F-16 drag chute procedures

Hey there everyone ! I was reading the Indonesian F-16 take off with brakechute thread and it got me thinking about the procedures and limitations that go into using this piece of equipment. The drag chute was also discussed in the Drag chutes - standard issue on F-16s? thread, but I didn't find what I was looking for.

I have a couple of questions to start with. If the chute is deployed and the pilot selects zone 5 (on takeoff for example), wouldn't the line(s) connecting the chute to the jet be severely compromised and possibly fail due to the heat?

What's the max speed for chute deployment? Also, what would happen if a pilot accidentally deployed the chute at Mach many - would it just rip the chute apart, would it damage the airframe, or both?

Last, but certainly not least, how much of a pain is it to deal with packing and maintaining the chute? I figure it has to be a pain in wet and cold weather, but is it a real chore to deal with when it's dry?

Sorry for so many questions in one post, but I'm just full of 'em tonight . THanks in advance !

Hello Parrothead

The Royal Norwegian Air Force was the first air force to incorporate the drag chute, mainly to shorten the landing run on icy runways during our long and cold winters. As my colleagues in the RNoAF use the chute on practically every landing, I suppose it can't be too big a hassle to pack it.

Also I believe it's done in hangars. What I do know is that the RNoAF Viper drivers have their own technic on blowing the used chute of the runway with the jetwash in order to clear the runway for the next man comming in to land.

Regarding your other technical questions, I'll leave those to the crews that actually works on the Vipers.

Most bases have a chute shop. It is a tall buliding where they hang them to dry with the risers at the bottom so the chute dries in it's natural shape. It can take a day or two if they are wet so they always have extras.

Purplehaze

Check out this picture. It shows one chute lying on the side of the runway while the RNoAF 659's (F-16A block 15) chute has just been released and its strap is still in the air. The shadow you see in the bottom middle of the picture is a crew chief standing by just in case the ejection of the chute is not perfectly pushed to the side of the runway.

Thanks for the great info and pics guys !!! I'll be watching to see what else I can find out. Any idea what happens if the chute is deployed at high speed like mach 1.5?

in a nutshell: now you see it, now you don't

Thanks !

Parrothead,

Regarding your questions about the operational limitations of the dragchute I have some numbers here for you:

Min speed: 90kts
Max speed: 170

Inside the assembly there is a ring connecting the parachute to the airframe, this ring should break at about 190kts disconnecting the parachute from the airframe, to prevent damaging it at higher speeds. So selecting AB with a deployed drag chute will just blow it off.

We, RNLAF, barely use the drag chute except for emergency situations and high GW landings.

Hope this answers your questions!

Greetz

As far as a crew chief is concerned...dealing with chutes is a pretty easy task. Removing and installing the pack into the jet only takes a minute, and you can train anyone to do it. Just slide it in the hole, insert the main pin thru the side panels, insert lanyard and then remove the safety pin (reverse to take it out). TA usually picks up the chute after it is deployed, we just picked them up when they were re-packed, ready to install in another ACFT.

In 1990 there where a few episodes in Norway with chutes comming off in flight. There were some concern about this, but handling the aircraft was no problem. I understand there was just a "snapp" in the aircraft as the chute went off. I’m sure they found out of this, as i newer heard about this later.

These episodes were close to the airport, subsonic. The concern was what if it came off at 130 kn. short finale, and secondary what if a RNoAF HAD to land on one of Norway’s many 800 meters runways, with the chute off by accident. (i understand there is no way landing at 800 meters "quickly" without using chute. Many of the 800 m. rw have very short overrun, close to the sea.)

Espenjoh.

Wow ! Thanks for all the info even this long after the question was asked!

Sounds fairly simple to deal with 'em. I was figuring they might have to repack and reinstall right then and there, but if you've got a dedicated shop...

I can understand the issues if you're on short final and the thing comes out at a low enough speed to stay attached ! I can only imagine... Glad they got it fixed !

parrothead wrote:Thanks for the great info and pics guys !!! I'll be watching to see what else I can find out. Any idea what happens if the chute is deployed at high speed like mach 1.5?

I had one jet coming back with just that happened, only the speed was reportedly about mach 0.8 or so. the pilot was pulling out of a dive during a BFM exercise when the chute for some reason was deployed.

He said he felt a "nudge", and that was it. he had no warnings on his panels, but his wingman almost hit the chute as he was on his tail and "in for the kill".

After completing pullout he called "knock it off" and returned to base. While in-route to base wingman went in close to check for damage, but did't see anything other than that the chute was missing. Both jets landed safely and we had a "deep freeze" on our jet.

My crewchief and I examined the dragshutehousing and found that the bolt that holds the chute in place was missing as it had probably broken when the chute was deployed. However the actuaterwire did not show any sign of damage so we guessed that the one that installed the chute did not insert it properly and it came off during flight and deployed the dragchute.

The jet was sent to the hangar for repair and was returned to flight status after a cupple of days.

(lucky it was not the jet I usually serviced so it wasn't me that had goofed )

As for installing a dragshute that's normally quite easy as long as the one packing the thing has done his job.. I have had a few times when it has been to hard packed and the "dragchute-bag" looked like a football.. And I've had to wrestle with it for some time. But with a normally packed chute I have a personal best of 41 seconds on installing it.

The chute has to be repaced every 10 days or so. So if it has not been used by then we ask the pilot to use it when he lands, so we don't need to pull it out and ship it off..

Have you ever seen what happens when a chute is packed wet and then installed? I watched it on a F-4 and it reallys needs the help, it was frozen solid and deployed as a big block of ice. Not a pretty sight watching a F-4 try to stop without the chute.

Purple

I never experianced it first hand, but was told storys about it happening. Espesially at wintertime. I was told that more often then not an F-16 trying to land on an icy runway with crosswind without a chute would be like landing Bambi on ice..

What I have seen is that the dragshute did not deploy at all, all that came out was the little shute that was supposed to pull out the main one. How ever this was on a clean rwa at summertime during short field training.
We where out on a small field in the Lofoten Islands training short field landings on a 800 meter runway. Usually with a dragchute that's not a problem. But without a chute he had to pull up and fly to the nearest civil airport with a long enough runway. Luckely the Andoya airbase was just a few minutes flying away so he made a safe landing there. A crew was flown to the base and after an inspection and after trying highspeed taxi deploy of 2 chutes then installed a third one and the jet was flown to back to our base at Bodo for examination and repair.