Forum: F-16 Armament & Stores

Regular User Joined: Dec 13, 2005 Posts: 48

Belshanar ,
Some SUU 20s were changed to SUU 5003 in order to fire CRV-7 rockets, and they've been firing fairly good.
Cheers

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Newbie Joined: Aug 26, 2006 Posts: 1 Status: Offline

We fly rockets here at Nellis every couple of months for the weapons school. I don't see many hung rockets on landing either. I have also never heard the pilots saying they had and problems (ie: FOD issues) when fireing them.

Depending on missions, Vipers at Balad AB, Iraq, also carries the LAU-131 rocket launcher. In a brand-new "Red Tail Flyer" news story, 332nd AEW PA reported just yesterday: "The jets typically take off with AIM-120 missiles, GBU-12 and GBU-38 bombs, 20mm high explosive ammunition, flares and, depending on mission needs, 2.75-inch rockets."

"This is the most rewarding thing I've done in my career so far," the source quoted Senior Airman Jean Jackson, 332nd Expeditionary Maintenance Squadron Armament Flight. "I've been able to work on equipment here I probably would never have seen back home, like the LAU-131 rocket launcher...", she added.

Associated photo and a related shot from July 2006:

Hi-res versions:
http://www.balad.afnews.af.mil/shared/m ... 8S-109.JPG
http://www.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/ ... 7O-021.JPG

Thats an LAU-68 7-shot, while the LAU-131 is 19-shot.
I think 31FW is/was flying with the same launchers on one side while carrying GBU-12`s on the other. Sounds like a killer combination if you ask me Very Happy

Regular User Joined: Dec 13, 2005 Posts: 48

Salute,
Thank you f16specialist I'm glad you people have been firing rockets without major problems.
I was also glad to see those pics from Balad, i just wish to have some info about CRV 7 rockets.
Cheers

I worked a ton of 2.75 rockets in Qatar a few years ago. I wasn't ever really scared of them, just have to have a respect for them. When I was TDY to Nellis last year, an A-10 taking off had an inadvertant firing of a 2.75 rocket towards Las Vegas Motorspeedway while we were out on the line. That was actually pretty sweet, a little Combat Hammer on accident.

ammo dude,

Sorry I missed that one Smile

. I just hope nobody was hurt Shocked

!

Regular User Joined: Dec 13, 2005 Posts: 48

We' ve been firing few rockets, however, it's common to have a "small" percentage of hung rockets, and gents I assure you that we feel very uncomfortable with Hung Rockets.

We loaded SUU-20's and LAU-5003, CRV's on F-16A/B's back in '94-95.

During live practice shooting each pilot fired off 2-4 CRV's from SUU-20's each hop and we flew 3 hops pr day pr plane for 4 weeks.

Two weeks fireing CRV's and the last two weeks for live gun pratice on both air targets aswell as ground targets.

The rocket praktice was carried way out in a safe area about 20 nm off shore. A fishing boat towed a target on a 1500 feet long line.

For a firepower demo 3 vipers was loaded with 6x LAU-5003 each on TER's on stations 3 and 7, fully laiden with live CRV's (with armour piecring rounds if I remember correctly, they where red. the standard training heads where blue)

I always hated removing the safty pin on the SUU's. even more so than arming AIM-9L. I always kept in mind that one little volt in the wrong place could set off the whole POS in my face..

Regular User Joined: Dec 13, 2005 Posts: 48

[quote="Scanor"]We loaded SUU-20 Salute

That's a good piece of information, it's nice to know of that and be aware.
Thank you very much.
Cheers

mckenzy7 wrote:

Functional check it and stray voltage check, I recently put 10 SUU-20 back into service for firing rockets, this is the most dangerous thing in the the world, thats why the Army is still one of the few who do it, take every procaution, or you will have an incident like the Forrstal on your hands.

I was on a team that went to Jordan (Azraq), in the late 90's when the Jordanians first got their f-16's, they were trying to fix, aka, rewire SUU-20 pods without tech data. I advised them against this as the SUU-20 was an unstable platform for 2.75 rockets. The LAU pods are the much safer way to fire rockets on the 16.

csgn Misty AFAC from Aviano used assymetric 2xLAU68/2xGBU-12 loads in 1999 over Kosovo.

Lajes

I understand that the Navy HH-60 CSAR guys much prefer rockets to Hellfire missiles. (yes, they mount hellfires on Navy Helos)

Salute!

Very good posts here from the troops that actually have to load and "unload" those pesky RX.

I fired lottsa rocks back when the Earth was still cooling, and they were neat, I tell ya.

Here's the deal:

- Tactical requirements have changed since the early 90's or late 80's.
- RX are great for area CAS missions when the bad guys are trying to mass for an attack on the good guys. They also work well against armor if you fire a whole pod of the suckers ( the things are not good for "plinking") when you can see the whites of their eyes, heh heh.
- the CRV-7 doofers are super, according to the folks I worked with that had actually fired them.
- I fired many RX in the A-7D and F-16 using the computed CCIP mode. Much more accurate than when I hosed them off in the A-37 with its iron sight.
- The Willy Pete doofers still have a role for CAS if the Viper is a Fast Fac and has to mark a tgt for the cosmic stuff to hit. Youse guys have to realize that we can't always provide perfect GPS coordinates or have a handy laser designator for the strike dudes to use.

later...

Elite Joined: Jan 14, 2004 Posts: 2444 Status: Offline

Gums, I've heard of rockets colliding when salvoed. Caused a potential problem for the shooter. Do you know of any instances like this?

Forum: F-16 Armament & Stores

F-16s firing rockets