Nice . Missile with a man in it. JATO/RATO takeoff.
We sold a lot of these to the Germans. Not very maneuverable but friggin fast.
Erich Hartmann, the all time ace of aces strongly opposed the German purchase of the F-104. He said the plane was too difficult to fly for the Luftwaffe pilots of the 60s.
They were not as well trained as American pilots and sure enough they crashed a huge number of them.
Zero air flow over the wings at take off! Zero controllability. It’s amazing the thing was stable enough to get up to sufficient speed to get air flow and control. It must have been like trying to balance a yardstick on the tip of your finger...except you had zero ability to move to hold balance.