Mr. Top Gun: Peter Goldsmith & his F-104 Starfighter

Mr. Top Gun: Peter Goldsmith & his F-104 Starfighter

After earning the highest static score in his class (98.5 points!) with his Airworld F-104, Peter Goldsmith went on to earn 196.417 points overall. His giant, 11-foot-long F-104 dominated the flightline, and Peter noted that he watched many videos of the full-size aircraft so that he could better simulate its flying style, speed, takeoff angles and landing approach. The model is powered by a KingTech 180 turbine and controlled by a Spektrum DX18. The model’s finish is a base coat/clearcoat Omni paint system, and the markings are from Pro-Mark Graphics and Tailor-Made Decals. Inside are a Spektrum AR12120 PowerSafe receiver with Spektrum TM1000 telemetry and two 4000mAh LiPo receiver battery packs. The ECU power comes from a separate Spektrum 3S 3000mAh LiFe pack. A full lighting system from uniLIGHT adds the final scale touch. Peter has over 400 hours into the build.

Peter notes, “It’s a very stable platform—intimidating but stable. Once you overcome its enormous size, it’s pretty easy to fly. Well, for a jet, it’s pretty easy to fly. The only caution is not to allow the sink rate on landing to get too high as no amount of power will recover it from a deep alpha decent.” He adds that typical landings are between ¼ to 1/3 throttle and he only throttles back after touchdown.

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Updated: May 5, 2016 — 12:30 PM

12 Comments

  1. Very nice well worth the effort congratulations on a job well done

  2. Beautiful F-104. How does it fly?

  3. Winner, Winner, chicken dinner!

  4. I’ve seen it fly at Best in the West jet meet and it flies beautifully. Peter flies it very realistically and it has a tremendous presence in the air.

  5. Amazing piece of work. Put it in a museum /where it belongs!!!!!

  6. Absolutely amazing. I wish I had your talent, thanks for sharing with us.

  7. I’ve seen Germans fly those so low you could count the rivets on there bellies.

  8. When you see Peter slow roll it 15′ above the deck the lenght of the runway you know it and he flys spectacularly!

  9. Congrats Peter! Well deserved!

  10. Many congratulations, Peter, from all of your mates down under!

  11. I was in TAC at Gorge AFB with 104’s. They trained foreign pilots there also. I will never forget the howl the J78 engine made when making final landings. Wings were sharp on the leading edge and only 14Ft of wings. they did not glide well as I remember helping dig one out of the ground in Spain ( pilot was OK ) . They were super fast high altitude interceptor, Really great model and thanks for sharing with us. ,

  12. Peter wowed the crowd at Joe Nall with this baby. The after-burner made from LED lights made it look awesome during climb out.

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