I remember seeing that Gnat sitting outside the Gaydon hangar at Valley - it looked rather sorry for itself! Quite amazing that the pilot was able to land it in that condition.

Was during the Tiger Meet 1975 at Leck Air Base , there was three italian F-104 from 21Gruppo of 53 Wing based in Cameri .
Due to past problems with dissimilar flying formation that year the USAF forbit the pilots to fly during the meeting , and the Head of German air Force banned evey mixed formation over the aiport during the airshow.
But the German commander one morning during the briefing asked for some volunteer to take off in separate formation , to be rejoned over the
airport of Husum where the spotters where waiting .
He manged to find 20 airplane , among them two of the 104 the other pilot prefer to decline , then they took off.
The leader was an AG52 R4F Phantom ,section leaders where G91 of 431 Group of Oldenburg ,the F-104 where in the penultimate ship formation , on the last one with the G91 two Gnat of 4 Training Wing of Kemble ,on the left Gnat there was an USAF instructor and a german navigator .
They set up the formation at 500ft and soon later the Leader announce they where close to Husum “Reduce engine “ he ordered , but right after from the back of the formation they saw planes starting to go scatteterd in order to try to maintain the formation despite the abrupt power reduction from the leader.
The F-104 radioed to his italian wingman “Airbrake out “ and after few second he reply “ I have been hit ! “, he saw the Gnat braking on the left and after a visul check of the F-104 some pieces of the trainer stucked in the F-104 afterburner.
He hit with the nose the cone of the F-104 passing for inch the aileron in the escape manuver and destroyed the fuel tank .
The legs of the Gnat pilot where visible from the others plane , the F-104 landed with pieces of Gnat hanging down from the tail .
The Gnat was chased on ground by an Indian pilot . The Starfighter was repaired with spare from German Navy , the Gnat was written off.
Later photo from the spotters confirmed that nobody left the formation in a dangerous way , the Gnat simply crashed into the Starfighter.


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