Of all the “century” fighters the F-104 Starfighter is probably the most famous one. This could be due to its long service life - the last ones were retired from active duty in Italy in 2004 - but also its design. The Starfighter is hardly more than a flying tube. It has a pointed nose, behind which is a slightly popping out canopy. At the sides of the fuselage are two semi-circular air intakes, with fixed inlet shock cones in the middle on all versions except the XF-104 prototypes. Directly behind are the short, thin, trapezoid wings, with a swept leading edge and forward swept trailing edge. They have significant anhedral. Large fuel tanks can be fitted to the tips, but they are not standard. The F-104 has a low T-tail with a slightly curved small dorsal fin and a forward swept trailing edge on the vertical part. All gears, all with single wheels, retract forward in the fuselage.

The variants of the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter can be distinguished by looking at

• the shape of the air intakes
• the length of the (rear) fuselage
• the number of underwing pylons
• the number of pylons under the fuselage
• the shape of the vertical tail
• the shape of the nose
• the size of the canopy
• the presence of a canon in the left side of the fuselage, below the cockpit
• the presence on ventral fins 

More details will follow later.