The Canadian version of the North American F-86 Sabre, the Canadair CL-13, had a long career in the Luftwaffe, with which 75 Mk. 5 and 225 Mk. 6 examples served. This preserved aircraft is in the markings of JG 74.
German aviation in general was severely curtailed, and military aviation was completely forbidden when the Luftwaffe was officially disbanded in August 1946 by the Allied Control Commission. This changed when West Germany joined NATO in 1955, as the Western Allies believed that Germany was needed in view of the increasing military threat posed by the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies. Throughout the following decades, the West German Luftwaffe (Bundesluftwaffe: federal air force) was equipped mostly with U.S.-designed aircraft manufactured locally under license. All aircraft sported—and continue to sport—the Iron Cross on the fuselage, harking back to the days of World War I, while the national flag of West Germany is displayed on the tail.
Many well-known fighter pilots who had fought with the Luftwaffe in World War II joined the new post-war air force and underwent refresher training in the U.S. before returning to West Germany to upgrade on the latest U.S.-supplied hardware. These included Erich Hartmann, the highest-ever scoring ace (352 enemy aircraft destroyed), Gerhard Barkhorn (301), Günther Rall (275) and Johannes Steinhoff (176). Steinhoff, who suffered a crash in a Messerschmitt Me 262 shortly before the end of the war that resulted in lifelong scarring of his face and other parts of his body, would eventually become commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe, with Rall as his immediate successor. Hartmann retired as an Oberst (colonel) in 1970 at age 48. Josef Kammhuber, mentioned above, also served in the post-war Luftwaffe, retiring in 1962 as Inspekteur der Bundesluftwaffe (chief inspector of the Federal air force).
During the 1960s, the "Starfighter crisis" developed into a political issue, as many of these Lockheed F-104 Starfighters crashed after being modified to serve for Luftwaffe purposes — specifically for terrain, weather, and ground mechanic support issues. In Luftwaffe service, 292 of the 916 Starfighters crashed, claiming the lives of 115 pilots and leading to cries that the Starfighter was fundamentally unsafe from the West German public, which referred to it as the Witwenmacher (widow-maker), fliegender Sarg (flying coffin), and Erdnagel (ground nail).
Steinhoff and his deputy Günther Rall noted that the non-German F-104s proved much safer — Spain, for example, lost none in the same period. The Americans blamed the high loss rate of the Luftwaffe F-104s on the extreme low-level and aggressive flying of German pilots rather than any faults in the aircraft.[2]. Steinhoff and Rall immediately left their daily work and went to America to learn to fly the Starfighter under Lockheed instruction and noted some specifics in the training (a distinct lack of mountain and foggy-weather training), combined with handling capabilities (sharp start high G turns) of the aircraft that could create accident situations.
Steinhoff and Rall immediately changed the training regimen for the F-104 pilots, and the accident rates quickly fell to those comparable or better than other air forces. They also brought about the high level of training and professionalism seen today throughout the Luftwaffe, and the start of a strategic direction for Luftwaffe pilots to tactically and combat train outside Germany. However, the F-104 never lived down its reputation as a widow-maker and was replaced much earlier by the Luftwaffe than other national air forces.
The Starfighter was completely replaced by the American-built McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II fighter and the Panavia Tornado fighter-bomber, where the latter was designed and produced by a cooperative of companies from the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy. These fighters all remain in Luftwaffe service today, especially with upgrades to their electronics and the addition of the AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missile for the air defense of Germany.
One of 212 Panavia Tornado IDSs delivered to the Luftwaffe
From 1965 through 1970, two surface-to-surface missile wings (Flugkörpergeschwader) fielded 16 of the Pershing I missile systems with nuclear warheads under U.S. Army custody. In 1970, the system was upgraded to Pershing IA with 72 missiles. Although not directly affected by the 1988 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the Luftwaffe unilaterally agreed to the removal of the Pershing IA missiles from its inventory in 1991, and the missiles were destroyed.
Beginning in June 1979, the Luftwaffe took delivery of 212 Panavia Tornado fighters.
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