The F-104 Starfighter was an interceptor jet aircraft used by the United States of America and a number of its allies during the mid-20th century. A single engine, high performance jet capable of supersonic speeds, the F-104 was used by the United States Air Force from 1958 to 1967, and by the Air National Guard until 1975.
History[]
When the USS Enterprise was thrown back in time to the mid 20th century, USAF Captain John Christopher was sent to intercept the Enterprise, which the United States Armed Forces considered to be a large UFO. Seeing the F-104 approaching, the Enterprise attempted to hold the F-104 in place with a tractor beam. However the F-104 proved too fragile, and broke up. The Enterprise was able to rescue Captain Christopher by beaming him on board. The wreckage of the F-104 was spread over a large area of southern Nebraska.
The Enterprise was able to slingshot back in time, and was able to return Captain Christopher to his own time after preventing the F-104 from being crushed in the ship's tractor beams. (TOS episode: "Tomorrow is Yesterday")
Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln watched the F-104 engage the Enterprise on Beta 5 computer's viewscreen, then visited the plane's crash site, but were too late to recover photos taken of the Enterprise. They were present at the Air Force base when James T. Kirk and Hikaru Sulu beamed there to steal the photos. When the Enterprise used the slingshot maneuver to repair the timeline, Seven returned to New York moments before the F-104 spotted the Enterprise and had Beta 5 place a warp field around the Enterprise to momentarily hide it and prevent a paradox. (TOS - Star Trek: Assignment: Earth comic: "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow")
In 1978, Christopher's intact F-104 was sold by the Air Force as scrap metal.
In November 2892, agents from the Temporal Integrity Commission returned to June 2003 to repair a causality error in the time stream. Despite the intact F-104 having been sold, records still existed of its crash in 1967 as well as footage of the incident taken by its onboard camera. (TOS - Strange New Worlds VII short story: "Project Blue Book")
Appendices[]
Appearances[]
- TOS episode: "Tomorrow is Yesterday"
- TOS - Star Trek: Assignment: Earth comic: "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow"
Reference[]
External links[]
- F-104 Starfighter article at Memory Alpha, the wiki for canon Star Trek.
- F-104 Starfighter article at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.