Mikoyan i Gurevich I-104 1.0

Mikoyan i Gurevich Istrebitel I-104 for Strike Fighters 2

What-if history:

Back in the early 60's the commanders of the soviet VVS began to worry about the the diffusion of the F-104 in the NATO countries and the voices related to the superb performance of this plane as an interceptor.

So as soon as the Luftwaffe put into service the plane, a plan was studied on how to obtain an aircraft to examinate and therefore field a better one as soon as possible.

It was even considered an option to steal a 104 from a border base and fly it to East Germany. But nothing was practical and since the tension was very high, it could lead to war.

Then in February 1966 a recce F-104 was intercepted right into the DDR airspace and the MiG pilots forced the intruder to land. The Luftwaffe pilot having no choice agreed but when he was near to the touchdown the engine stalled. The pilot ejected safely but none knew the end of him (at least in the west). The plane crashed near the runway luckly for the soviets only few things were destroyed beyond repair or not usefull for reverse engineering.

The aircraft was rapidly airlifted to the USSR and then upon the decision of Breznev himself, given to TsAGI for tecnical investigation.

Then everything moved to a faster pace. It was decided to product a small batch of basically a cloned F-104 to flight test and discover the strengh and weak point of such design.

The task was given to the Mikoyan i Gurevich design bureau. What it came out was not a perfect copy since the radar was nearly completely destroyed in the crash. The J-79 engine was damaged too and the reverse engineering would take more time in any case.

The only engine in production at that time that will fit into the F-104 was the R-13 of the MiG-21M but it produced not enough thrust.

Only the R-21 engine was capable of giving the needed power but it suffered from many defects during the Ye-8 program. It was decided to resurrect the engine and solve the reliability problems. Now the engine had the designation of Tumanskii R-21F2-300. By the time the cloned interceptor was ready for flight.

The exact number built is unknown but estimated around 10 to 12 as it was found to be not a great challenge for the other fighters and especially for the ones of the next generation like the MiG-23. The type served as a research item and then as an aggressor till the mid of the 80's.

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IMPORTANT!!!

You need SF2E to have the stock F-104G and SFP1 for the cockpit files.

or follow these precious instructins: http://combatace.com...-f-104s-for-sf2

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Installation:

Simply copy all the files in the respective directory of your game folder.

"User"\Saved Games\ThirdWire\StrikeFighters2

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Credits:

Thirdwire: for the stock F-104G

FastCargo: Fake pilot mod

Spillone104: the rest of the mod

Beta testers : Dysko.

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Legal stuff:

This mod is freeware. Commercial use is not allowed.

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Enjoy and good flight. :)

January 2012

Spillone104