Norwegian Starfighter airborne

[JeffreyK]

Fantastic stuff!!!
As for the noise, this is what I think:
The original nozzle of the J79-GE-9 and GE-11 engines as used in Starfighters has a "hard" mix of hot and fast gases from the engine int he centre and a slow and cold bypass flow on the outside. Those two coming together abruptly in the nozzle made the howl or whining noise. The nozzle is a variable geometry type and closes when advancing the throttle, augmenting the thrust. I think this was somehow self-regulated by the oil pressure...(?) This feature sometimes malfunctioned though, nozzle opened when you needed it least with a sudden loss of thrust. A number of Starfighters were lost. This is why German (and others?) Starfighters were fitted with a nozzle emergency override that arrested the nozzle in a closed position (not sure what percentage). Later, MTU re-designed the nozzle and its mechanism to eliminate the reliability issue and this is when it stopped whining. The "hard" mix of hot/fast and cold/slow air was replaced by a number of slots in the outer nozzle petals, similar to the engines in later model Phantoms.
Please feel free to chime in if I've made any mistakes.

Jeffrey

[Ferrari]

Thanks for posting - very interesting.

By the way if anyone wants a really good look at the inside of an F-104, there is a sectioned example (along with several others) at the museum in Wernigerode. I'll post some photos if I get a moment today.

Regards,
Ferrari