There is an international fighter jet coalition being forged by the UK and the Netherlands at the Council of Europe summit in Iceland to provide Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets.
On Saturday morning May 6, a "Wolf Pack" F-16C crashed in a farming area near Osan Air Base. Fortunately the pilot was able to safely eject and nobody got wounded.
An autonomous F-16 completed 17 hours of flight testing in December, including advanced fighter maneuvers and beyond-visual-range engagements. The AI algorithm controlling the jet was developed by DARPA's Air Combat Evolution (ACE) program.
- The first F-16 Block 70 takes to the skies
- Eielson begins updates to its F-16 fleet
- Canada finalizes deal to acquire 88 F-35s
- Contract for production and delivery of up to 398 F-35s finalized
- F-35B crash-lands in Fort Worth, TX - pilot ejected
- Marine Corps F-35A damaged after emergency landing at Okinawa
- First new-built block 70 F-16 for Bahrain rolled out at Greenville
F-16 fleet - Jun 6, 2023 | |
Fleet overview:
scrapped: 204
write-off: 620
preserved: 158
stored: 580
instructional: 118
on order: 136
active: 2796
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Changes '22/'23:
Fleet adds: 1
Fleet drop: 89
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See detailed fleet reports |
The AFTI/F-16 is used in flight trials demonstrating an Automatic Air Collision Avoidance System (Auto ACAS)
(Read more...)
Never let an airplane take you somewhere your brain didn't get to five minutes earlier.
Landed with failed leading edge flap
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![]() F-16A Block 5
In Lt. Col. Pat "Gums" McAdoo's words:
"I was the first Viper pilot to successfully land the thing with a failed leading edge flap. Was early spring/late winter 1982. Maybe 20 March, tail number 044, as that log entry shows 0.3 hours and a precision approach. Weather was not ll that keen. Have the HUD video in VHS format." "Maintenance troops had failed to insert a 'keeper' bolt that is supposed to keep the flap drive tubes from slipping apart. It's like a cotter key on a bolt. The flap drive motor has a spline gear on it and the drive tube has gear teeth that match up. So the drive tube gradually slipped out from the motor spline gear. When I rotated, the drive tube slid all the way out and the leading edge flap went up until the wing upper surface stopped it. Maybe 50-60 degrees. Another troop had his fail a few months later and the flap went to 90 degrees because he was going a lot faster when the drive tube failed. So I was at 160 knots and holding full left stick. Post-flight data revealed that I had about one pound of control authority for banking left. So I was holding 15-16 pounds of left stick the whole time. " "I stayed at 170-180 knots, as I could still maintain control and wasn't gonna play Chuck Yeager more than I had to. Nevertheless, I was the first troop to fly the thing in that configuration, so everything was new territory. Bunted over to get opposite flap 2 degrees up and locked the flaps( LEF's go up when bunting over, or when weight is on wheels). I now had both LEF's up, and it seemed to help with the roll authority. Additionally, that other flap wasn't gonna be moving all over the place, and this kept things a little more predictable. " "Came around on the ILS and landed in one helluva crab. The drag was so great that I almost landed short when I pulled off the power. As I was coming in a lot hotter than normal, I thought I would land long. heh heh, sucker dropped like a rock and I was able to make a mid-field turn off." Exact date of this mishap is not known, but did happen in 1982. |
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Callsign "Grip"
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6,000 Hrs 2008-05-02 |
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5,000 Hrs 2021-09-21 |
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4,000 Hrs 2022-07-08 |
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3,000 Hrs 2023-03-16 |
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2,000 Hrs 2020-07-00 |
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1,000 Hrs 2022-01-26 |
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More F-16 Pilots profiles |
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SSgt Benjamin Hess (added: 5 Jun 2023)
- 77 FS | 36 FS | 309 FS
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SSgt Benjamin Hess (added: 31 Mar 2021)
- 309 FS
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SMSgt. Dong Wook Lee (added: 19 Jan 2008)
- 157 FS | 121 FS | 121 FS
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TSgt. Eric Maxwell (added: 19 Jul 2013)
- 61 FS | 308 FS | 80 FS | 480 FS | 311 FS | 64 AGRS | 64 AGRS
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SrA. Zachary King (added: 3 May 2023)
- 57 FW | 57 FW