First F16 ride

”Good things come to those who wait,” someone wise once said. The day had finally come for my first ride in the F16. I put on my g-suit, check-list and life vest and got the helmet ready. SAL, who was the pilot on the flight, asked me some questions on the way to the flight-line to see if I knew the correct procedures and all was set. I climbed in the aircraft and fastened myself; g-suit pipe, dinghy, chute shoulder straps and seat harness. Helmet on and mask with microphone connected and I started running my check list while SAL gave me some commands from the front seat while he went through his check-lists.

It was wonderful to feel the aircraft come to life as the engine winded up and the panel lights started coming on. I had waited for that exact moment since my graduation announcements and my time had finally come. Prior to taxi we checked the g-suit inflation system. I inflated it and got surprised at how much pressure it inflicts. I must have made a grunt as SAL could hear me on the intercom and said: “Well, it certainly sounds like there’s nothing wrong with your g-suit …”

We got taxi clearance and taxied out closely followed by our wingman for the day, who was also flying a B model.

We departed without the use of afterburner as the aircraft was in an almost clean configuration and as you know, B models have “too many seats and too little fuel.” As we climbed away from the airfield we flew around the big CB’s (Cumolo Nimbus clouds) and were shortly joined up by our number two. I took the camera out and decided to take some pictures while flying smoothly on the way out to the exercise area. One of the squadron’s mottos is “Train as you fight” so our wingman practised some formation flying while we did some smooth turns on the way out to the North Sea. Then we formed Line-Abreast formation with good spacing for a flare check. It looked great when number 2 dropped his flare. Then it was time to practise some one on one. Our aircraft was configured with two dummy bombs under the wings as originally we were supposed to have strafed ground targets. Unfortunately the dummies restricted us to 6g’s and 550kts during our mock dog fights. All went nicely and what a beautiful sight it was to see the other F16 turning tight and trailing white condensation stripes from the wings.

Our wingman flew home but we stayed in the area. SAL called up and said: “We have about 15 minutes more out here before we fly back to base so you have controls. You can do anything you like, just don’t pull more than 6g’s.” I grabbed the stick and throttle and acknowledged by replying “My controls!” I banked the aircraft and pulled the nose towards the clouds. The g’s come on instantaneously. I had always wanted to try cloud surfing in the T17 but never got the chance. Now I was doing it in an F16! I flew around the clouds and surfed into the gaps between them, rolled over the top and pulled around those beautiful white towers. “Wow, this must be a dream,” I thought to myself. However, the g-suit kept reminding me that I was awake indeed. It starts to inflate as soon as you touch the stick and at 6 g’s it presses quite hard around the legs and belly and I was straining the muscles in order to avoid running short of blood in my head. I didn’t get tunnel vision at any point of the flight but my arms did hurt during the tight turns and it felt as if there was a fat guy sitting on my head. I also tried flying inverted which is rather strange to sit there hanging from your harness. The aircraft controls are very sensitive. You can really fly it with two fingers if you wanted to. I did a couple of rolls by slamming the stick to the side and almost managed to bang my head into the canopy. What the hell? If I bang my head into anything, I would want it to be an F16 canopy…preferably in flight too!

I did a climb to 25,000 feet and SAL took over from there. He then deployed the air brakes and pointed the nose vertically down towards the ocean and we were soon hanging in the straps. At 10,000 feet he started levelling out and continued descent to 300 feet. At low altitude you can really feel the speed. He then reduced the speed to 250kts to demonstrate the afterburner. He engaged full AB and the aircraft accelerated away like an arrow. You can clearly feel the different stages of the AB kicking in. I can only compare it to a glider winch launch, where you accelerate to 100km/h in about 2 seconds, but here the acceleration just stays on and on. Really impressive! A few seconds later, just before we hit 550kts, he pulled the throttle back to idle and deployed the air brakes. The deceleration is just as impressive as the acceleration. You simply hang in your harness when the air brakes are fully out. At 250kts we climbed away and continued east towards the base. We then joined left hand down-wind leg for a full stop landing. He kept the nose high for aerodynamic braking during the landing roll and then taxied in back to the pit area. What a flight!

As we got back to duty-ops, one of the pilots said: “GEA, are you ready for the next flight?” I thought he was joking but I could see my name two places on the flying programme. So I quickly got something to eat and got back into my flight-gear and ready for the next ride which was part of the LWD (Live Weapon Delivery). That’s right! We were going to drop live Mk82 bombs in Oksbøl exercise area. Unfortunately we had to ground abort after start up due to a faulty read-out on the oxygen meter. Not to worry. Nothing could ruin this day for me. All those years of waiting had definitely been worth it…

/GEA