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This is certainly an unusual aircraft, and a very unusual Skymaster.
If memory serves me correct (very suspect), the F-104 Starfighter used not bleed air, but intake air, but maybe bleed air, I don't know, to slow the landing speed. When the flaps were lowered, and you remember that the leading edge also lowered, (and on the ground they were covered because they were razor sharp) air was diverted from the engine to the wing, and stall speed went from 300+ knots to 235 knots. One of the many problems with the F-104 was that there was no back up system, so if the air diversion valve failed, suddenly you were stalled. And of course, in the early models, ejection was out the bottom.
So that leads me to believe they were, are, doing boundry layer control stuff with those aft engines.
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Hybrid Mode
