F-16 Fighting Falcon News

April 29, 2003 (by Lieven Dewitte) - Lockheed Martin has received delivery of its first Laser Tracker Alignment System from ATT Metrology Services. The new system will be used for boresight alignment on the latest model of F-16 Aircraft.
ATT Metrology Services was selected early last year to develop a customized system to do the boresight alignment of the weapons and navigational components for the aircraft.

Lockheed is anticipating efficiency improvements in their assembly line and during their customer's operation of the system in the field.

Highlights of the Laser Tracker Alignment System are:

• Achieves greater alignment accuracy of the navigational and weapon systems on the aircraft.


• Allows the alignments to be performed in significantly less time than previous methods.


• Combines a high quality graphical user interface with a new measurement technique making a very precise measurement task very easy to complete.

On past aircraft, the boresight alignment of the components had to be performed by skilled metrologists. The new alignment system will allow aircraft mechanics to perform the work and achieve better results with minimal training. An identical alignment system to that used in manufacturing will be delivered with the aircraft so components can be easily checked and re-aligned as required while in service.