Lockheed F-16
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"Dear Friends ... I thought long and hard about putting in this post ... since, in a sense, it is similar to what I have written in the past. However, I am extremely tempted to share with you my experiences at Aero India where I flew on the F-16 and the MiG 35 prototype. A week or so prior to that I had flown on the MiG 29UB trainer near Moscow. For an aviation enthusiast .. the last few weeks have been more than a dream come true.
I have posted extensively on the MiG 29UB sortie ... so this is about the F-16 and MiG 35 ride. I also believe I now have enough experiences to compare and contrast the flying characteristics of the various fighters I have flown on.
Also ... first up ... a sincere apology to all the BRfites at the stall at Yelahanka ... I was unable to meet you guys. The nature of television journalism is such that there is often no real time for genuine engagement with people who know and understand. I was simply too busy filing stories on Ratan Tata's sortie ... the IJT crash or the air displays. This is all for a larger audience and not stuff which would necessarily interest an expert audience ... like many of you over here.
I flew the same F-16 as Ratan Tata ... my pilot was Paul Randall of Lockheed Martin. I was invited by the US Ambassador to fly the jet. Prior to the sortie, the Lockheed Martin people were very specific about medical examinations. I underwent a full fledged medical at the CME at Subroto Park Delhi. What should have been a basic physical (so I thought) turned out to be an ECG, a urine test, a blood test, hearing, eyesight, reflex, ENT, BP and a basic examination of the spinal cord. The Group Captain who examined me made it clear that he intended being entirely rigorous and to `please let us do our job.' So I shut up ... and went through 4 hours of tests. The end result ... fully fit ... and certified to fly though I was told to kill 2 kgs. Later, the Lockheed Martin flight surgeon who spoke to the Group Captain was told I was a `a fine physical specimen !' I was relieved.
At Yelahanka ... Paul ... my pilot ... had been briefed on my previous flight experiences and asked me specifically what I wanted to do. I told him that I had done 6.2g in the past without much difficulty and wanted to test the 7 g threshold. I made it clear that I wanted to experience the flying aspect of the sortie ... though they made it clear that they intended to demonstrate some of the systems on board including the radar's operations.
The F-16 cockpit is narrower than the cockpit of all the other fast jets I have been on. Behind the side-stick controller is a small elbow rest and the position of the right arm is extremely comfortable ... and far more ergonomic that a conventional stick. Also, remember, the side-stick is pressure sensitive ... and doesnt move more than an inch or so in all directions. As always, I needed to know some basic operations for the flight: emergency O2 supply, intercom operations and arming the ejection seat.
I have a flight overall already and gloves which Boeing gave me when I flew the Hornet at the Farnborough airshow last year. On this occasion ... I wore a Lockheed Martin supplied kit ... with boots and G suit.
Before I could get anywhere close to the jet ... I had to practise sliding in and sliding off the oxygen mask ... Believe me, its really difficult.
After being briefed and strapped into the cockpit ... by a 70 year old man (someone who has been in the company for decades) ... we rolled to the edge of the runway ... for what would be a full burner take-off.
I immediately noticed a couple of things about the jet which I did not like. The 02 flow into my mask wasnt smooth ... and the position of the intercom ... under and ahead of the throttle ... was difficult to reach. It would be much much tougher while pulling gs.
Rear visibility on the F-16 twin ... contrary to what I though ... is mediocre ... the main hinge of the canopy folds and closes directly in front of the rear pilot.
The take-off run on full burner ... is absolutely stunning ... the acceleration is breaktaking ... far in excess of what I experienced on any of the other jets I have flown on. We went vertical, did a half loop ... straightened out and headed to an area northeast of Yelahanka.
Paul fired up the radar .. and put it into ground mapping mode ... the resolution on this Block 50 aircraft which had flown straight from the Iraq conflict ... was acceptable ... given the generation of the radar ... far inferior, though, to what I had seen on the F-18 F Super Hornet last year. There were (understandably) blindspots when we flew over a few hillocks. I was also shown the moving ground target attack mode ... where we locked on to what I was told were a few trucks ... the resolution of the radar was too poor for me to see what we had locked onto ...
The flying characteristics of the jet ... are simply amazing ... and though the MiG 29 and 35 pull the same g ... I feel the instantaneous rate of turn and the responsiveness of the controls are superior to the Russian jets. I base this on extensive personal experience ... though I will add no further to this aspect of the sortie.
Anyway, we continued turning and burning ... and Paul took me straight to 8 g ... which is bloody painful. For the first time, I felt close to blacking out ... though I recovered the second he let go of the controls. What made things worse was the position of my back/neck ... I was actually neck down when we pulled ... and in a high g maneuver ... if you dont have your head back ... you are essentially in trouble !!! Next time around ... I made sure I was in the correct position ... and we pulled clean to 8.2 g. What amazed me was Paul's ability to speak to me through the 8 g experience ... with no major change in the tone of his voice. Believe me ... pulling more than 6 g hurts like hell ... For starters, you feel the g suit is disembowelling you ... and then at about 7 your vision starts going. I went home that day with a pain in my back.
My sortie lasted about 35 minutes ... as we returned ... we tracked a few civilian jets in the area ... and interrogated them using IFF ... They pinged correctly ... so we didnt shoot them down !! ...
I noticed the ATC controller's commands were very difficult to understand ... and we were being consistently given difficult to understand instructions. In fact ... on a few occasions, Paul asked me if I could understand what the ATC said .. and I said I didn't. Paul kept asking the controller to repeat his instructions ... In fact, there was an element of uncertainty even while we were on finals.
Tough down was perfect ... though the runway at Yelahanka is an up and down hill ... My F-16 sortie had come to an end ... and with that my Falcon sortie.
Coming up ... sometime soon ... all about my ride on the prototype of the MiG-35 ... the first non-Russian to get a ride on the jet ...
Cheers
Vishnu Som
Associate Editor
NDTV
I have posted extensively on the MiG 29UB sortie ... so this is about the F-16 and MiG 35 ride. I also believe I now have enough experiences to compare and contrast the flying characteristics of the various fighters I have flown on.
Also ... first up ... a sincere apology to all the BRfites at the stall at Yelahanka ... I was unable to meet you guys. The nature of television journalism is such that there is often no real time for genuine engagement with people who know and understand. I was simply too busy filing stories on Ratan Tata's sortie ... the IJT crash or the air displays. This is all for a larger audience and not stuff which would necessarily interest an expert audience ... like many of you over here.
I flew the same F-16 as Ratan Tata ... my pilot was Paul Randall of Lockheed Martin. I was invited by the US Ambassador to fly the jet. Prior to the sortie, the Lockheed Martin people were very specific about medical examinations. I underwent a full fledged medical at the CME at Subroto Park Delhi. What should have been a basic physical (so I thought) turned out to be an ECG, a urine test, a blood test, hearing, eyesight, reflex, ENT, BP and a basic examination of the spinal cord. The Group Captain who examined me made it clear that he intended being entirely rigorous and to `please let us do our job.' So I shut up ... and went through 4 hours of tests. The end result ... fully fit ... and certified to fly though I was told to kill 2 kgs. Later, the Lockheed Martin flight surgeon who spoke to the Group Captain was told I was a `a fine physical specimen !' I was relieved.
At Yelahanka ... Paul ... my pilot ... had been briefed on my previous flight experiences and asked me specifically what I wanted to do. I told him that I had done 6.2g in the past without much difficulty and wanted to test the 7 g threshold. I made it clear that I wanted to experience the flying aspect of the sortie ... though they made it clear that they intended to demonstrate some of the systems on board including the radar's operations.
The F-16 cockpit is narrower than the cockpit of all the other fast jets I have been on. Behind the side-stick controller is a small elbow rest and the position of the right arm is extremely comfortable ... and far more ergonomic that a conventional stick. Also, remember, the side-stick is pressure sensitive ... and doesnt move more than an inch or so in all directions. As always, I needed to know some basic operations for the flight: emergency O2 supply, intercom operations and arming the ejection seat.
I have a flight overall already and gloves which Boeing gave me when I flew the Hornet at the Farnborough airshow last year. On this occasion ... I wore a Lockheed Martin supplied kit ... with boots and G suit.
Before I could get anywhere close to the jet ... I had to practise sliding in and sliding off the oxygen mask ... Believe me, its really difficult.
After being briefed and strapped into the cockpit ... by a 70 year old man (someone who has been in the company for decades) ... we rolled to the edge of the runway ... for what would be a full burner take-off.
I immediately noticed a couple of things about the jet which I did not like. The 02 flow into my mask wasnt smooth ... and the position of the intercom ... under and ahead of the throttle ... was difficult to reach. It would be much much tougher while pulling gs.
Rear visibility on the F-16 twin ... contrary to what I though ... is mediocre ... the main hinge of the canopy folds and closes directly in front of the rear pilot.
The take-off run on full burner ... is absolutely stunning ... the acceleration is breaktaking ... far in excess of what I experienced on any of the other jets I have flown on. We went vertical, did a half loop ... straightened out and headed to an area northeast of Yelahanka.
Paul fired up the radar .. and put it into ground mapping mode ... the resolution on this Block 50 aircraft which had flown straight from the Iraq conflict ... was acceptable ... given the generation of the radar ... far inferior, though, to what I had seen on the F-18 F Super Hornet last year. There were (understandably) blindspots when we flew over a few hillocks. I was also shown the moving ground target attack mode ... where we locked on to what I was told were a few trucks ... the resolution of the radar was too poor for me to see what we had locked onto ...
The flying characteristics of the jet ... are simply amazing ... and though the MiG 29 and 35 pull the same g ... I feel the instantaneous rate of turn and the responsiveness of the controls are superior to the Russian jets. I base this on extensive personal experience ... though I will add no further to this aspect of the sortie.
Anyway, we continued turning and burning ... and Paul took me straight to 8 g ... which is bloody painful. For the first time, I felt close to blacking out ... though I recovered the second he let go of the controls. What made things worse was the position of my back/neck ... I was actually neck down when we pulled ... and in a high g maneuver ... if you dont have your head back ... you are essentially in trouble !!! Next time around ... I made sure I was in the correct position ... and we pulled clean to 8.2 g. What amazed me was Paul's ability to speak to me through the 8 g experience ... with no major change in the tone of his voice. Believe me ... pulling more than 6 g hurts like hell ... For starters, you feel the g suit is disembowelling you ... and then at about 7 your vision starts going. I went home that day with a pain in my back.
My sortie lasted about 35 minutes ... as we returned ... we tracked a few civilian jets in the area ... and interrogated them using IFF ... They pinged correctly ... so we didnt shoot them down !! ...
I noticed the ATC controller's commands were very difficult to understand ... and we were being consistently given difficult to understand instructions. In fact ... on a few occasions, Paul asked me if I could understand what the ATC said .. and I said I didn't. Paul kept asking the controller to repeat his instructions ... In fact, there was an element of uncertainty even while we were on finals.
Tough down was perfect ... though the runway at Yelahanka is an up and down hill ... My F-16 sortie had come to an end ... and with that my Falcon sortie.
Coming up ... sometime soon ... all about my ride on the prototype of the MiG-35 ... the first non-Russian to get a ride on the jet ...
Cheers
Vishnu Som
Associate Editor
NDTV
