The first emergency in flight of a TF-104G 

It happened to one of the first 3 Captains that started flying  the airplane with one of the American instructors, Captain Dinn.

It was on board of the TF-278 that later was changed to the CE.8-01 and then changed again to the CE.8-21. The story is that this was the first flight of the Spanish Captain and for him was an unforgettable event, because during lift off, the land was separating  rapidly from the airplane, it was not like the Sabre or the T-33where the separation was much slower, here the climb was much faster and the land disappeared a great speed.

After taking off and remove the afterburner, they set course for the marsh and Captain Dinn told the Spanish Captain to take control and continue climbing, he was going to adjust the radar.

The Spanish Captain took control and began to notice that with full throttle the airplane did not go any faster and did not climb anymore. He thought that perhaps it was due to the typical “T2 Cutback” of the J-79 engines that did not pass over 88% at which point the automatic limit took over below 100% as the exterior temperature went lower and therefore conserve the theoretically thrust of 100%. But it was not that.

At that moment the Captain commented, “What’s happening, why don’t you go any faster?” and he was able to tell that something out of normal was taking place, and inexplicable to him, because he could not get any more power.

Captain Dinn took control and started the return to the field with notification to the Tower of an emergency landing with loss of engine power and they landed without problems.

Once on land the engine stopped and did not start again.

A few days later with the airplane in the Maintenance Barracks, they found out that the problem was with the engine fuel pump blades, which had been destroyed and had fouled the filters and as a consequence the fuel did not reached the burner.

This event kept both TF-104G’s, the TF-278 and the TF-279 grounded during a couple of weeks until the fuel damaged pumps could be replaced. This affected only  the dual controls that had been built by Lockheed in the USA.