Fighter Wing: A Guided Tour of an Air Force Combat Wing tcml-3

by Tom Clancy

  Once Claw-3 and -4 had made their run on Target 101, the flight moved over to the Owyhee Pumping Station, which is also used as a target for the simulated missiles (the seeker heads are real, but do not fire). This time the WSOs of Claw-1 and -2, John and Fuzz, worked to lock up specific points on the pump house for the missiles to hit, thus producing a true precision strike, despite the rough air over the Idaho desert.

  With the weapons practice finished, the flight headed back to land at Mountain Home AFB, some miles to the west. As they headed home, Boom-Boom was trying to coach John on some more procedures with the radar, but by this time the rough air had taken its toll, and John began to reach for the little manila envelope with the plastic bag in it. Boom-Boom was kind enough to keep the Strike Eagle level while John relieved himself — and felt better immediately. A few minutes later, they were in the Mountain Home AFB traffic pattern, preparing to land. With just a handful of aircraft in the pattern at this time of day, it took just a few minutes to contact the tower, gain clearance, drop into the landing pattern, and set up for landing.

  The runway of a modern military airfield seems huge when you are approaching it in an aircraft the size of a fighter, and the vast tarmac almost seems wasted upon you, though as a passenger, you appreciate every square yard/meter of area to land upon. Boom-Boom made his approach with a practiced grace, in spite of a stiff crosswind that was crabbing the Strike Eagle to one side. As he flared the F-15E for touchdown, he extended the large air-brake, which acted like a drag parachute, rapidly slowing the jet to taxi speed. When you are taxiing one of the Eagle family, you almost feel as if you are up on stilts, and you wonder if you're going to fall over. It should be said, though, that the landing gear struts and brakes of the Strike Eagle are the toughest ever installed on a USAF tactical aircraft, and they work just fine!

  After taxiing back to the 391st ramp, the crews of the four jets — including a somewhat wobbly and green-around-the-gills John Gresham — exited the aircraft. They immediately proceeded back to the Life Support Shop and turned in their gear for repair and maintenance. Though still a bit nauseous, John, smiling from ear to ear, proclaimed, "God can take an arm or leg or whatever he wants. I've done what I always wanted to do!" As if on cue, the 391st flight surgeon showed up and asked if he wanted something for his nausea. When John replied in the affirmative, the flight surgeon handed him a small pill bottle of Phenergan, which settles the stomach and the inner ears. Later that day, after a nap and a shower, he was up and around, enthusiastically describing his adventure.

  When we asked what he thought about flying in the big bird, this was his answer: "If I had to go to a war and didn't know where or against whom, I'd want to take that plane with Boom-Boom as the driver!"

  LOCKHEED MARTIN F-16C FIGHTING FALCON

  The F-16 was the workhorse of this war. It did the baseline bombing, the body punching. It hauled the iron.

  — GENERAL CHUCK HORNER, USAF (RET.)

  Officially it's the Fighting Falcon, but to its pilots it's the Viper (after the fighters in the TV series Battlestar Galactica) or the "Electric Jet" (because of its digital flight-control system). To millions of Americans who attend air-shows, however, it's one of the Thunderbirds: six F-16Cs with some of the finest aerobatic flight crews in the world (a statement that is sure to start a debate if any Naval aviators are reading this). It is the Lockheed (formerly General Dynamics) F-16, the most successful fighter design — at least in terms of production numbers — in the last quarter century. Its existence came about when the USAF leadership realized in the 1970s that America no longer had unlimited funds to spend on airplanes and that a compromise between cost and capability was needed. For many years, military planners have known that the cost of combat aircraft is roughly proportional to their weight. If you want to buy more aircraft for the same budget, the solution seems obvious — design a lightweight fighter. "Light" and "heavy" are relative terms; the typical standard for comparing aircraft is maximum gross takeoff weight.

  A lightweight fighter might not have all the "bells and whistles" that engineers can think up, but a no-frills aircraft is better than no aircraft at all; and for the cost of one heavyweight fighter you might buy two no-frills aircraft that together should be able to outfly and outfight one heavy one. This became the central dogma of the "Lightweight Fighter Mafia," a group of Air Force and Pentagon officials gathered around the charismatic John Boyd, an Air Force colonel who codified the original concept of energy maneuvering (using power and speed in the vertical dimension to outmaneuver another aircraft) and had been a prime mover in the F-15 program office. During the Vietnam War, lightweight enemy aircraft like the MiG-17 and MiG-21 were often able to outmaneuver and kill heavy multi-role U.S. fighters like the F-4 Phantom and F-105, despite the Americans' advantages of speed, sensors, and weaponry. Though these losses were in great part caused by the restrictive ROE that were set by politicians, the Air Force was determined to stop that from happening again. Thus, while the new USAF lightweight fighter might not have ultra-long range or super-sophisticated electronics, it would for damn sure be more agile than any MiG flying.

  The lightweight fighter competition came down to a flyoff between two excellent designs, the General Dynamics Model 401, and the Northrop YF-17; and in February 1974, General Dynamics's entry won. The design was a slightly enlarged Model 401, and the prototype was designated YF-16. The competing twin-engined YF-17 ultimately became the basis for the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet.

  A Lockheed Martin Block 52F-16C assigned to the 366th Wing's 389th Fighter squadron cruises over the Nevada desert during Green Flag 94-3. It carries a simulted Sidewinder air-to-air missile and a range instrumentation pod on the wingtips, an ALQ-131 electronic jamming pod on the centerline, as well as fuel tanks and Mk 82 general-purpose bombs on the wing pylons.

  John D. Gresham

  One key design element of the Model 401 was accepting the risk of only one engine — you have to have a lot of confidence in that engine. At the same time, one reason the YF-16 was the winner against the Northrop entry was the matter of that single engine. GD made the decision early to use the same Pratt & Whitney F100-series engine that was on the F-15 Eagle, thus providing a great deal of risk reduction and savings for the Air Force. Risk reduction because it was using an already proven engine design that was in USAF service, and savings because of the economies of greater production numbers and a wider user base.

  A head-on view of an F-16C Fighting Falcon. The large engine inlet and bubble canopy are clearly shown, as well as the two large 370 gallon/1,396.2 liter external fuel tanks.

  John D. Gresham

  The first production F-16, officially named the "Fighting Falcon," was delivered to the Air Force in August 1978, and the first full wing, the 388th TFW at Hill AFB, Utah, became operational in October 1980. Meanwhile, by eliminating some 17 % of the internal fuel capacity, General Dynamics was able to squeeze in a second seat under an enlarged canopy, creating the F-16B operational trainer (later replaced by the more advanced F-16D). The U.S. Air Force eventually ordered some 121 F-16Bs, and 206 F-16Ds.

  One advantage of a small fighter is that you are a small target: hard to spot visually and on radar, as well as hard to hit. The blended wing-body of the F-16 helps to reduce its radar cross section, but the gaping air intake, large vertical tail fin, and the need to carry weapons and pods externally mean that it is by no means a stealth aircraft. About 95 % of the structure is made up of conventional aircraft aluminum alloys in order to simplify manufacturing and keep costs down. Production of the F-16A and — B models for the USAF ended in 1985, when the F-16C/D models began to roll off the mile-long assembly line at Fort Worth, Texas. In addition to the letters that designate major F-16 variants (like the F-16C), there are "Block" numbers that describe particular production batches. The current version (since October 1991) is the Block 50/52. In 1994, General Dynamics sold its Ft. Worth, Texas, aircraft factory to Lockheed, which will continue to produce the F-16
through at least 1999. When production ends, over four thousand F-16s will have been delivered.

  A cutaway drawing of the Lockeed Martin F-16C Block 50/52 Fighting Falcon.

  Jack Ryan Enterprises, Ltd., by Laura Alpher

  One reason the F-16 has been so successful is its fly-by-wire flight-control system. On most aircraft, when you move the stick or rudder pedals, you are working mechanical linkages tied to a series of hydraulic actuators that move the control surfaces of the wings and tail. This is similar to the brakes on a car. When you hit the brake pedal, you are not directly applying pressure to the wheels; you are opening a hydraulic valve (the master cylinder) that allows stored mechanical energy to apply a lot more force to the brake pads than your foot could ever deliver. Just as the feel of the brake pedal, when integrated with the perception of deceleration (or the lack of it), conveys important information to a driver, the feel of the control stick provides vital feedback to the pilot. In fly-by-wire the mechanical linkages in the flight-control system are replaced with a tightly integrated set of electro-mechanical force sensors and computer software that translates the pilot's movement of the stick into precisely regulated electronic commands. These are sent over a quad-redundant (i.e., four-channel) data bus to the hydraulic actuators that move the control surfaces, causing the plane to pitch, roll, or yaw as desired. The flight computer software regulates all this without allowing dangerous or excessive excursions that might cause the plane to "depart controlled flight." All F-16A/B aircraft and F-16C/Ds before Block 40 had an analog flight-control system; subsequent aircraft have an improved digital system.

  One major benefit of fly-by-wire is weight reduction, since mechanical cables and pulleys can now be replaced by slim electrical signal lines, and even fiber-optical cable ("fly-by-light") in newer systems. Another benefit has been a dream of aircraft designers ever since the Wrights flew their first airplanes — the creation of aerodynamically unstable aircraft. Prior to fly-by-wire systems, all aircraft were designed to be neutrally stable or balanced in the air, so that only a small trimming was required to keep it flying. While this is fine for an airliner or transport aircraft, it is not necessarily what is desired for a combat aircraft like a fighter. Ideally, you want a fighter to be quick and agile — right on the edge of disaster — so that it can react more quickly than other aircraft. With the coming of fly-by-wire control systems, aircraft designers can actually make an aircraft so dynamically unstable that a human being cannot even fly it. The flight software of the system can make adjustments to the attitude and trim of an unstable aircraft many times a second, thus rendering it stable through sheer quickness on the part of the computer.

  The unique characteristics of the fly-by-wire flight-control system allowed the General Dynamics engineers to do a number of new things to the cockpit of the F-16. The ACES II ejection seat, for example, is reclined at an angle of 30deg, since this helps to reduce the frontal cross section of the aircraft, which cuts drag and is also more comfortable, especially when pulling high-G maneuvers. The single-piece bubble canopy provides better all-around visibility than any modern fighter aircraft in the world. Remember that most planes shot down in combat never see their opponent sneaking up from behind or below. The lack of normal hydraulic runs means that the control stick can be mounted on the right side of the cockpit, instead of the usual position between the pilot's legs, which eases the strain on the pilot during maneuvers. Mounted on the right armrest, the "side stick" controller is a force-sensing device which requires only light pressure to execute large and rapid maneuvers.

  The cockpit of a Lockheed Martin Block 50/52 F-16C Fighting Falco. Just above the pilot's bare knees are the two Multi-Function Displays (MFDs), with the Heads-Up Display (HUD) mounted on top of the Data Entry Panel.

  Lockheed Martin

  The throttle column is on the left armrest, and both it and the side stick are studded with the same kind of HOTAS radar, weapon, and communications switches as the F-15, and are optimized for operations in high-G maneuvers. In front of the pilot is a small but busy control panel, with the HUD mounted on top, the display for the RWR to its left, and the IDM display (called a Data Entry Display) on the right. Below this is a center pedestal that runs between the pilot's legs. It contains most of the analog flight instruments (artificial horizon, airspeed indicator, etc.), the data keypad (called an Integrated Control Panel), and a pair of MFDs, one on either side of the pedestal.

  You can hang a lot of weaponry — up to ten tons of it — on an F-16, if you're willing to pay the costs. These include increased drag, which translates into decreased range, endurance, speed, and agility. However, even when heavily loaded, an F-16 is a dangerous opponent, as a number of Iraqi and Serbian pilots have found out the hard way. On the wing tips are launch rails for AIM-9 Sidewinder AAM or AIM-120 AMRAAM. About 270 F-16s assigned to Air Defense units of the Air National Guard also have the software and radar modifications needed to launch the AIM-7 Sparrow, though this older AAM is rapidly being phased out of service in favor of the newer AIM-120. Under each wing are three hard points where pylons can be installed to carry additional missiles, bombs, pods, or fuel tanks.

  Another station under the centerline of the fuselage usually carries a fuel tank, but can also be fitted with an electronic jamming pod (the ALQ-131 or ALQ-184) or (in the future) a reconnaissance pod. All F-16s have an M61 Vulcan 20mm cannon located inside the port strake, with over five hundred rounds of ammunition in a drum magazine just behind the cockpit. The muzzle exhaust of the gun is well clear of the engine air intake to avoid any ingestion of gun gases.

  The F-16's sharply pointed nose provides limited space for a radar antenna, so the designers of the Westinghouse APG-66 radar had to use cleverness rather than brute force to get the performance that was required. This included the ability to launch air-to-air missiles, aim the gun, drop bombs, and deliver air-to-ground missiles. When it was finished, the entire APG-66 installation weighed only 260 lb./115 kg., and it was one of the first airborne radars to use a digital signal processor, translating the stream of analog data from the X-band pulse-Doppler receiver, filtering out clutter, and displaying simplified symbology in the pilot's HUD or one of the display panels. In the "look down" mode, the new radar could scan the ground 23 to 35 nm./45.7 to 64 km. ahead, while in "look up" mode it could search the air as far as 29 to 46 nm./53 to 84.1 km.; the higher figures represent performance under ideal conditions, while the lower figures are worst-case maximums. The solid reliability and modular design of this radar has allowed it to be modified for installation on a wide variety of aircraft and other platforms, including the Rockwell B-1B bomber and the tethered "aerostat" balloons that scan the skies of the U.S. southern borders for drug-smuggling aircraft.

  Even as the early-model Fighting Falcons were going into general service, improvements were already being contemplated for the F-16. These became the F-16C and — D (the two-seat trainer), which had a number of sub-variants or Blocks which first came into series production in 1985. The first major set of upgrades were incorporated into the Block 25 F-16Cs, which had an improved cockpit, a new wide-angle HUD, and the new APG-68 radar system. The following year, the Block 30/32-series birds appeared with a bigger computer memory, new fuel tanks, and the same kind of common engine bay that's on the F-15E. This means that either the General Electric F110-GE-100 (Block 30) or the Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-220 (Block 32) engine can be fitted, with only minor changes between the two variants. The biggest of these is a larger engine inlet for the F110-powered variant, which can be easily changed. In addition, the inlet of both variants, always a major contributor to the F-16's RCS, has been specially treated with several radar-absorbing material (RAM) coatings, which radically reduces its detectability. The next major variant (it appeared in 1989) was the Block 40 (F110)/42 (F100) version, which had the new enhanced enveloped gunsight (like the F-15C/E), APG-68V5 radar and ALE- 47 decoy launchers, a GPS receiver, and provisions for a higher gross weight (42,300 lb./19,227.3
kg.). Following this (in 1991) was the Block 50/52 version, which made use of a pair of new technology, higher thrust engines (29,000 lb./ 13,182 kg.), the General Electric F-110-GE-129 installed in Block 50 birds, and the Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-229 in the Block 52s. In addition to the new engines, the Block 50/52 F-16s were equipped with a new ALR-56M RWR and a MIL-STD-1760 data bus for programming new-generation PGMs. The latest, and probably final, production variant is the Block 50D/52D version, equipped with a new 128K DLD cartridge, a ring laser gyro INS, an improved data modem (IDM) like the F-15E, and the ability to fire the latest versions of the AGM-65 Maverick and AGM-88 HARM missiles.

  On the Block 15 and later models of the F-16, there are two special mounting points on either "cheek" of the air intake that can support sensors such as the LANTIRN system pods (targeting on one side, navigation on the other), the ASQ-213 HARM targeting system (HTS) pod, the Atlis II targeting pod, the Pave Penny laser tracking pod, or future precision targeting devices. The HTS pod has opened up a whole new mission for the Viper. Only 8 in./20 cm. in diameter, 56 in./142 cm. long, and weighing 85 lb./36 kg., it fits on the right-side cheek mount (Station 5 as it is called), where the AAQ- 14 LANTIRN pod would normally hang. Originally developed by Texas Instruments under a program to provide new modular targeting systems for USAF aircraft, it is the key to USAF's effort to hold on to some kind of SAM hunting capability in the 21st century. This is particularly vital, given the age of the F-4G Wild Weasel fleet, which is rapidly drawing down. The HTS pod allows the pilot of a single-seat F-16C to do just about everything a two-seat F-4G can do with its APR-47 RWR system. Most important of these is the ability to rapidly generate ranges to target radars, as well as to provide greater discretion between different types of enemy radars. Lockheed is even working on a new version of the F-16 flight software which will allow two or more F-16s with HTS pods, GPS receivers, and IDMs (acting as data links) to work together so they can generate more accurate targeting solutions, and even feed them to other HARM-equipped aircraft with IDMs. This matter of establishing ranges to target radars is vitally important since standoff range for an AGM-88 can be roughly doubled if you know this before launch and can program it into the HARM. It also reduces the time of flight for a HARM, by allowing the missile to fly a more direct path. About a hundred of the HTS pods were manufactured and delivered by Texas Instruments (who also manufacture the AGM-88 HARM), and have been assigned to several F-16 units within ACC and overseas units.