Forum: F-16 News

Code3 wrote:

reddawg2583 wrote:

I find myself entertained that he is so annoyed at having to brake ride back into the PAS (without being asked!). Cry me a river... Admittedly that had to have been an uncomfortably loooooong flight, but the jobs not done till it's done.

Seriously? The job was done...riding brakes need not be done by the pilot, in fact it is most often done by maintainers.

Unless you've flown similar missions, I would say your opinion is mostly irrelevant. It seems much more logical to have the maintainer ride the brakes in this case than the pilot who hasn't been able to move for 13.5 hours. Heaven forbid someone has to climb up a ladder and sit in a seat for two minutes so a guy who's just logged the longest Viper mission in history can take a load off.

Somehow we have lost perspective on the roles of pilots (aircrew) and maintainers in all being "airmen". These pilots have hung it out there for an exorbitantly long period of time, with a brain drain that would challenge some of the best in figuring out ROE, fuels, station time, etc. Not to mention taking on enemy fire. I don't think the flightline realizes what pilots (aircrew) do anymore.

This may be part of the continuing evolution of our roles, but why do you think pilots make sure crewchief/flightline is taken care of? I can't imagine any flightline airmen waiting in the hot sun for hours on end, so why should the flightline think operators can withstand riding the brakes after such a long sortie?

We have to take care of each other as airmen, but we must realize what roles we are playing.

Here's your jet back chief!

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I still think the regular F-16XL looks better than the above impression with the planform wings. Now if the CFTs were part of the overall F-16XL proposal back when it was competing with the Strike Eagle, then things might be different.

While you can get up and move around in a bomber the B-36 could fly up to 40 hours and I believe the longest B-52 mission was 45 hours. SR-71 missions to the Mideast from CONUS were over 11 hours but the longest single engine flights are probably in the U-2 which can hit 14 hours. Hats off for 13 hours in a Viper.

The F-16XL would have still burned the same (if not more) amount of fuel, just not had to do as many pit stops.

Forum: F-16 News

Is this the longest combat sortie in history?