Fighter Jet News
F-16 Fighting Falcon News
Mike Brill Reaches 4,000 Viper Hours
August 25, 1998 (by
Lieven Dewitte) -
Another record has been set in the F-16. Major Mike Brill became the first pilot to reach 4, 000 flight hours in the Fighting Falcon. He achieved this milestone on August 21, 1998, in a block 30 F-16C at Hill Air Force Base, Utah.
Major Brill is a full-time air reserve technician in the U.S. Air Force Reserve and is the operations officer of the 466th Fighter Squadron of the419th Fighter Wing based at Hill. He is a 1979 graduate of the Air Force Academy and 1986 graduate of the Fighter Weapons School. Brill's first flight in the F-16 occurred at Hill AFB in November 1980, the same time as Initial Operational Capability was declared with the aircraft at that location. Since then, he has flown the F-16d by pilots from each of the four F-16 continuously with units of the European Participating Air Forces (EPAsF) - Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway. Industry participants included Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems (prime integrator); GEC Avionics of the UK and Honeywell of the USA (HMCS electronics and displays); Bodenseewerk Geratetechnik GmbH (BGT) of Germany (IRIS high-off-boresight air-to-airmissile seeker) and Nationaal Lucht-En Ruimtevaartlaboratorium (NLR) of the Netherlands (real-time telemetry and integration assistance). The results will be a valuable aid to the EPAF&Y's decision making process over the next several months.
The decision to incorporate the HMCS capability into the third version of the F-16A/B MLU software is expected in the third quarter of this year. Lockheed Martin&Y's experience with demonstrating helmet-mounted displays and cueing systems on F-16s dates back to 1985. Testing has been conducted in various labs, flight simulators and flight test aircraft. Most of the testing has been in company-funded efforts at Fort Worth or on theAFTI/F-16 test bed at Edwards AFB. Approximately 270 flights have been conducted with a variety of systems, for both air-to-air and air-to-ground operations, in day and night environments and in conjunction with a variety of weapons and sensor pods(including head-steered FLIR operations).
The decision to incorporate the HMCS capability into the third version of the F-16A/B MLU software is expected in the third quarter of this year. Lockheed Martin&Y's experience with demonstrating helmet-mounted displays and cueing systems on F-16s dates back to 1985. Testing has been conducted in various labs, flight simulators and flight test aircraft. Most of the testing has been in company-funded efforts at Fort Worth or on theAFTI/F-16 test bed at Edwards AFB. Approximately 270 flights have been conducted with a variety of systems, for both air-to-air and air-to-ground operations, in day and night environments and in conjunction with a variety of weapons and sensor pods(including head-steered FLIR operations).
Related articles:
Tags
Tags