by 1st Lt. Adrienne Stahl
332nd Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron
7/29/2006 - BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq -- Two F-16 Fighting Falcons assigned to the 421st Expeditionary Fighter Squadron passed 6,000 flying hours during two recent Operation Iraqi Freedom combat missions over Iraq.
Flown by Lt. Col. Mark Cline, 421st EFS commander, and Capt. Nick Edwards, aircraft numbers 88-0471 and 88-0428 were the first Block 40 F-16s to achieve this milestone in combat.
This accomplishment is rare, officials said. Only one other Block 40 F-16 in the Air Force inventory has reached the 6,000 flying-hour mark.
Designers of the F-16 forecasted the aircraft design life to be 8,000 flying hours, according to Lockheed Martin officials. However, Air Force officials expect the F-16 to be in service beyond the year 2020, taking the jets beyond 8,000 flight hours.
Aircraft 88-0428 was accepted into service in September 1989 and aircraft 88-0471 was accepted in January 1990 and assigned to the 388th Fighter Wing at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, ever since. Both were deployed in support of Operation Desert Storm, four times in support of Operation Southern Watch and three times in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Hi, blk40crewdawg! I already posted the full 332nd AEW PA news story (first published in the latest issue of Balad ABīs base newspaper "Red Tail Flyer") on July 28 in my topic "Balad Air Base Deployment Update". One day later, I posted that the story meanwhile is also available as html file: http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123024280
I also send the news link to the F-16.net staff for a possible F-16 news, but I got no feedback and no related news was posted.
The background info, given by AfterburnerDecalsScott, is also from this very interesting 332nd AEW PA news article.
Anyone who can tell me the serial number of the first Block 40 Viper which has reached the 6,000 flying-hour mark?
Anyone who can tell me the serial number of the first Block 40 Viper which has reached the 6,000 flying-hour mark?
The serial of the first block 40 was <a href="f-16_fighting_falcon_airframe-2385.html">#87-0359</a>. It is mentioned in the F-16.net article: <a href="news_article1861.html">Block 40 aircraft reaches 6,000 hours</a> by Jon.
Meathook
Posted: Aug 08, 2006 - 06:21 PM
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Joined: May 13, 2004
Posts: 2945
Location: Utah
A dozen (12) other aircraft are very close to reaching 5000 hours too, I guess the MLU's and such really do work.
I do have it but because it is considered a "third country disclosure issue", I am not at liberty to discuss it without their written consent. I hope you understand....sorry, I can't comply with that request.
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, akruse21!
I do have it but because it is considered a "third country disclosure issue", I am not at liberty to discuss it without their written consent. I hope you understand....sorry, I can't comply with that request.