Forum: F-16 News

Yesterday or today, USAF released the following stand-alone news photos:

Original photo caption: F-16 Fighting Falcons from Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, are ready for their first mission against the Romanian air force's MiG 21 Lancers at Exercise Viper Lance 2006 at Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base, Romania, on Aug. 9. This is the first time F-16 crews have trained in Romania.

Hi-res version:
http://www.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/ ... 7S-002.jpg

Note: Clearly visible are (from left to right): 90-0831 (Block 50B), 91-0343 (Block 50C) and 90-0827 (Block 50B) - all from the 22nd FS "Stingers". Anyone who can identify the different pods on "827" and on the unidentified aircraft in the background? Are they really on station 5R? If, yes - what´s the pylon type?

Original photo caption: Senior Airman Steven Weidman marshals an F-16 Fighting Falcon before its first mission against the Romanian Air Force's MiG 21 Lancers at Exercise Viper Lance 2006 at Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base, Romania, on Aug. 9. This is the first time F-16 crews have trained in Romania. Airman Weidman is a crew chief with the 22nd Expeditionary Fighter Squadron. The F-16 is from Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany.

Hi-res version:
http://www.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/ ... 7S-004.jpg

Note: 91-0352 (Block 50C) in the foreground, 90-0833 (Block 50B) in the middle, 91-0336 (Block 50B) at right - also all from the 22nd FS "Stingers".

(same caption) (All three USAF photos by Senior Airman Eydie Sakura)

Hi-res version:
http://www.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/ ... 7S-003.jpg

Source link:
http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123024882

Final note: Currently, there´s no related news story on USAFE´s public main website or in Spangdahlem´s weekly base newspaper "Eifel Times". On the web, I only found a news article, published by "Air Force Times" and also some Romanian news articles:

http://www.airforcetimes.com/story.php? ... 011589.php

http://www.atitudinea.ro/articole/Eveni ... o-american

http://www.rgnpress.ro/content/view/16036//

http://www.gandul.info/2006-08-08/actua ... a_dobrogea

According to "Air Force Times" (which published an AP news), 14 F-16s are involved. According to the Romanian sources, the exercise is held from August 9 to 25, 2006.

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Too bad the Fighting Hawks didn't get to go....go 23 FS

In that first pic, 831 and 343 are loaded with LANTIRN while 827 and the one in the background are loaded with HTS. They are loaded on 5R and it looks like 827 has a cover placed over the front of its HTS since it is parked there.

Thank you for pod identification, Iron_Eagle! And here´s a link to a related brand-new story from "Stars and Stripes" ("Spangdahlem airmen off to Romania for exercise"): http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?sec ... icle=39210 (This news story was not online during my first search routine.)

Quote from the mentioned article from "Stars and Stripes", third paragraph: "opportunity to train with other nations in the former Soviet state"
WTF? Romania was never part of the Soviet Union.
It looks like the incompetent who wrote this never bothered to do a little research about the subject of his article - makes you wonder if there aren't other mistakes in it. Shame.

It was a Warsaw Pact member....they did what they were told...no different.

You are absolutely right, RoAF! Sorry, but I overlooked that detail by my "hot" posting. It sounds really like a bad joke. But, so I think, all other facts - related to the 22nd FS - should be O.K. Background info for our American users: If I remember right, the former Soviet Union was a state which consisted of subordinated Soviet Republics (in contrast to the USA).

Purplehaze wrote:

Quote:

It was a Warsaw Pact member....they did what they were told...no different.

BS. We didn't always do what we were told by the Soviets. FYI, we didn't participate in the Soviet-led WP invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. You have no idea how close we came to be "punished" (invaded) for that. One more thing: Romania was the only Warsaw Pact country which didn't have any Soviet troops stationed in the country since 1958.

I don't expect everybody to know about this little country, but if you don't know anything about it, don't say. You have no idea how much we hated the Soviets.

, RoAF! You are absolutely right!

I was there, that trip was fantastic. The people are so very nice, so humble. The things I saw there spoke of a very deep poverty, and a desire to try and get out of it. The Romanian AF guys I met were very friendly, and happy to talk with us. Our accommodations were top notch, and the food I had was pretty good too. This trip in comparison to Verde was WAY better. Here are a couple photos. The one of the burner run, you can see we used a cable to run again, and the other you can see a couple MIGs in the background.

edit, thats 414 with migs in the background. sorry.

The jet all the way in the back is A1406

Welcome to the forums, turbospec! With A1406, you mean the tail number of the "spotted" MiG-29?

Give that Mig some air in that right main!!!! Neutral

Let's have a word with that Crew Chief!!!!

JJ wrote:

Quote:

With A1406, you mean the tail number of the "spotted" MiG-29?

No way! Our Fulcrums had 2 digit numbers (the so-called bort number)
Lurch wrote:

Quote:

Let's have a word with that Crew Chief!!!!

There is no crew chief. Romanian MiG-29s were grounded in autumn 2002 pending overhaul after exhausting the initial time resource. They never got the overhaul and were officially retired from use as of January 2003.

You will see a lot of USAF guys refer to their jets as A0831, A0827, etc. even though the real tail number is 90-0831 or 90-0827. The computer system that we reported maintenance data into used the letter as a prefix, regardless of what the real tail number was.

All Spang jets are Block 50 Mini-D or later (I was there when they did the conversion).

Joe Sambor
22 FS 1994-1996

Best Regards,

Forum: F-16 News

Exercise Viper Lance 2006 in Romania