Forum: F-16 Design & Construction

Does it? I believe the canopy is made from two layers to prevent that... but is that why it has two layers?

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Active Member Joined: Apr 08, 2004 - 10:40 PM Posts: 203

Yes, Sometimes they do under certain conditions on the ground, There is a "Defog" Lever that the pilot can use to get ride of it, but during start up before ECS air is online they fog up, We just run around with a squirt bottle and wet the canopys down, that seems to get ride of it.

Yes it will fog up, but once running the ECS air does a good job defogging quickly.

ahhh ok....

Runing F-16's at Nellis during the summer with full AC makes for some annoying "fog" in the cockpit. At least it's cools down nice and fast.

They would fog up all the time at Homestead. I've even seen them taxi in with the canopy open.

Forum Veteran Joined: Jul 01, 2007 - 07:22 PM Posts: 620

They'll fog up after a long time at altitude during the descent if the air is humid enough.

I've seen them fog up in one of two ways, although I'll admit I don't fully understand the science behind it. It will either fog up on the inside or the outside of the canopy. When it fogs up on the inside (usually on descent in humid weather) the defog inside the cockpit is very effective. If that is already running you rarely have a problem with it, or at least running it on full strength clears things up pretty quick. The other 'fog' is on the outside, and it's similar to the coating of moisture on your windshield in the morning if you park your car outside. I've only seen this on the ground up through takeoff. As the viper has no windshield wipers, there is very little the pilot can do about it until the canopy fully heats up. You can taxi with your canopy open, have your chief spray the canopy with water from an H2O fire extinguisher, or try to position yourself [somewhat] in the exhaust of another viper to push the moisture away. If you can't do any of those, then you have to sit there with the defog on full power for quite a while since the canopy is very thick. Once you have enough visibility to takeoff the velocity of moving cleans off the canopy very quickly.

so there is an air conditioner system in Viper (and other fighters too)?

If by "two layers" you mean like a window on a house with two panes and a gap in between, that's not the case. It's a laminated polycarbonate about 1" thick. Has to be that to withstand this:

You gotta respect those rail-gun launched chickens fired by the Navy!

I'm curious though, how say a composite canopy, albeit at more aerodynamically deflecting angle, would hold up to such a bird strike?

[quote="geogen"]You gotta respect those rail-gun launched chickens fired by the Navy!

IFairly simple answer there, they flex bigtime. Two Cents

Forum: F-16 Design & Construction

Does the F-16 canopy ever fog up?