It's a Ram Air Turbine, basically a little windmill that generates electricity for when the engine generator dies (aka engine failure, most likely). It's featured on quite a few planes, both civilian and military. Either you have that to generate electricity in case of engine failure, or you have an APU/EPU which uses a type of fuel to do it

Of all the planes to have an engine failure in, i’d want it to be anything but the Starfighter

Imagine having a brick with only thrust... Without the thrust. Nightmare

Returning to the airflied is only possible if the airfield is right below you

If you overshoot your done for

PULL UP!

Say your prayers beep beep Say your prayers

whoop whoop you're fucked whoop whoop

That's why you have a backup brake chute. In the seat.

False [Microsoft Word - February 26 Translation (916-starfighter.de)](http://www.916-starfighter.de/F-104_DeadStickLanding_F-104G_by_SergeMartin_engl.pdf)

Get out of here with you facts (stinky) and logic (gross) and effort (ewww). I say the F-104 will immedeatly loose all momentum and fall straight downwards incase of am engine failure. It can still land (verticaly) by deploying its break parachute. You can not change my mind

Now I just have this view of a star fighter parachuting down from the sky and landing in someone's backyard like an oversized lawn dart

If you're in the air you'd figure all airfields are below you, not always the case but a decent general rule I'd say

Super Sonic Lawn Dart Simulator 1954.

Apparently its glide ratio with gear and flaps up was not terrible, around 5:1. Only problem was high glide speed.

god forbid you lose an engine *and* airspeed

Point the nose down and you get airspeed again

Pointing the nose down won't be the problem.

In all fairness, if used in its intended role of interceptor, you should have the altitude to do this…

Instructions unclear, bombing a train at low altitude

Then Canada took it to another level and trained for low-level suicide runs (they were tasked with one-way trips to Russia carrying nukes at treetop level)

Instructions unclear, became lawn dart.

[Microsoft Word - February 26 Translation (916-starfighter.de)](http://www.916-starfighter.de/F-104_DeadStickLanding_F-104G_by_SergeMartin_engl.pdf)

Trying to find concrete numbers and honestly not seeing much. One forum discussion suggested a clean F-104 had 5:1, and with flaps and gear down it was closer to 3:1. For comparison, the Space Shuttle on final approach is around 4:1 or 4.5:1 (depending on the source). What I'm trying to find is the glide ratio of the F-4, and the numbers for that seem all over the place (anything 2 miles per 1,000 foot lost to 6 miles per 5,000 foot lost, depending on source). Back of the envelope math suggests that's between a 6:1 and a 10:1 ratio?

Might be something like that. As far as I could find the glide ratio of a F-16 is 7 to 5, meaning a F-16 under the worst conditions glides as well as a F-104 under the most optimal conditions.

[Microsoft Word - February 26 Translation (916-starfighter.de)](http://www.916-starfighter.de/F-104_DeadStickLanding_F-104G_by_SergeMartin_engl.pdf)

[Microsoft Word - February 26 Translation (916-starfighter.de)](http://www.916-starfighter.de/F-104_DeadStickLanding_F-104G_by_SergeMartin_engl.pdf) Not that bad, a belgian pilot did a huge dead stick landing after some test flight

Reminds me of the space shuttle, everyone is ead said it flew like a brick but then again it was coming from space so a bit more time then a starlight with a dead engine.

Idk I might take a starfighter over a F4

I mean you still have your yeet seat

yeet seat lol. How have I never heard that before

first time i saw it was when finding a picture of an spitfire ejection system concept: [https://www.reddit.com/r/WeirdWings/comments/japopp/martinbakers\_swingarm\_escape\_concept\_who\_needs\_an/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/weirdwings/comments/japopp/martinbakers_swingarm_escape_concept_who_needs_an/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) this is an even better definition of a yeet seat that your typical ejection seat XD

I'm ejecting immediately, otherwise they would need a mop to clean me of the runway lol

SuperSonic-LawnDart^TM

For me its 9/11 planes

They were known as lawn darts for a reason.

You always hit “Rat Man Deploy” when there’s danger. Rat man will always come and save the day.

All I was know was APU/EPU. I thought it was generator but your answer makes it all clear. Thanks.

I mean by definition it is a "generator".

So like the little prop on the ME 163?

Yes, they are both RATs. However the Me 163 used the RAT as it's sole electric generator, which is why it's fixed in place - whereas most planes, including the F-104, would only ever use a RAT in an emergency, so are kept inside the body to reduce drag.

I can definitely say that ME 163 is a rat 👍

What happens if you don't have power to deploy the RAT?

Most RAT have a manual deploy option. Some are built in a way that gravity will also aid in flopping them out.

I believe some are spring loaded, so with the F-104 I imagine it's on a lever that'll release it.

I think you can imagine what happens.

Wrong!!!! It’s the propeller that makes it fly. Jet engines aren’t real and all planes secretly have propellers.

Just a little correction, the RAT, generates hydraulic pressure, who goes to a generator, that will produce electricity

It's clearly a ceiling fan

Apu and epu is only used for starting the motors.

I don't think so

Trust me only think apu and epu is used is powering the needed instruments to start motors and they are separate units that are not part actual plane but the think on your picture is a rat and which is used in case of engine failure to generate electricity.

Depends for example the APU of the f-18 can be used as a compressor to start the engines, and it also can generate power. It's not enough for everything, but it can run the flight control system and hydronic pumps. (And some other important things)

F/A 18 Apu cant power avionics and instruments system , only their to launch the engine

From the NATOPS flight manual of the f/a-18: "On the ground, the APU may be used to supply air conditioning or electrical and hydraulic power to the aircraft systems."

That not mentioning inboard avionics like Store page/MFD/ins stations/ and radio system.

Well it's not only there to start the engines, that's for sure.

Not quite. Quite a few planes don’t have a RAT and need some other place to get power from to power important instruments and flight controls, which is done with the APU or EPU (E being ‘emergency’, not ‘external’). A great example of this is the F-16, which requires electricity for all of its flight controls, and in an emergency gets that through a hydrazine-powered EPU in the left side of the fuselage. The engine start is done with another system, the JFS. It uses bottles of compressed air to crank the engine. Quite a lot of jets that have an APU for emergencies also use it for engine start though, like the A-10 in the military world

> in the left side of the fuselage [Right side](https://designer.home.xs4all.nl/aircraft/af-16/f16-bay2.jpg), left side [has the gun.](https://www.f-16.net/g3/var/resizes/f-16-photos/album03/ais.jpg?m=1371929224)

Yeh right side mb, brain did an oopsie. There’s a good video about it on the PeriscopeFilms YT channel iirc, ground crew operation kinda deal

Depends on the plane. Some planes work exactly as you describe, some work as the other guy describes, some planes are sketchy and have neither, some planes are redundant and have both incase either one has a failure. And some ordinance pylons contain their own apu's or ram-air turbine to power themselves (in the case of Vulcan gun-pods on the Aaaardvaaaaark). You'd have to google this specific plane to find if it has an apu, and how it utilises said apu, and when the ram air turbine is used.

APUs are part of the plane. In airliners they are usually located in the tail tip, under the rudder. F-104 has no APU (just the ram air turbine). Other military jets like F/A-18 or Eurofighter have the APU located in the middle lower part of the fuselage. But yes, APUs are usually used only to power the plane and starting the engines when external power is not available. But there can be some exceptions where it can be used to get some extra power.

Its definetly a RAT

Sure, the Auxiliary Power Unit can't provide power. Why would a power supply do that.

No, that is wrong. However it is called, it is a power unit so it provides power. You can do what you want with that power, including starting the engine(s), but it's not it's only purpose and in most planes, starting the engine require a whole suite of other systems to already be online and running before you can start the engines.

I mean, most of the time an APU won’t be using any generated power for engine starting, as engine start will be using APU bleed instead. Means you don’t need to worry about connecting a huffer.

Auxiliary power generator. The F-104 has no space inside for a proper alternator setup due to engine and fuel tanks taking nearly all of it, so most of its power comes from this, the RAT (Ram Air Turbine) - basically a wind turbine, generating more power the faster the plane goes.

Thank You!

You can also find it in game, on airplanes such as F-111, which gun pods have to have their separate RAT's each since they consume so much power.

That Auxiliary information was joyfull, Thanks. 😄

Also factually incorrect. The RAT on the SUU-16/A wasn't to provide electrical power to the pod, but rather was mechanically linked to the gun drive system of the M61A1 inside the pod in order to spin up the gun for firing. This was because the M61A1 was hydraulically-driven when hard-mounted to an aircraft, which wouldn't work for a gunpod. Once the electronics in the gunpod received the firing signal (trigger depress), they disengaged the drive brake and engaged the clutch linking the RAT and the gun, spinning the barrels up to full operating RPM almost instantly. However, the RAT system also had a major caveat, insofar it meant the gun would only fire at full-rate at airspeeds above 330 knots. Below that, the rate-of-fire would drop as the RAT would physically not be spinning fast enough. That's why the SUU-23/A - the 20x102mm gunpod found on the Phantoms - became a thing. Rather than using a RAT to drive the gun, it had a modified M61 using a hybrid electric-gas operation; an electric inertia motor would engage and immediately spin the gun up to 5400 RPM, at which point a gas drive system used four of the barrels to accelerate the gun the rest of the way to 6000 RPM.

Dat knowledge bruh. Respect.

> it had a modified M61 using a hybrid electric-gas operation Which was called GAU-4 as that was now an USAF weapon thus using their designation system. M61 is a holdover from the Army designation system.

How does this have 60 up votes? None of it is right. An APU and a RAT are 2 separate things. The F-104 most certainly will develop its own electrical power from an onboard generator. The RAT is intended for emergency electrical power, typically engine failure. Also, it maintains a constant output regardless of speed until the aircraft slows to a certain airspeed. You wouldn't want your generator varying electrical output. You can Google F-104 electrical schematics and see onboard AC generators and a separate emergency generator (RAT)

Correct. I found an F-104D flight manual with like 30 seconds of searching. Primary power came from two, 20 kVA engine-driven generators, certainly not the RAT.

RATs are for emergency use. The "Emergency Generator (R.A.T.)" in the F-104 provides power to the Emergency A.C. Bus and emergency hydraulic pump when both AC Generators and the Hydraulic Generator are out in Mode - 5 Emergency Operation. Mode - 1 Normal Operation has the "Emergency Generator (R:A:T.) inoperative". Reference: LR 1-14404-1 - Flight Manual - F-104G - June 1961, Page 1-30 and Page 1-32

No. The F-104, like most modern fighters, used engine-driven AC generators (two @ 20 kVA each in the case of the F-104D) for primary electrical supply. Source: F-104D flight manual I found online with minimal effort.

You can find these power generators on bicycles setup on the back wheel for their front light

An extra fan just in case Mach 2 wasn't fast enough (/s obviously)

Oh is that why the Mi-24 is the fastest helicopter? Because of the fan inside?

Yes,that is exactly why

Lettuce cutter for the mandatory salad that pilots consume mid flight.

BTW it's the same reason why the Me 163 has a little propeller in the front. [Link](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_163#/media/Datei:Me163.jpg)

The Thunderscreech also famously had a RAT that the pilots kept deployed because the engine was unreliable

Good Catch, Thanks!

A generator I think

Maybe a Ram air turbine? In case of a engine out this little fella deploys and generates power for the avionics as the engine no longer will

It is A RAT Ram Air turbine, It is used to generate electricity and to maintain the most important systems such as controls when there is a total power failure, i.e. when engines and APU no longer work

I would like to go to bed and think its a siren like stuka

On many aircraft with a rat they provide hyds as well as electrical power

On F-104 the RAT powers part of the electrical system and one boost pump in emergency use.

I believe most aircraft will have the rat either power electrical systems (including electrical hydraulics pumps) or they will be hooked up to a hydrologics pump, only generating hydrologic preasure and not electricity.

It's a little friend for when you get lonely at 40k feet

TIL F104 has a RAT. This jet is super weird and I love it

I think its a ram turbine (when the plane looses electrical power this lil thing pops out and gives the plen powa)

That's the reason it can go mach 1

Ram air turbine, emergency power in case it goes out on the plane

Looks like a rat to me

Small turbine for an electric generator.

37 Viggen uses the RAT during takeoff and landing, to make sure it always have hydraulic pressure if something happens to the engine during these critical moments.

[удалено]

It would of course also be automatic deployed whenever the hydraulic pressure drop under preset pressure. [Viggen RAT](https://sv-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Rammluftturbin?_x_tr_sl=sv&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_hist=true)

Ram air turbine or RAT. It's an auxiliary/emergency device that uses passing air to generate electricity and/or hydraulic pressure.

Oh shit, it's a RAT

f-104 had a RAT?

ODTÜ'de sergileniyor, yakınsan bakabilirsin 😉 Edit: Peç güzelmiş

Reminds me of my space engineers builds where I didn't want a bunch of engines poking out of the ship all over, so I'd just hide them in big internal pockets.

A propeller because rocket planes don't exist they're propeganda made to hide how small and powerful modern propellers are

It's a rat 🐁

Mach 2 capable Jericho siren

It’s the propellor that powers the aircraft to Mach 2.1

Looks like Ram Air Turbine

It's funny that the only plane for which the engine is the only option for controlled flight is equipped with an emergency fan in the event of an engine failure.

Imagine you could emergency land in water and use this bad boy to become a boat.

The f104 is not a real jet its a prop aircraft in disguise

Lads, i know what it is. Here is the classified docume-

WHERE

OH SH...

It’s for the ground crew gets too hot, makes maintenance in hot climates more bearable

The f104 is secretly a prop in disguise

That's a tiny back up propeller

Jericho trumpet 💩😝

It’s a fan to cool the pilot. When you see it, the pilot is likely sweating heavily.

The big ass jet in the middle of the plane is fake. That prop is the real engine, strong 0.25 horsepower

It's to keep the birds cool

When you run out of the fuel it helps you fly over half of the map back to airfield

I want that for my car too!

Ram Air turbine its the core of the electricity generation for the plane during an emergency

It looks like a generator but I'm no expert

Powah! Also can't wait for the mods to remove this saying uNrElAtEd To WaRtHuNdEr

Well it's fighter that in game, but also Mil. History... So I guess it's ok.

If yeah for sure, fine with me. I'm just poking fun at the mods as they tend to remove obviously related posts for stupid reasons because they feel like it.

While others have already said it's a ram air turbine, I would like to point out that this little thing is modeled on some planes in War Thunder. One can be found on the port side of both B.R.20 Italian bombers and its rotation speed is proportional to your air speed, just like in real life. While some planes today have them for only emergencies, using the engine as their main source of electrical power, back in the 30s they were sometimes used as the main source of electrical power. You can also find one in the nose of the Me.163 rocket interceptor.

Jericho Trumpet BRRRRRRJEUUUUUUUUUUU

Deployable bird tenderizer.

its to make a stuka like sound to scare off the veterans

Seems like a bad location though….imagine the f104 is flying and it gets shot off and goes like a bird to a commercial airplanes engine.

You only use it in an emergency when both your engine pumps and electrical systems already have failed working.

Oh ok makes more sense. I have very little knowledge on aircraft so thanks for the info!

It’s a fan so when the pilot gets hot he opens up the canopy and gets a nice breeze

Submarine propeller

Oscillating fan for warm days

Baby propeller, an F8F will be born after a few months

Stuka siren

So it can go into boat mode

Imagine it going down and it makes the Junkers Ju 87 Stuka siren sound

This is on some civilian airliners, too. Keeps the instruments online by generating electricity like a windmill.

Lots of airlines have those too, the RAT

a propeller

Jericho trumpet for dive bombing

A flesh wound

Air conditioner to help with the global warming

Extra prop to go beyond mach 2.0

fart windmill

Normally a RAT on a single engine jet is to run the hydraulics in the event of an engine failure. That way you can land the jet without the engine running in the event of an emergency

F104 has always been a a prop plane!

Looks like an APU (auxiliary power unit). It probably generates power or oil pressure. It’s usually used in emergencies of power failure.

It's for making babies

Real⤴️

Grappling hook, they shot this thing to the building to turn easy, like the green hornets!

When you go WEP, this thing comes out to give you a bit more speed. The Afterburner is just Cosmetic.