The Starfighter Serials

dd jul63, Flight Research Center Dryden (oct63-dec86) preserved Palmdale "AF10" area, in "012" old NASA colorscheme

Note: This Starfighter was used lots of research programs within the NASA and also for astronaut training. It was officially delivered to the NASA in July 1963 but was added to the official NASA list on September 30th, 1963 and eventually flown over to the NASA facility (by Joe Walker) on October 1st. From the beginning it flew with code "012" and very bright NASA color scheme changed after a few years into "812". In 1970 it was resprayed into the wellknown white-darkblue-lightblue scheme which lateron changed into white-blue-white. It got also recoded into N812NA. It was seen also outside Dryden a few times including a visit to Point Mugu (open house static in October 1974 and October 1982), Le Moore AB (open house static in October 1975), El Paso Apt (visits May 1981, May 1982) and Moffet Apt (visit may 1983).
The last big project for N812NA as chaseplane was the X-29 development program which was in 1985. Its operational career ended on December 29th, 1986 when Nasa pilot Einar Enevoldson made the last flight and wrote the last of 4442 flights in total inside the aircraft logbook.
The NASA stored the N812NA at Edwards and used it also for spareparts to keep the other 104s in the air. After the last Starfighter operations within the NASA ended also this N812NA was dropped from the inventory and was prepared to become a display aircraft. First at Edwards till at least 1997, then it moved to Lockheed-Martin in Palmdale where they converted the aircraft into an XF-104 look-alike by removing some vital parts including inlet-cones and top rail. It was put on display in 2002. The result was dreadfull because the XF-104 was a lot shorter then the later versions so maybe this was the reason they decided to convert it again into the former NASA 012 around 2006. Sadly still the XF-conversion changes remained giving the aircraft a very strange appearance.

Accident Reports:

There are no accidents known in which this F-104N aircraft was involved.

N812NA

In the early days the NASA Starfighters carried a wonderful colorscheme together with the early serials. Here 812 (later becoming N812NA) is seen while taking off from Dryden/Edwards on September 1st, 1966. (NASA photo)

N812NA is seen here during an open house at Point Mugu on October 16th, 1982. The colors blue and white look very brite.

After phase out the N812NA was converted into XF-104 which was not a success. See the results as it was photographed during a visit at Palmdale on October 7th, 2005. (Photo: Hubert Peitzmeier)

This photo shows N812NA as it can be found preserved today at Palmdale, carrying the old NASA colors with code "812". Sadly they did not change it back to standard F-104G/N but the inlet cones were just painted in stead... (Palmdale, August 2nd, 2008)