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Starfighter Pilot Narrates Full ‘Black Beauty’ Test Flight Out Of KSC In This Must Watch Video

August 3, 2022 Military Aviation

DAVID CENCIOTTI

A screenshot from the video of the TF-104G-M of Starfighters Aerospace during the July 2022 maintenance flight from KSC.

This is probably the most interesting and detailed cockpit video with audio ever shot in an F-104 Starfighter: from start-up to landing and shut down at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida.

Piercarlo “Capone” Ciacchi is a quite famous pilot among the F-104 Starfighter lovers. Currently the Director of Flight Operations at Starfighters Aerospace, he is a former Italian Air Force F-104 pilot who, among many other things, achieved a notable record flying the 9-99, the last F-104 in special color scheme, as  “Picca 21” for 2 hours and 50 minutes in a Tip + Pylon configuration during his “finiflight” (last flight on the type) on Mar. 26, 2004.

During his career in the Air Force, Ciacchi (who later joined the Frecce Tricolori display team) authored some of the most popular footage of the world’s last Starfighters in service with the Aeronautica Militare in the early 2000s, before the iconic missile-with-a-man-in-it was eventually retired.

His passion for shooting cool videos from the cockpit of the F-104 is still strong today, as he flies the F-104s owned by Starfighters Aerospace out of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida, for research and development flights as well as pilot/test pilot training.

Last year we published a great workaround video of the “Black Beauty”, one of the five former Italian Air Force F-104s that were purchased by the U.S. company after the Italians retired it in 2004. “Black Beauty” is a heavily modified TF-104G-M which now sports the civilian registration N991SF (previously MM54258) and can be used to support a wide variety of tests, including captive carry of payloads and test articles; microgravity experiments; pre-launch space payload testing/qualification; suborbital spaceflight simulation; air-launch of microsatellites; human factors and flight physiology research and many others.

Now Ciacchi has just released a brand new video showing a maintenance flight carried out aboard “Black Beauty” that covers, with audio (including radio comms and intercom) the full flight, from start-up, to landing, and shut down (along with a couple of low approaches at Space Coast Regional Airport).

This Author has seen many F-104 videos and has been lucky enough to even fly in a TF-104G-M more than 20 years ago, but the clip below is probably the best you’ll ever find of a Starfighter flight, because of all the details Ciacchi explains AJ, lead crew chief and backseater in this sortie, throughout the +30-minute clip.

Sjekk videoen her: https://tinyurl.com/ywv7eund