keeps at Torrejón Air Base
El Basilio: an incident that tested the cutting wings of a Spanish F-104 fighter

The Spanish Air Force had 21 F-104s (18 single-seater F-104Gs and 3 two-seater TF-104G trainers). The first seven (5 single-seaters and 2 two-seaters) arrived at Rota Naval Base on 15 January 1965. The aircraft were initially assigned to the 161 Squadron of the 16th Fighter Wing, formerly known as the 6th Fighter Wing, based in Torrejón, which until then had operated Spain's first jet fighters: the F-86F Sabre. This unit was the first to use the famous cat emblem and the motto "No le busques tres pies..." (Don't look for three feet), currently used by Wing 12.

A Lockheed F-104G Starfighter at the Cuatro Vientos Air Museum in April 2011. This aircraft was not one of the 21 operated by Spain. It was used by the Luftwaffe's JABoG 36. Initially the starboard half of the aircraft was painted with the decoration that the C.8-15 / 104-15 had in the Spanish Air Force's 12th Wing. The port half was preserved with its German decoration and the numeral 26+23. In 2017 this aircraft was restored, being decorated in both halves as a Spanish fighter with the numeral 104-02 and registration C.8-02 (Photo: Elentir).

Today, the Fly By Wire Aviation channel (which I recommend you subscribe to if you like everything related to the world of aviation) has published some interesting images of the Spanish F-104s in 1965, when they were operating with the 16th Fighter Wing. In the video we can see both single-seat F-10Gs and two-seat TF-104Gs, as well as the facilities used by these fighters in Torrejón:

You can see here three screenshots that show some of the various interesting details that can be seen in this video. Here we see an AIM-9B Sidewinder short-range air-to-air missile. This model of heat-guided missile arrived in Spain in the early 1960s, initially being used by the F-86F. The AIM-9B weighed 70.39 kg and carried a 4.5 kg explosive fragmentation warhead. It reached a speed of Mach 1.7 (later versions reached Mach 2.5 with warheads of up to 11 kg). The F-104 could carry up to four missiles of this type.

The T-171 Vulcan rotary cannon (later renamed M-61A1 Vulcan) of the F-104. This Gatling-type weapon has six tubes with a calibre of 20 mm. It is the same type of cannon still carried today by the Spanish EF-18M Hornet fighters.

Finally, a curious fact: these are the American numbers with which the F-104s arrived in Spain. In 1967 the serial number on the tail was replaced by the current Spanish military registration system, from C.8-1 to C.8-18 for the F-104G and from CE.8-21 to CE.8-23 for the TF-104G. The aircraft seen here is 63-13640, with construction number 683D-6089 and assigned the Spanish registration C.8-9. After being withdrawn from service in Spain and returned to the United States, this aircraft was delivered to the Turkish Air Force.

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