With Luftwaffe splinter camouflage and iron cross isignia - the full works.
We lost over 110 of those things in real life. It was on the news like every other week in the sixties and seventies - some somber-faced anchor man saying: "This is the hundredandsomething Starfighter loss of the Luftwaffe of the Bundeswehr ...".
Even as a child I always thought it looked more like a racing plane than a military fighter and it probably was. With its torpedo/rocket like looks and those stubby wings it certainly didn't look like it could take a beating and still bring you home safely.
Erich Hartmann, Germany's highest scoring WW II ace (352 kills, mostly Russian, but also a couple of US Mustangs that had made it to the Rumanian oil fields with their huge range) was vocal in recommending against buying the F-104 for the Luftwaffe in the late fifties (after 10 years of Russian POW camp, he returned to West Germany in 1955 and was sought as an advisor to the new Bundeswehr). His argument after having flown one was: "It is too much of a technology jump. Most of our pilots come from piston engine experience or at best the Me 262. We should equip the Luftwaffe with the F-86 Sabre, which is a plane at the end of its development cycle, has done well in North Korea under harsh conditions and is in many ways a logical progression from the Me 262. The F-104 has nasty handling characteristics though it is no doubt a technological achievement." Franz-Josef Strauss, then (corrupt) defense minister and on Lockheed's pay roll (as it later turned out), chose not to listen to Hartmann, had him dismissed as an advisor and ordered the F-104s. The rest is history:
"The introduction of a highly technical aircraft type to a newly reformed airforce was fraught with problems. Many pilots and groundcrew had settled into civilian jobs after World War II and had not kept pace with developments, with pilots being sent on short "refresher" courses in slow and benign handling first generation jet aircraft. Groundcrew were similarly employed with minimal training and experience. Operating in poor North West European weather conditions (vastly unlike the fair weather training conditions at Luke AFB in Arizona) and flying at high speed and low level over hilly terrain, a great many accidents were attributed to CFIT or Controlled Flight Into Terrain (or water), which it is fair to say was no fault of the aircraft. Many Canadian losses were attributed to the same cause as both air forces were operating in the same country. An additional factor was that the aircraft were parked outside in adverse weather conditions (snow, rain etc) where the moisture affected the delicate avionic systems. It was further noted that the Lockheed C-2 ejection seat was no guarantee of a safe escape and the Luftwaffe retro-fitted the much more capable Martin Baker GQ-7A seat from 1967, and many operators quietly followed suit. In 1966 Johannes Steinhoff (Uwe's comment: another WW II Luftwaffe Experte fighter ace with 176 kills and a lot of Me 262 experience) took over command of the Luftwaffe and grounded the entire F-104 fleet until he was satisfied that problems had been resolved or at least reduced. In later years the German safety record improved, although a new problem of structural failure of the wings emerged. Original fatigue calculations had not taken into account the high number of g-force loading cycles that the German F-104 fleet was experiencing, and many airframes were returned for depot maintenance where their wings were replaced, while other aircraft were simply retired. Towards the end of Luftwaffe service, some aircraft were modified to carry an ADR or 'Black Box' which could give an indication of what might have caused the accident."
