Can some explain how early flying wing designs flew while avoiding side slipping like I was 12

Owned by Air Legends Foundation.

Those are 20MM Vulcan guns that could shoot up to 3000 rounds a minute.

A few days ago, I wrote about Erich Hartmann's Black Tulip, and the comments quickly shifted to the F-104 Starfighter. So, here's the rest of his story after the war.

As a reminder, Hartmann served in Nazi Germany and is considered the greatest fighter pilot in history. This post is about what happened afterward.

"(1955) Homecoming"

He spent ten years in Soviet prison camps and was liberated in 1955. A year later, he joined the new West German Air Force.

"(1959–1962) JG 71 "Richthofen"

In June 6, 1959, he became the first commander of JG 71 in Ahlhorn, West Germany's first operational jet fighter wing, flying the Canadair Sabre. That's where the Sabre with the tulip logo from my previous post came from.

West Germany chose the Lockheed F-104G, a jet that Lockheed itself called "a missile with a man inside." Hartmann considered it unsafe. As early as 1957, he advised Luftwaffe chief Josef Kammhuber to buy only a few new aircraft and test them before ordering them in bulk.

Germany purchased 916 aircraft. In 1965 alone, 27 of them crashed. According to Bundeswehr estimates, a total of 269 aircraft crashed, and 116 German pilots were killed. The Germans called His "Witwenmacher," "The Widowmaker."

He wasn't the only critic. Werner Panitzki, a Luftwaffe inspector from 1962 to 1966, was fired after calling the purchase of the F-104 a purely political decision. Panitzki is also often quoted as calling Hartmann "a good pilot, but not a good officer," though I couldn't find the original source for that phrase.

"(1970) Fired"

Hartmann was promoted to Oberst in 1967, but in 1970, at the age of 48, he was forced into early retirement.

"(1971–1974) Return to the Roots"

He returned to where he started: training young pilots as a flight instructor at Hangelar, a small airfield near Bonn.

Someone in my last thread said Hartmann was an instructor at Their local airfield. Was it Hangelar?

And a question for the F-104 experts: was the problem with the aircraft itself or with how Germany used it?

Credit: Mykenry on Instagram, do fallow him for the best aviation videos

https://www.instagram.com/mykenry?igsh=MW9zYXRxenhiajR2aQ==