Few aircraft embodied “the future” like the F-104 Starfighter. The shining needle-like gleaming metal fuselage and pressure-suit clad crew evoke spaceships more than aircraft. Lockheed’s legendary designer Kelly Johnson interviewed fighter crews during the Korean War and created a simple fighter that maximized performance. His team conceived of the smallest aircraft they could wrap around a powerful engine. The Starfighter served with many air forces around the globe, in roles from interceptor to nuclear bomber.

But reality was harsher than space age dreams. The F-104 gained its Missile With A Man In It nickname in an era when many spacecraft exploded in the first moments of flight. The Starfighter’s cutting-edge design and all-for-performance approach led to a career marred by far too many losses of aircraft and life.

Missile With A Man In It contains every F-104 Starfighter combat variant, plus the proposed CL-1200 Lancer. The included opponents promise a wealth of Zipper-centric mayhem. Scenarios includes every known historic F-104 encounter, struggling over Hainan Island during the Vietnam War, battling between the two Chinas across the Formosa Strait, or soaring against the backdrop of the Himalayas in the Indo-Pakistani Wars.

Learn to fight the Starfighter from Killjoy, teaching players to employ the aircraft’s unique “double-attack” fighting style. Explore the Starfighter’s achievements in the USAF’s Operation Feather Duster evaluations, and about the Starfighter’s infamous safety record, digging into the history, causes and myths.

Missile With A Man In It is a missing man tribute to Birds of Prey contributor, Starfighter enthusiast, deadly cardboard warrior and close friend Mark “Top Wop” Bovankovich, who our community lost to cancer. His Starfighter flies higher than any other.

Airbattle Games’ proceeds for Missile With A Man In It will be donated to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, furthering the Bovankovich family’s support of these researchers’ efforts fighting childhood cancer. Please consider donating at: http://www.stjude.org/donate