Forum: F-16 Procedures

Hi all,

Anyone of you encounter excessive misting in the cockpit before? What could be the cause? We did a lot of ops check like auto temp to verify cockpit temp, anti ice mod valve ops check to see twsd discharge temp, anti-ice control set to see out water separator pressure and all is good. is there anymore ops check that I have missed out?

Please advice,
thanks

F-16.net Sponsor

If you are talking about a real jet, you don't need to ask that question in here...

There is a phenomenon that occurs due to moisture content in air masses that have different temperatures. Hot air, when compared to colder air, is able to hold more moisture before it condenses. If warmer air is at its very limit (this is called the dewpoint), and then subsequently cools, you will have condensation. Now the misting (condensation) in the cockpit can be caused on the ground from operating in a humid environment and applying cool air through the environmental control system, or perhaps operating in a very cold environment at higher altitudes, and then descending in altitude into a warm air mass.

But the real question to answer here is who is the dumbass who wrote the jet up.... Rolling Eyes

[quote="IraF16"]There is a phenomenon that occurs due to moisture content in air masses that have different temperatures. Hot air, when compared to colder air, is able to hold more moisture before it condenses. If warmer air is at its very limit (this is called the dewpoint), and then subsequently cools, you will have condensation. Now the misting (condensation) in the cockpit can be caused on the ground from operating in a humid environment and applying cool air through the environmental control system, or perhaps operating in a very cold environment at higher altitudes, and then descending in altitude into a warm air mass.

But the real question to answer here is who is the dumbass who wrote the jet up.... Rolling Eyes

[/quote]

Its a problem that we had on ground. We did more checks yest and changed out some components suspected of bring the culprit but the misting still lingers around. Sad

so as for me I really got no idea what could be wrong with the system since not all our jets are having the problems which seems to the whole world that it is a genuine problem.

anyone to help me on this???

Did you trying the water sock yet?

sparkchaser wrote:

Did you trying the water sock yet?

you mean the water separator coalescer? yup, changed. actually I'm not here to ask for how to solve the problem but what could be the cause...from reason like due to humidity, the air might be moist thus causing the missting problem. Well basically over at my country, the ECS is always is problem. We get problems like excessive moisture etc.

Forum Veteran Joined: Jul 01, 2007 - 07:22 PM Posts: 605

ECS misting is a common issue six months of the year in Korea. There were numerous times we had to taxi with the canopy up just to see and I even had to land once with the misting obscuring everything below the bottom half of the HUD. Just tell your pilots to suck it up and DBAP.

This may or may not help:

Did you try to blow out the system?

Most jets generally have a similar ECS design. I haven't flown the F-16
in very humid conditions yet, but I have in the A-10 and T-38. Sometimes
there is just a lot of water in the system. In the T-38's and A-10's case, if
you turn the temp to full hot with the engine run up for 30-45 sec, all sorts
of moisture gets spit out if it is waterlogged. Once the water subsides, and it
will, the ECS is good to go. I don't know if this will work on the F-16, but that's
the first thing I'll do if flying and encounter this problem.

bandito wrote:

This may or may not help:

Did you try to blow out the system?

Most jets generally have a similar ECS design. I haven't flown the F-16
in very humid conditions yet, but I have in the A-10 and T-38. Sometimes
there is just a lot of water in the system. In the T-38's and A-10's case, if
you turn the temp to full hot with the engine run up for 30-45 sec, all sorts
of moisture gets spit out if it is waterlogged. Once the water subsides, and it
will, the ECS is good to go. I don't know if this will work on the F-16, but that's
the first thing I'll do if flying and encounter this problem.

Thanks bro, we tried this method. Initially, the water get spat out however after shutting down the -60 and resting for awhile, the water came back. we tried explaining to the pilots that due to humidity, ECS gets misty however they do not want to accept thus we just got to solve the issue.

Forum Veteran Joined: Jul 01, 2007 - 07:22 PM Posts: 605

Tell them it happens to all the Vipers and the real pilots just deal with it. That'll get them fired up.

Enthusiast Joined: Sep 26, 2006 - 10:26 PM Posts: 55

There are two things to try. You can replace with a high humidity sock, we use at Misawa during peak humidity months. NSN is in Fed Log to order. You can also hookup C-10 air, increase temp on C-10 to 20 deg C above ambient with power off for 15 min. Should dry the system out pretty good.

These days, with all the information presented inside the cockpit and considering how little a fighter pilot has to actually look outside the cockpit anyway, I’m not so sure an occasional fogged up canopy is that big of a deal.

I could see, however, where the humidity could present a potential problem as far as some of the pilots' eyeliner.

OL

simonlwa wrote:

Hi all,

Anyone of you encounter excessive misting in the cockpit before? What could be the cause? We did a lot of ops check like auto temp to verify cockpit temp, anti ice mod valve ops check to see twsd discharge temp, anti-ice control set to see out water separator pressure and all is good. is there anymore ops check that I have missed out?

Please advice,
thanks

This is a known issue for F-16's world wide. I work for a company that has developed a fix for the moisture in the cockpit. If you would provide your email in this thread I will contact you and let you know about the fix.

Quote:

IraF16 wrote:

There is a phenomenon that occurs due to moisture content in air masses that have different temperatures. Hot air, when compared to colder air, is able to hold more moisture before it condenses. If warmer air is at its very limit (this is called the dewpoint), and then subsequently cools, you will have condensation. Now the misting (condensation) in the cockpit can be caused on the ground from operating in a humid environment and applying cool air through the environmental control system, or perhaps operating in a very cold environment at higher altitudes, and then descending in altitude into a warm air mass.

But the real question to answer here is who is the dumbass who wrote the jet up....

Its a problem that we had on ground. We did more checks yest and changed out some components suspected of bring the culprit but the misting still lingers around. so as for me I really got no idea what could be wrong with the system since not all our jets are having the problems which seems to the whole world that it is a genuine problem.

My apologies for my sarcasm. I have never seen this problem in 20 years except for the misting that you get from the situations I described. It looks like you got the info you were looking for. I am surprised you had to turn to this forum to get it. Good luck in your troubleshooting. Cheers

Forum: F-16 Procedures

Excessive misting in the cockpit