Any F-16 pilots/former pilots?

Vector4Food

Vector4Food

This job would be easier without all the airplanes
Quick Q for you guys.

We often see F-16 formations at high altitude coming from Europe with destinations in the Eastern USA.

For example military base in Holland to military base in the USA.

No tanker flying with them many times, sometimes there is.

My question I guess is what kind of a maximum range would an F-16 have loaded with as many fuel tanks as it can carry.

Second, and I would have guessed they must have refuelled at some point after take-off? There was no AR planned on their route on this side of the ocean...
 
canadian_atc said:
Quick Q for you guys.

We often see F-16 formations at high altitude coming from Europe with destinations in the Eastern USA.

For example military base in Holland to military base in the USA.

No tanker flying with them many times, sometimes there is.

My question I guess is what kind of a maximum range would an F-16 have loaded with as many fuel tanks as it can carry.

Second, and I would have guessed they must have refuelled at some point after take-off? There was no AR planned on their route on this side of the ocean...
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They did have a tanker. More than likely, their last AAR was prior to you spotting them, and the tanker broke off to head to a different field or it's homefield. Each time I brought a Hog back from the east, our last AR was a sometimes 200+ miles prior to the coast. same with the Pacific.
 
No military experience, but I read an article a couple of years ago about taking tactical aircraft across the Atlantic. I seem to recall that they had to have good weather forecast at the arrival field and all the en route fields in case the tankers couldn't show. And they had to hit 4 or so tankers on the way across.
 
msmspilot said:
No military experience, but I read an article a couple of years ago about taking tactical aircraft across the Atlantic. I seem to recall that they had to have good weather forecast at the arrival field and all the en route fields in case the tankers couldn't show. And they had to hit 4 or so tankers on the way across.
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It's actually a very carefully planned and tightly executed operation to make a "Coronet" movement. In fact, there is a unit at ACC HQ whose specific job it is to plan and coordinate these movements (glad the peeps in the fighter squadrons don't have to do it!!).

Fuel is planned out to the Nth degree, with rank ordered "missed refueling bases" for each member of the flight, depending on when that specific aircraft will be on the boom (and could potentially find themselves in a spot unable to take on the next load of fuel).

There were "point of no return" plans in the past -- ones where if you were unable to refuel, there simply wasn't a piece of land within range to get to. I've never run up against one of those plans in any of the Atlantic crossings in the F-15E, but I bet in some Pacific crossings in airplanes with a lot less fuel capacity you get there.

I think I have some of the Coronet mission materials sitting around the house somewhere. Maybe I'll scan a couple pages and post them so people can see what an intricate dance it really is.
 
Low_Level_Hell said:
I think a bottle rocket has more endurance than a F-16.
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I've always wondered what the endurance of those birds was, especially things like the A-10 that will spend a lot of time down low and slow outside of the real efficiency envelope, I wouldn't think that any of them would be able to linger too long. I'd expect that information is secret though.
 
Hacker15e said:
It's actually a very carefully planned and tightly executed operation to make a "Coronet" movement. In fact, there is a unit at ACC HQ whose specific job it is to plan and coordinate these movements (glad the peeps in the fighter squadrons don't have to do it!!).

Fuel is planned out to the Nth degree, with rank ordered "missed refueling bases" for each member of the flight, depending on when that specific aircraft will be on the boom (and could potentially find themselves in a spot unable to take on the next load of fuel).

There were "point of no return" plans in the past -- ones where if you were unable to refuel, there simply wasn't a piece of land within range to get to. I've never run up against one of those plans in any of the Atlantic crossings in the F-15E, but I bet in some Pacific crossings in airplanes with a lot less fuel capacity you get there.

I think I have some of the Coronet mission materials sitting around the house somewhere. Maybe I'll scan a couple pages and post them so people can see what an intricate dance it really is.
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Hope I didn't come across as implying that these missions were simple. I was only referencing the fuel question. The article I read mentioned a lot of factors that went into planning, including dealing with boredom during the flight.

I will never get to fly tactical aircraft, but I still enjoy reading about them.
 
ppragman said:
I've always wondered what the endurance of those birds was,
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Like everything, "It depends".

High alttiude cruise without ordance and three drop tanks. They can go a long way.

Low altitude, loaded for bear, and useing the burners. Empty tanks in a few minutes.


The A-10 was designed especially to have the ability to loiter for a good amount of time. High bypass turbofans, large fuel capacity.
 
USMCmech said:
Like everything, "It depends".

High alttiude cruise without ordance and three drop tanks. They can go a long way.

Low altitude, loaded for bear, and useing the burners. Empty tanks in a few minutes.


The A-10 was designed especially to have the ability to loiter for a good amount of time. High bypass turbofans, large fuel capacity.
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Biggest problem for us going across the pond were winds and drag. We used to go across with two drop tanks, but now we go with one on the centerline. It was found with the power we had, two or three drop tanks were far more drag than they were useful for the fuel they gave you. Winds-wise, Last time I went from the Azores to Westover, Mass, for most of my time over the Atlantic, I had an average 135 kt groundspeed......enough said there.
 
Hacker15e said:
It's actually a very carefully planned and tightly executed operation to make a "Coronet" movement. In fact, there is a unit at ACC HQ whose specific job it is to plan and coordinate these movements (glad the peeps in the fighter squadrons don't have to do it!!).

.
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Same here, on the bold. Fighter guys practically can't fill out a DD-175 without help....Id hate to see them plan a Coronet! (hey....what's does this section..."code" mean? I don't know....just throw a "1" in there......doh!!) Then again, in your MDS, you would have the guys in back with the funny shield in the center of their wings to do all the planning stuff, right?

:D

Spare forward!!!
 
MikeD said:
It was found with the power we had, two or three drop tanks were far more drag than they were useful for the fuel they gave you.
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Same for the T-45....apparently they had originally intended for it to be flown with a centerline drop tank (probably a hold over from the TA-4J that normally flew with two), but flight testing showed it to be a wash with the extra drag and weight. I wonder if this is a common phenomenon with subsonic jets, or just coincidence.
 
///AMG said:
I wonder if this is a common phenomenon with subsonic jets, or just coincidence.
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I don't know, but this past April I flew an L-39 with the winglet modification that eliminates the wingtip tanks: the guy that designed it claims no loss in range, and the guy whose jet I flew says it's true.
 
Thanks for the replies!

Speaking of ALTRV's (You call them that in the states? Altitude Reservation?)

We have a very busy AR route here which we see just about everything the US Military has to offer, really interesting to see the logistics at work.

Speaking of filling out Coronets and the like, it seems everytime any other NATO country from the other side of the pond comes along things generally get "interesting"

ATC:
"Are you declaring MARSA at this time?"

Fighter:
"MAR.... What?"

Of course there is one NATO country when they are "in town" they generally just ignore their ALTRV restrictions and pretty much do whatever they want.

Anyone care to comment how the tankers "See" their reciever so far away? Is it airborne radar or what method are they using to find them coming off the ocean when they are proceeding to the IP? I have been told by their crews they have the ability to do so, but it's never been explained exactly how.
 
Its probably like ADS-B, one of the engineers I flew this summer who works on the ADS-B told me that the military has had the technology to see each other for quite awhile (off tacan stations since they had tacan), but that is just a shot in the dark. I guess maybe it'd be more like TIS-B
 
ppragman said:
Cool, we used to use the weather radar to scan for boat masts on approach, similar principle?
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Honestly, I'm not sure. I don't have experience with the system that the 135 and 10 bubbas use. That's just what I've been told by tanker bubbas I've talked to -- they could be pulling my leg for all I know.

Maybe Fish will be along and give us the scoop from the other side of the boom.
 
That's pretty cool, thanks guys.

So what exactly the reciever can tune their TACAN to whatever assigned frequency for that mission sort of thing?
 
canadian_atc said:
That's pretty cool, thanks guys.

So what exactly the reciever can tune their TACAN to whatever assigned frequency for that mission sort of thing?
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For ours, the lead a/c sets some base freq, like 25X for example. Other wingmen will then set in a freq 63 channels higher (88X in this example) and that will provide them with a readout in the cockpit. Not sure how other systems in other jets work, but ours just gives a DME counter with no bearing/azimuth info. We use it only as a backup reference, and in visual conditions only.....you can probably imagine how dangerous a join in the blind using this sort of limited information could be. Again, fleet jets may use a better system, I'm sure Hacker or MikeD can speak to this
 
///AMG said:
For ours, the lead a/c sets some base freq, like 25X for example. Other wingmen will then set in a freq 63 channels higher (88X in this example) and that will provide them with a readout in the cockpit. Not sure how other systems in other jets work, but ours just gives a DME counter with no bearing/azimuth info. We use it only as a backup reference, and in visual conditions only.....you can probably imagine how dangerous a join in the blind using this sort of limited information could be. Again, fleet jets may use a better system, I'm sure Hacker or MikeD can speak to this
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It's depends on what type installed. All are the 63 channel spread, either X or Y, and will give you DME. The KC-135 also will give you DME only, like everyone else. The KC-10 however, when lock-on with them A/A TACAN-wise, you get both bearing as well as range.
 
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