Fighter Wing: A Guided Tour of an Air Force Combat Wing

by Tom Clancy

  The feelings of flying in a high-performance fighter are fundamentally different from an airliner, even the supersonic Concorde. It’s a raw, almost wild experience, like a ride on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. The view out of the bubble transparency is simply amazing. You feel exposed, sitting as you do with your shoulders well above the canopy rails, almost sitting on top of the jet. And since low-level flight is where the Strike Eagle earns its pay, the feeling of the world going by in a hurry is more like a super-fast helicopter than any airliner you have ever ridden. It also needs to be said that flying the Strike Eagle is something like riding a wild horse: The older-style controls of the F-15E are a bit “twitchy” and require a delicate, almost “kissing” touch on the stick to keep the big bird from wallowing around the sky.

  Boom-Boom Turcott has that soft touch, and he needed it this day; the air over the Idaho desert was decidedly unpleasant. While the base was under bright sunshine and a hard but steady wind, the range was under a heavy cloud cover, with intermittent snow and rain falling. This is a rough combination, and Boom-Boom was working hard to keep John from having to use one of the vomit bags in the pocket of his flight suit. In fact, several of the other WSOs in the flight were also having problems with motion sickness, and eyeing the bags in those little manila envelopes. Despite the popular notion that aircrews have cast-iron stomachs, almost every flier has occasional bouts of airsickness and vertigo. In fact, the ability to rapidly recover from such maladies is greatly respected among aircrews.

  Meanwhile, as the flight transited out to the Saylor Creek Range, Boom-Boom took the opportunity to show John a few things about the territory, and about the F-15E. As they flew just a few thousand feet over the canyon of the Snake River, he had him power up and unstow the FLIR turret on the AAQ-14 targeting pod under the belly of the fighter. The crews of LANTIRN-equipped aircraft usually keep the targeting FLIR turrets in the stowed position, since dust and sand tend to pit and erode the optical windows. The targeting FLIR is normally controlled by the right-hand controller, and is aimed via a small dish-shaped switch which uses the WSO’s finger movement, much like a mouse on a computer. There are also two other controls in this cluster, one called a “coolie hat” and the other the “rook” or “castle” controller, because of their shape and feel. These two manipulate the two right-hand displays, which show the FLIR video, radar displays, and other sensor and weapons-related data. There is an identical controller on the left side of the cockpit, which mostly controls the ring laser gyro-based INS. The INS drives the most noticeable and dynamic display, the left-side color MFD, called the moving-map display. This MFD displays a full-color navigational chart of where you are, where you are going, and how you are oriented.

  Moving back to the right-hand controller, you find that with a little practice, the targeting FLIR is quite easy to use, and has a field-of-view that can see almost everything in the lower hemisphere of the Strike Eagle. There are also several magnification settings, which can easily allow you to determine what you are looking at from a considerable range. Once you get an object centered up in the scope, you can lock it up and the FLIR will track it, no matter what maneuvers the pilot chooses to lay onto the bird. This proved useful, as John found when Boom-Boom gave him a mild demonstration of the Strike Eagle’s maneuvering capabilities by pulling some hard turns at one of the navigational waypoints; the FLIR stayed steady on a telephone pole on the desert floor below.

  Even though they only pulled about 3½ Gs in these maneuvers, it was a telling experience for John, who is a big, burly sort of man. It felt like everything on his body began to head towards his feet, and he found the movement of his lips and cheeks towards the bottom of his face particularly eerie. As soon as Boom-Boom would start a run and the Gs came on, the G-suit around his waist and legs inflated to keep the blood from pooling in his abdomen, thus avoiding a blackout. Despite the stresses of the Gs, John found that he still could work the controllers and continue doing the tasks Boom-Boom asked him to perform. In fact, one of the surprises was that despite his relative lack of experience with the LANTIRN system (and rising nausea), he was easily able to learn the routine with the controllers, and he even managed to fire up the APG-70 radar and lock up Colonel Clawson and his WSO (callsign “Fuzz”) in Claw-1. He also managed to take a couple of SAR radar maps with the APG-70.

  By then they were at the Saylor Creek Bombing Range, which was experiencing a series of intermittent snow/hail/rain showers. These made the air fairly rough during the runs that followed. Boom-Boom again followed Claw- 1, and set up the arming panel to drop one BDU-33 practice bomb on each run. John’s job on each run was to lock up the aiming point, so the video recorder could evaluate the accuracy of the run. This involved slewing the FLIR turret around until the desired target in the array was centered in the screen, and then selecting the lock button to start the system autotracking. At the same time, the ground-based television optical scoring system (TOSS) would score each bomb dropped. What followed was a pinwheel of F-15Es, with each making a run about every thirty seconds. Boom-Boom and John started each run by lining up the target array on the nose of Claw-2 and putting the aircraft into a shallow 15° dive. As soon as John would lock up the target with the targeting FLIR (or the APG-70 radar), the weapons delivery system would begin computing the proper course to the target. This was displayed to Boom-Boom as a steering cue, on the HUD; all he had to do was aim the “fly-to” box at the steering cue, and the computers did the rest. Despite the high crosswind in the target area, the crews of all four Strike Eagles were easily scoring “shacks” (direct hits) on their desired targets. The idea of this exercise was to see how accurately each crew could place a “dumb” bomb on the target, with the assistance of the Strike Eagle’s weapons delivery systems. Despite the popular public notion that Desert Storm was a war won with “smart” munitions, the vast majority of the bombs dropped were unguided, and this will be the case for some time to come. Thus the need to stay in practice with the older-style weapons. After each run, Boom-Boom would pull Claw-2 off to the right and climb back to several thousand feet AGL to set up for the next run. Each time, as they banked overhead, Boom-Boom and John could see the runs of Claw-3 and -4 off to their right as they hit the ring of targets on the TOSS range.

  When their supply of BDU-33s was expended, Claw Flight moved over to the Maverick missile target array a few miles away. The first of these was a circular array of oil drums (called Target 101). These showed up nicely on the targeting FLIR when warmed by the sun, which was breaking through the clouds from time to time. The 391st is the only Strike Eagle unit in the USAF equipped with the IIR Maverick missile, and they are quite skilled with it. Their tactic is to make side-by-side runs at the targets, two at a time, starting at 11 nm./20.1 km. with a 30° split and a 10° climb to the pushover at about 8 nm./14.6 km., then a 30° merge with a 5° dive at the weapons release point, and an egress (pilot talk for leaving) at about 2 nm./3.7 km. They then make a right-hand turn, with the number-two aircraft falling in behind the leader. This gives them time to acquire multiple targets, if desired, and hit them all on the same pass. Boom-Boom and John in Claw-2 made their first pass on the left side of the circular array, locking up three of the barrels and delivering three simulated missiles fairly successfully. It struck John then that less than an hour before, he had never touched an F-15E. Now he was delivering ordnance well enough to actually hit things.

  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 proc
edures 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 d
irectly 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.