Forum: F-16 Procedures

Hi,

There are radar files called DVR-Files.
I believe all the military jets record these files with there radar on every single mission.
I want to know how many hours can be recorded (dvr) with a f-16? before they got overwrited?
how long must the record be available?

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Let me guess. Uhhhh.....F-16 pilot radared your house, melted all the window screens and you want to subpoena the records so you can sue?

haha, serious can u give me a straight answer?

Whats that thing called which records the missions? the ouput is called dvr. dvr-files. is this a radar? whats the functionality?

You-tube video of your mission?

Salute

There are two recorders that I know of, and maybe an engine one.

The FLCS has one on EEPROM or something that records last "x" minutes.

The pilot controls the "home movie" tape we used for debriefs.

The ones I flew had a weird format, but a clever geek could convert it into VHS. So I have a few minutes of video from the early eighties. I have the original cart, but few machines today can read it/play it.

Original tapes had to be selected between HUD and the REO. Some "cosmic" ones could record both the REO and the HUD on the same tape.

Ask snake-deuce about how it works today. Send a "private message" if no response here in a few weeks.

Gums...

I just spent twenty minutes typing in a history of recording devices on the F-16, and when I submitted it, the site timed out on me and dumped my post. GRRRR! I will do it again tomorrow...

Best Regards,

Early HUD/REO video recordings,

Beta.

regards, OL

Last edited by JoeSambor on Jan 16, 2009 - 05:56 PM; edited 1 time in total

Back to our history lesson...the early AVTRs were not Beta, at least not on Block 10s and on.

The F-16A/B models were equipped with black and white cameras and the TEAC 3/4-inch Airborne Video Tape Recorder (AVTR). The "geeks" that Gums speaks of usually fashioned a homemade patch cable that allowed them to connect the humongous 3/4-inch tape playback machine to an ordinary VHS video recorder. Much use was made of these patch cables to make VHS copies of incentive flights, memorable incidents in flight (usually midairs) and the like. It is important to remember that prior to Block 25 (not including Block 20 Taiwan aircraft, which actually came after Block 40 and 50) the HUD video camera was mounted aft of the HUD combining glass, meaning that it recorded both real world video and HUD symbology. That is why on A/B aircraft, you only had to enter canopy corrections for the pilot's eye to account for distortions. Gums is correct that those 3/4" video players could display both HUD and REO video, although the picture was pretty distorted when displayed on a normal TV. Those early AVTRs only recorded about thirty minutes of video, and there was a switch to manually turn them on and off, and an AUTO position to turn them on when the pickle button was pushed or trigger (first detent) was pulled to save tape.

With the Block 25 came the new cameras mounted forward of the HUD combining glass. What this meant was that the camera recorded real world video, but the HUD symbology was passed directly from the HUD EU to the AVTR, where it was merged with the real world video. Moving the camera in front of the HUD also meant that a new set of canopy corrections was introduced for the "camera's eye", which was looking through a significantly lower part of the canopy. Incorrect camera coefficients meant that it was possible, for example, for the pilot to see the pipper directly on the target when he pickled but when the video tape was reviewed, the pipper would NOT be on the target. This is a bad thing for evaluating bombing performance of both the pilot and aircraft, and it was vital that these camera coefficients be absolutely correct. Many methods were tried by both Ops and Maintenance to make their own corrections if the coefficients were thought to be off. Even worse, the cameras themselves were matched to the camera electronic units, and if they were not changed as a set, inaccuracies would occur and the camera coefficients were rendered worthless. It would have been nice at the time if GD had informed the maintenance guys of this fact, but eventually they did. This camera/EU matching problem still occurs today! There is a back shop procedure for electronically "matching" the camera and EU, but when the Intermediate-level camera shops went away, there was no one left to do it.

Pilots would generally review their videos and figure out how many milliradians (mils) the pipper was off, and use a bootleg software program to generate new camera coefficients, with varying degrees of success. Maintenance guys were forced to use a goofy piece of support equipment that was essentially a truck mirror mounted on a metal frame that spanned the canopy sills. There is a job guide procedure to fire up the aircraft with a video tape running, slew the DTOS box around to nine different locations on the HUD while focusing on a distant object (hence the truck mirror, which allowed you to select an object at least a thousand feet behind you when placed in front of the HUD). The video was reviewed, offsets noted, and a formula was included to modify the camera coefficients based on the offsets. This too met with limited success, but some units got very good at it. This procedure is still in the job guides today, but is rarely used.

Sometime in the late eighties, somebody recognized the need for better video and for a while three commercial Sony 8mm video decks were installed in the aircraft. They didn't hold up too well; usually the little plastic door that you shoved the video tape in would break, and of course the little springs that held it shut would get lost in the avionics bay. At one time AFREP at Hill AFB had groups of these Sonys sitting on the shelf waiting for new doors. By this time the cameras were color cameras, and video looked really good and all three sources could be played together, after some manual syncing by the guys watching the videos. Video recording time was up to two hours, since commercial 8mm video tapes had more capacity.

Eventually, the triple-deck TEAC V-80 series 8 mm AVTRs were installed, and that is what most F-16s fly with today. There is a move to change to a Digital Video Recorder (DVR), which the Thunderbirds are currently using, as well as some other F-16 customers. The DVR video is of course very high quality and records quite a bit of video. Modern color cameras do not require a camera EU, so the matching problem is no longer present.

As far as data recording devices, in the early days, one in every six F-16s had a Signal Data Recorder (SDR) system installed. This was mostly for tracking information from the A/B strain gauges, but the SDR system also recorded some aircraft parameters and could be downloaded with the MLV (using Raymond tapes, remember those?) and sent to Tinker AFB or GD for analysis. From the earliest days of the F-16, there has been a FLCS seat data recorder mounted on the left of the ejection seat, which records ECA and FLCS data that could be downloaded at AIS for analysis. Some folks at GD and Lockheed became very adept at reading these memory printouts; my cubie Rick Vanek in Fort Worth, who has been looking at these things for twenty-five years, can hold them up to a light and tell you what is wrong with the airplane just by looking at the general pattern of the zeros and ones! Of course the FLCC itself, as well as some of the other LRUs in the aircraft, had some memory that could be looked at, but not by anybody on the flightline.

Next was the Crash Survivable Flight Data Recorder (CSFDR) which was a vastly improved SDR system. The CSFDR gathered lots of data from various dedicated sensors, tapped signals from gauges and panels, some MUX data, and engine data. These were originally downloaded by the MLV, and the Raymond tape was processed on the Enhanced Data Transfer Terminal (EDTT), a monster UNIX computer that consisted of two boxes that weighed 160 pounds apiece. It was a pain, but for the first time maintenance guys on the ramp could look at and analyze aircraft flight data. Primitive as it was, this system saved a lot of work chasing down elusive maintenance problems. CSFDR downloads were forwarded to GD and Tinker (OC-ALC) for analysis and airframe usage data. Some of the CSFDR data was stored on the Crash Survivable Memory Unit (CSMU) located in the tail, and it was this orange armor-plated box that investigators looked for at crash sites. Some F-16 customers would add a beacon to the CSMU to allow recovery underwater.

Today we still have CSFDR, but it has evolved for some F-16 users into the Voice and Data Recorder (VADR) system, which adds voice and cockpit audio to the data recording. Other F-16 users use the Fatigue and Air Combat Evaluation (FACE) system, which utilizes the old Block 10/15 strain gauges and SDR sensors to gather data. If your aircraft has VADR, the FACE data is sent over the MUX Bus for recording. CSFDR data is now downloaded with the EDNA or Viper MLV, and e-mailed off to Tinker. Maintenace troops can also review the data instantly after downloading the aircraft. Finally, some F-16 customers are using large capacity Data Transfer Cartridges to record video as well.

Lots of information is available now, from aircraft recording systems, the FLCS, the new anti-skid systems which record faults and events, engine downloads, Nav and Targeting pod downloads, DESSC, and even some of the LRUs like the FCC/GAC/MMC circuit cards which can be downloaded.

Hope you enjoyed this little history lesson, I have glossed over a lot to keep it short.

Best Regards,

New Block 50's also have a true 3 channel dvr in place of AVTR installed. Works just like AVTR did, but with a lot better resolution, frame by frame review and no tapes getting jammed into the decks (we need a specialist out to 098 for a stuck tape.....) . If I remember right, they record for 2 hours and the dvr bricks record audio, hud, LMFD and RMFD.

The radar page will be recorded while you have it selected on your MFD, but I have never heard of downloadable files that are persistently recorded and downloadable.

Elite 1K Joined: May 26, 2005 - 08:39 PM Posts: 1496

JoeSambor wrote:

Hope you enjoyed this little history lesson, I have glossed over a lot to keep it short.

Awesome post, thanks Joe!

JoeSambor wrote:

I just spent twenty minutes typing in a history of recording devices on the F-16, and when I submitted it, the site timed out on me and dumped my post. GRRRR! I will do it again tomorrow...

Best Regards,

Joe,

sorry for that. Some other users have experienced that as well (there's a topic in the feedback session). I haven't been able to reproduce it, but it seems to happen with very long posts.

There's a new release of the forum software coming, with many improvements to the session handling system. It should fix this bug, but (typical for open source software) there's no release date. So I'm waiting....

stefaan

Ok wow thx for this history lesson Joe Wink

Can u tell me how many hours? flighthours? can be recorded with this dvr?

what happens when the dvr is full?
is there an archive of these videos? Will these recordings be overwritten?

You're being recorded, huh?

TNX, big time, Joe.

We didn't know that you couldn't lie to the accident board until we had some crashes and found out about the recorder on the seat, heh heh.

I had forgotten that the original "home movie" tapes were some U-xxx format. My son got my LEF mishap HUD tape converted to VHS, along with two accident tapes, one of which was Roy's crash near Wildcat Mountain.

When we arrived on-scene, we had the only "home movie" capability, which was very good for debrief. Everyone else was still using actual film that had to be developed, and didn't last very long, whereas ours lasted over thirty minutes and was available soon as we found a TV and player.

later,

Gums sends ...

Dear Mr. Sambor,
I m working in airforce as an F16 avionic technical consultant, sometimes I need to analyse CSFDR Data for pupose of troubleshooting the cannot duplicate intermittent failure of F16 aircraft on ground. Especially UFM investigations, we really need to turn the CSFDR data to simulation of flight.

As you mentioned about CSFDR downloads are sometimes sent to LM Aero engineers for analyse and making flight simution below, could you be so kind to tell me about of tecknique of engineer. Which program or software are they use for making simulation? If it is posibble coud you be so kind to send my e-mail adress any document or guide of Type Data analyse?
Yours [Link pending approval]

Today we still have CSFDR, but it has evolved for some F-16 users into the Voice and Data Recorder (VADR) system, which adds voice and cockpit audio to the data recording. Other F-16 users use the Fatigue and Air Combat Evaluation (FACE) system, which utilizes the old Block 10/15 strain gauges and SDR sensors to gather data. If your aircraft has VADR, the FACE data is sent over the MUX Bus for recording. CSFDR data is now downloaded with the EDNA or Viper MLV, and e-mailed off to Tinker. Maintenace troops can also review the data instantly after downloading the aircraft. Finally, some F-16 customers are using large capacity Data Transfer Cartridges to record video as well.

Forum: F-16 Procedures

F-16 Fighting Falcon - DVR-Files