Forum: F-16 Procedures

Hey, I just saw a movie clip on YouTube with a fighter jet dropping its drop tanks, the drop tank then gains altitude and hits the wing and the fighter gets out of control. Is this something you risk when you jettison drop tanks and ordinance or is this just bad luck? I know that under the NATO campaign vs. Serbia in the early year of 1999 a lot of fighters dropped there unused ordinance in the sea near Italy. What is the procedure when a fighter returns with ordinance, and is there a deferens if you return with GBU´s, JADAMS, Mk. 82´s or AGM-65, AGM-88?

I hope that anyone can help me Wink

Tnx.

L. A. Rasmussen, Denmark.

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They bring back ordinance all the time. The weapons these days are far too expensive to throw away, and one measure (especially of carrier aircraft) is how much weight they can land with safely. There is always a load crew at the end of runway arm/dearm area to safe up the weapons stations after landing.

In the old days (WW2) aircraft routinely jettisoned bombs rather than risk landing with them.

Hope this helps.

Flight limitations for jettison of stores are contained in the stores limitations portion of the flight manuals. These limitations specify the max speed/Mach, attitude limits, g, etc that have been established through analysis and/or testing for safe jettison of stores. So, for authorized stores configurations, unless something abnormal occurs or the jettison limits are violated, the jettisoned store should not strike the aircraft. It would be useful to know if the event you mentioned occurred during flight test. What is the URL for the video clip you saw?

Forum Veteran Joined: Dec 15, 2006 - 12:28 AM Posts: 760

(This may not be accurate because I'm making assumptions and have vague memories.)

I think that mishap that you refer to was not normal operations.

If you're talking about the video clip that I think you're talking about; I think that was part of design testing and certification for new weapons. I seem to remember something to the effect that the fin design on the drop tank enabled flutter and I think it fatigued or overstressed the pylon and it broke. I don't think it was a deliberate jettison.

I don't think aircraft would be that close during a normal jettison. I think the aircraft were positioned unusually close together because I think the second aircraft was filming and or observing for any oscillations and/or damage.

I think they changed the fin design and/or loadout configuration to prevent recurrence. I think there also were air speed restrictions set.

As far as the F-16 goes, we can bring all our stores whenever we don't use them. As mentioned previously, the tanks should not have any separation issues. They test and determine the safe separation envelopes to ensure that we don't have those situations. Now if you do jettison outside those airspeed and g limits then it is an untested (and hence unknown) area.

When you come back with ordnance it is like Loader said, the load crew simply safes up the weapons and then you drive back and park. They either use them on the next sortie or they download them if they aren't needed.

As for how it works, well it depends. Most weapons simply jettison off the aircraft with explosive bolts; however, several weapons can actually launch off. These are normally missiles which launch off a rail (AGM-88 comes to mind) but this all depends on which weapons they 'cart' (meaning if they put the explosive bolts on them) and how they are gotten rid of. Emergency jettison (say for example if you have an engine problem) just drops off everything jettisonable you have on the aircraft. Selective jettison allows you do just that - selectively jettison what you choose to get rid of. You might sel jett gas tanks if you don't need them anymore on a combat mission - it would decrease drag and increase maneuverability.

a jettison may take place when anything other than normal release occures

Not to get too far away from the original post but the "explosive bolts" that were mentioned in a previous post are actually nothing like bolts at all. They are closer to a shotgun shell with just the powder. There are two kinds used; the ARD-446 (larger) and the ARD-863. They are used in various combinations. For instance fuel tanks get two -863s while a MAU-12 bomb rack gets one of each and a TER rack gets one -863 per subrack. Missiles as noted before cannot be jettisoned. However this does not apply to the AGM-65 and AGM-88 since laucher rails the LAU-117 and LAU-118 are locked into a MAU-12 bomb rack and can therefore be jettisoned as a paired unit (missile and launcher) from the bomb rack. To the same end a TER can be jettisoned from the bomb rack it is attached to.

Forum: F-16 Procedures

Procedure when a fighter returns with ordinance?