Component manufacturing is complete for the first two underwing carriers that Starfighters Space plans to fly on its Lockheed F-104 Starfighters for Mach 2 test flights, the Florida-based company announced on October 8. Robby Moto Engineering, based in Casalmaggiore in northern Italy’s Lombardy region, manufactured the parts, which are now being shipped to the company's base at the Kennedy Space Center for assembly.
The underwing carriers form the core of what Starfighters Space calls Wind Tunnel in the Sky, a service that offers customers several minutes of sustained flight at Mach 2 for testing hardware, while a run in a ground wind tunnel typically lasts a minute or less.
Each assembled carrier will measure 12 feet (3.65 meters) long and 7 inches (178 millimeters) in diameter, matching the size of the AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missile that the carrier resembles. Interchangeable nose sections, tail assemblies, fins, and internal payload compartments let the company adapt each carrier to a customer’s hardware while keeping the same external shape. While an airplane may need hardware under both wings to stay balanced, a carrier under one wing can be paired with a different type of store under the other, a Starfighters spokesperson told AIN.
“Using a proven aerodynamic configuration allows us to focus on payload integration, flight testing, and mission execution rather than developing an entirely new external flight body,” said Piercarlo Ciacchi, director of flight operations and chief pilot at Starfighters. Ciacchi flew F-104s in the Italian air force, the last military operator of the type, which retired it in 2004.
Robby Moto, whose Avio division makes components for high-performance aircraft, urban air mobility vehicles, and motorsport, previously built a video and telemetry system that mounts on the fuselage of Starfighters’ F-104s.
After assembly, Starfighters plans ground processing, integration tests on the airplane, and captive-carry flights, in which the carrier stays attached to the F-104, before it flies any customer payloads. The company expects the first captive-carry flight before the end of the year. The company’s announcement cites an initial planned customer deployment, but Starfighters declined to identify the customer or say whether that mission is under contract.
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