HOW TO FIND THE IDENTITY OF AN F-104 STARFIGHTER

One day you are travelling around the world and then you are facing an F-104 Starfighter. Interesting to see it but more interesting to know which Starfighter it is. For that reason it would be great to identify the aircraft but that is not easy, especially when mounted on a pole...

Most of the time the Starfighter is carrying a serial which will most likely be sufficient to identify it. However in some occasions it will give you wrong information. A good example is the F-104 with serial "56-791" preserved on a pole at Alexandria USA, outside Rayford Enterprise. Actually this serial would give the feeling that it is an old USAF F-104A but in fact it is an ex-Belgium Air Force F-104G which once flew with serial FX65. So how wrong can you be..... See photo beneath (click on it to see it larger).

The best way to identify the aircraft is to check for original construction number plates inside the aircraft. Beneath a few area's which have to be examined for plates. Be carefull, some parts of the aircraft have been exchanged during operational life, especially during IRAN maintenance!! More information about these constructionnumbers can be found inside our F-104 c/n and serial database.

MAIN PLATE

The main construction number plate can be found inside the cockpit on the side which most of the times have been gone when an F-104 has been canabalized. Beneath an example of CF-104 with constructionnumber 1118 (serial 104818).

NOSE(radome) PLATE

A very good identification area is also the nose-mount plate on which also the radar is attached. It is visible when removing the nose-cone of the F-104 Starfighter. (PS Be carefull with Canadair build Starfighters since it is wellknown that some of these aircraft got plates exchanged with eachother. Beneath an example of an Italian TF-104G which shows the plate on the nose-radome plate. It can be identified as the c/n 5919 which means the TF-104G MM54557. (See white arrow locating the plate shown right)

F-104S/ASA-M identification

A lot of ex Italian F-104A/ASA-M Starfighters have been put on display on various locations in Italy the last years and most of them have no MM serial or other identification painted on the fuselage. To help identifying these aircraft we advise you to have a look at the special page we created for these aircraft here. (See bottom of that page).

For information, photos, corrections, additions etc.. please contact : IFS info

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