Forum: F-16 Design & Construction

what abuot painting parts or the ship?
that also is a pain in the butt job.
it´s noisy, dirty and when the proper facilitys aren´t available it´s also harmful

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Last edited by Mushmouth on Dec 28, 2008 - 06:47 PM; edited 1 time in total

F16NDI wrote:

510Gh0st| wrote:

Purplehaze wrote:

F16NDI wrote:

The hardest thing waiting for the crew chief to pull panels so I can do a NDI inspection.

If it needs to be done pull them yourself..... then you won't have to wait.

I agree, nothing I hate more then having to do other peoples work for them. If it is required by your job to be done so you can do your work you NEED to be able to do it, other wise I'll get to it when ever I remember about it. Same as running a Mule (or other age)for Weapons or Specs because they arent "qualified"

My 623 isn't signed off on panel removal, I have done it TDY but when I'm at home forget about it.

Bump that. You need to be signed off. We may be to too busy just to stop and remove a panel for you. You can always have a cut-trained job in your CFETP. There is nothing stopping you.

Sheet, I remember in Korea when we had stop scope the fleet because of the frog mishap, everybody and their backshops and stuff were pulling panels for us. Even pilots. So not in your 623's is not a legitimate excuse.

Mush

I create enough havoc when I find panels cracked beyond repair limits during phase, that the management won't even allow us to be cut trained, myself and the people who work for me have been out on the ramp during night shift launch and recovery to help out but have been told that we as NDI techs were not allowed to assist at all.

Nostalgia time for the old timers here.

Hardest as in "time consuming pain in the a$$" - - remember the TCTO that came out mid 80's that required replacement of the Gear Blow down handle? It did away with the kind of handle that the little white button would come off real easy - well at the bottom of that thing was a cannon plug bolted to the bulkhead by 4 tiny screws - seemed like it was 12 feet down. 2 of the screws seemed like they were installed before the skin of the aircraft? Pain!

Hardest as in "brute force required" - pulling a seized stab in the old style stab bearings.

Hardest as in "thank God they changed the requirement" - doing the "original" 50 hour inspection work cards. - for those that never had this privilidge, it was basically a phase inspection done on the flightline.

Hardest as in "do it over and over" setting up a jet on the old "outside" test cells. God the name escaped me now, but I'm talking about the ones with the the intake adapter and the exhaust suppressor - OMG I just had a Friday Night AGETS flash back!

Hardest as in "excruciating pain", getting in a hurry coming out of the nose wheel well of a block 5 or 10 and getting raked down the spine! ouch!

Told ya it would be nostalgic

Wow that is some old school stuff. Its kinda cool hearing from folks who've done it "back in the day". When we were at Tyndall in August I managed to see Houston's ANG Block 15 F-16s and man that gear is tiny. For those of you who have been to Tyndall we were parked in the new shades closet to the flight line and by ops/WESP. The F-16s were parked closet to the flight line in front of us exhausts facing us. When ever they hit us with the exhaust the Raptor guys thought the Viper dudes were dicking around with us. I told them that was just the way it was for engine starts. I always loved the reaction on my guys faces whenever they thought the worst was over and then they did an APU check Laughing

most of those dudes didnt know what the *#&^ that sound was before the heat hit em.

Davis83 wrote:

Nostalgia time for the old timers here.

Hardest as in "time consuming pain in the a$$" - - remember the TCTO that came out mid 80's that required replacement of the Gear Blow down handle? It did away with the kind of handle that the little white button would come off real easy - well at the bottom of that thing was a cannon plug bolted to the bulkhead by 4 tiny screws - seemed like it was 12 feet down. 2 of the screws seemed like they were installed before the skin of the aircraft? Pain!

Hardest as in "brute force required" - pulling a seized stab in the old style stab bearings.

Hardest as in "thank God they changed the requirement" - doing the "original" 50 hour inspection work cards. - for those that never had this privilidge, it was basically a phase inspection done on the flightline.

Hardest as in "do it over and over" setting up a jet on the old "outside" test cells. God the name escaped me now, but I'm talking about the ones with the the intake adapter and the exhaust suppressor - OMG I just had a Friday Night AGETS flash back!

Hardest as in "excruciating pain", getting in a hurry coming out of the nose wheel well of a block 5 or 10 and getting raked down the spine! ouch!

Told ya it would be nostalgic

Wow that puts me in my young 8 year place! I was an ESS test set not to long ago and thought I was in back in nam. Nowadays you just hook up the Capree, download the DESSC, chage the part it says, and hope it was right, which its right 80% of the time. It will at least get you in the ball park. We are so spoiled now. I do agree most cockpit work sucks.

TimmayMan wrote:

Nowadays you just hook up the Capree, download the DESSC, chage the part it says, and hope it was right, which its right 80% of the time. It will at least get you in the ball park. We are so spoiled now. I do agree most cockpit work sucks.

Man, I never even knew about the Capree or DESSC download software until I went to Korea. Before I left Shaw, they sent a couple of guys to Nellis to get training on the program but could remember squat when they got back. But we still didn't have the programyet. But in Korea, it was funny watching some of the Crew Dawg run to it when they had a JFS problem. Give me the 80FI or the TDEU any day, I'll ran circles around that Capree. lol.

Oh, don't let me bring the dinosaur box out!! LMAO

Yeah I still remember my way around a TDEU and I can shoot my own wires. It gives you a bit more satisfaction when you find a fix that way. But on the flip side I like jets running into less start problems with DESSCs premenately installed. Now if these PWs didn't have to be motored for half an hour. Evil or Very Mad

Hardest part about working on the F-16?

Doing that safety wire TCTO on the speed brake hydraulic tubing?
Whoever thunk that one up needs to be strung up with safety wire! Doh

I forgot where I saw it but I think it was in the GS that said Safe-T cable was a suitable sub for safetywire except for on weapons components. I know we had a lot of cannon jets that had the speedbrake actuator mount bolts with safe-t cable.

im sure its the same on any airframe an base you work, but how bout the moc. there was this one time i got a call for a jet out on baker 12. so i hop in the truck drive to baker 12 an no jet. so i drive up an down the line look in all the damn hangers an no jet. so i call moc an ask where theyre hiding the jet. of course they say the jets a few thousand miles away in the sandbox. best part is when they ask who called me for the job an all i can say is it was them. (and that guy im talking to at that) didnt hear from them the rest of the night. ive gotten numerous calls for write ups on jets in depot or cross country at an airshow.

Rudder pedals, MEC (on aircraft-no engine rollback!) and EPU (C/D models) are some of my less than desirable components to remove.

Another recent one we just did; Inlet heater strut! It's not too bad to remove itself, it's all the crap that needs to come out under 2202 and 2101, not to mention the scraping and prying corrsion and sh*t-metal have to do.

Mike Valdez; USAF Retired

TimmayMan wrote:

yep I've play the inlet strut game too and they aren't easy. It seemed like the top bolt in the avionics bay went on and on forever. 8 hours is good time at least compared to when I did one in about 10-11ish hours. Canning it didn't make it any better on top of the fact that the lil dayshifter that kept finding them bad on the ramp didn't even do any of them.

Canned an inlet heater strut? Who approved that asinine can??? Here I thought canning an EPU was BS, LOL…

It's more than a 10 hour job, as the recovery alone can take a day or two, pending the inlet coating and paint cue times. Also, did your unit already have that special spline tool when you did it, or had to have it fabricated? Just about every 16 base I was at did not have one; that is not until they had a inlet strut change.

Those struts can easily be shot down though, as no dents or cracks are allowed.

Mike Valdez; USAF Retired

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

Lurch wrote:

Quote:

stutler
Posted: Oct 23, 2006 - 04:04 PM

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I would have to say changing out a MEC when the motor is still in tends to suck. Also had to change out the (W-6 or 8 cable) cant remember but on the GE110. That is ok when the motor is out but out on the ramp at night trying to route it through gives you a major headache and you tend to use every cuss word there is and make a few up as you go. Lurch you probably remember when we did that on 242 at TJ.

I do remember that. I think we all agreed that if we had to do that again, we would roll the engine back on the install trailer and then R&R it.

How about when they made you cann a throttle cable? What a pain in the a$$! Then while you were doing the job realizing you would have to do it all over again when the new cable issued for the cann jet! Two pains for the price of one! Especially if someone doesn't put on the adapter to pull feed line through and you have to fish it through each and every grommet from the C/P to the control rack!! Fun times! Bang Head

The Throttle cable can be a tedious job, but isn’t that bad, though canning would be quite asinine. It's when some bone-head forgets to drag leader line through when the old cable is removed, that the job becomes a major beeee-yatch! Yeah, been through that mess before at the Kun.... never again!

Mike Valdez; USAF Retired.