Italy turned Lockheed's F-104 into its longest-serving national fighter, operating Starfighters for an extraordinary 42 years. The Italian-built F-104S gained a more powerful J79 engine, radar-guided ...

Lockheed’s XF-104 chased Mach 2 with a tiny wing, the new J79 engine and radical engineering, but the prototypes first flew with the weaker J65 while the engine matured. Downward-firing ejection seats ...

In the early 1950s, the U.S. military established a requirement for a high thrust, low weight, mechanically simple jet engine that could perform efficiently at Mach 0.9 cruise and Mach 2.0 combat ...

Furthermore, the Phantom’s J79 engines produced thick black smoke, which combined with the aircraft’s larger size, made it easier to spot and target from a distance. On the other hand, the ...