F-16 Fighting Falcon News

May 13, 2005 (by Jennifer H. Svan) - When Col. Michael Boera touched his F-16 to the tarmac Wednesday afternoon and shut down the engine, he couldn't help but smile. A process that began 15 months ago, when Boera led a group of four Misawa F-16s across the Pacific Ocean to Hill Air Force Base Depot, Utah, had come full circle.
Boera flew home in one of the last four F-16s from Misawa to undergo the Common Configuration Implementation Program, or CCIP, a series of high-tech, computer-driven upgrades that have been called the most significant avionic modifications to the F-16 since its 1979 Air Force inception.

"To get them all done, 40 in all... is a huge deal" for Misawa, Boera said. "With all the inspections the fighter wing went through... getting through CCIP was the single greatest accomplishment."

The last four fighters to get the CCIP boost, all from the 14th Fighter Squadron, have left Hill, Boera said. The group was to arrive together Tuesday after leaving the depot May 7, but engine trouble delayed two at Travis Air Force Base, Calif. The jets are fixed and due back in the next few days, said Boera, who landed Wednesday with 35th Fighter Wing Vice Commander Col. Don Weckhorst.

Rotating Misawa's entire fighter fleet back to the States presented numerous challenges, from keeping pilots trained while their planes were out to actually moving the jets, a 14-hour trip requiring about 10 in-air fuel refills.

The jets usually cycled back to Hill in groups of four, while pilots kept their skills fresh and learned new ones by training on simulators and CCIP-upgraded fighters at bases such as Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho; Shaw Air Force Base, S.C.; and McEntire Air National Guard Base, S.C., and at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany.

Boera credited Pacific Air Forces for providing the funding to send aviators on temporary duty to the States "over and above what we usually get for our budget." PACAF also helped provide tanker fuel to get the jets to the depot, he said. And the Air Force Personnel Center helped by sending fewer new pilots to Misawa since training opportunities were limited, Boera said.

Perhaps hardest of all was still getting the mission done at home with "65 percent manning," he said. "The folks left here stepped up to the plate."

Misawa is the first PACAF base to undergo CCIP. The upgrades are designed to modernize approximately 650 F-16s operated by the U.S. Air Force and the Air National Guard through 2010, to the tune of more than $2 billion, according to Air Force officials.

Air Force officials say CCIP is designed to make the F-16 superior in combat, improving pilots' situational awareness in the cockpit and providing them with the tools to more quickly identify and eliminate a threat.

CCIP modifications, as described by base and Air Force officials, include a new mission computer; replacing a monochrome display with a color one; an air-to-air interrogator that lets the F-16 communicate with other aircraft that appear on its radar and identify "friend or foe;" Link-16, a jam-resistant, secure communications system letting the F-16 exchange data with other air and ground assets; and a helmet cueing system that displays information on the pilot's visor that can be used to target enemies.