Armed F-16 @ SFO

BEEF SUPREME

BEEF SUPREME

Well-Known Member
Hey all just wondering about an armed F16 that was on the Signature FBO ramp at SFO.

It had big missiles on the wingtips and small ones underneath the wings. The radar guided type and the heat seeking kind I guess.

I don't have a problem with the military so don't get me wrong when I say it seemed a little strange. I've seen plenty of military aircraft at civilian airports but this was the first time I have seen an armed military aircraft on a civilian ramp with no one looking after it. No, I didn't check the rooftops for snipers... LOL.

The FBO doesn't exactly have airtight security, I don't trust them with my King Air. Aren't there any rules about armed aircraft at civilian airports?

I'm not a conspiracy theorist worried about the military shooting down airliners or other nonsense. It was more of a practical worry about being next to something that can go boom and no one qualified to deal with an accident of that type on the airport.
 
BigWaveDave said:
Hey all just wondering about an armed F16 that was on the Signature FBO ramp at SFO.

It had big missiles on the wingtips and small ones underneath the wings. The radar guided type and the heat seeking kind I guess.

I don't have a problem with the military so don't get me wrong when I say it seemed a little strange. I've seen plenty of military aircraft at civilian airports but this was the first time I have seen an armed military aircraft on a civilian ramp with no one looking after it. No, I didn't check the rooftops for snipers... LOL.

The FBO doesn't exactly have airtight security, I don't trust them with my King Air. Aren't there any rules about armed aircraft at civilian airports?

I'm not a conspiracy theorist worried about the military shooting down airliners or other nonsense. It was more of a practical worry about being next to something that can go boom and no one qualified to deal with an accident of that type on the airport.
Click to expand...

Were the missiles Blue?
 
BigWaveDave said:
I'm not a conspiracy theorist worried about the military shooting down airliners or other nonsense. It was more of a practical worry about being next to something that can go boom and no one qualified to deal with an accident of that type on the airport.
Click to expand...

MikeD will know, but I'll bet the ARFF at major airports like SFO have some training on that sort of thing.


I'll bet money the missiles you saw were blue practice units for training. Live warshots are painted white.
 
It is possible he diverted. Perhaps the guys out of Fresno had to intercept someone and got low on gas
 
It doesn't explain the stuff under the wing, but I think there's a requirement that the F-16 has to have some weight on the wintip rails to reduce the chance of wing flutter.
 
BigWaveDave said:
Hey all just wondering about an armed F16 that was on the Signature FBO ramp at SFO.

It had big missiles on the wingtips and small ones underneath the wings. The radar guided type and the heat seeking kind I guess.

I don't have a problem with the military so don't get me wrong when I say it seemed a little strange. I've seen plenty of military aircraft at civilian airports but this was the first time I have seen an armed military aircraft on a civilian ramp with no one looking after it. No, I didn't check the rooftops for snipers... LOL.

The FBO doesn't exactly have airtight security, I don't trust them with my King Air. Aren't there any rules about armed aircraft at civilian airports?

I'm not a conspiracy theorist worried about the military shooting down airliners or other nonsense. It was more of a practical worry about being next to something that can go boom and no one qualified to deal with an accident of that type on the airport.
Click to expand...

We frequently carry CATM-9's on the wingtips of our jets. They are for training....basically live brains that communicates with the avionics in the jet for training, but without warhead or pyros (engine). I would guess that they may have been carrying some sort of captive training ordnance like this, but without a pic I guess we can't be sure. For the record, CATMs are painted in a similar fashion to the real thing (ie not blue or any other random color). Normal loadout is a CATM on one wing and a TACTS pod on the other.
 
Minuteman said:
It doesn't explain the stuff under the wing, but I think there's a requirement that the F-16 has to have some weight on the wintip rails to reduce the chance of wing flutter.
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On the Hornet, we are required to have the pylons on the wingtips for flight, but not the missile itself. Not sure about the F-16 though, but one would imagine that it should be capable of flying without them since they are intended to be shot in wartime. :)
 
USMCmech said:
I'll bet money the missiles you saw were practice units for training. .
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Very rarely (airshow) will you see a viper without something on its rails/racks, even if for no other reason to simulate the flight characteristics of actual weapons for training.

Or what the other guy said. Perhaps a divert.
 
Ha Ha I guessed a divert. I was hoping for some better info than that:D

I'm pretty sure I couldn't tell the difference between a dummy rocket and a real one but they looked really, really cool. The big ones on the wingtips were grey and the littler ones under the wing were blue and grey. However, now I'm using my memory which is totally unreliable:beer:

Obviously I need a camera.
 
///AMG said:
On the Hornet, we are required to have the pylons on the wingtips for flight, but not the missile itself. Not sure about the F-16 though, but one would imagine that it should be capable of flying without them since they are intended to be shot in wartime. :)
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The Viper needs to have stores on the wingtip IF there are stores underwing. I asked the same thing when the F-16 unit that replaced my A-10 unit in Iraq showed up with AIM-120s on the wingtips, even though they were dedicated CAS birds and there was no real air threat at all. That was what they said.

Could be a divert. As stated already, if the missiles had blue bands around the seeker heads, then they were dummy's with no warhead or engine, but still have the seeker head in the nose for training. Also, if they were dummy AIM-9s, there would be no rollerons on the tips of the aft wings of the missile.....the aft wings would be just a solid airfoil.

BigWaveDave said:
I'm pretty sure I couldn't tell the difference between a dummy rocket and a real one but they looked really, really cool. The big ones on the wingtips were grey and the littler ones under the wing were blue and grey. However, now I'm using my memory which is totally unreliable:beer:

.
Click to expand...

The ones on the tips were the AIM-120s, the smaller ones were the AIM-9s.

Security-wise, I guarantee they weren't live munitions, as a jet with the live munitions wouldn't be parked in the open on the FBO ramp. The USAF has pretty strict security standards for their tactical aircraft when at a civil field; the USN/USMC seem less stringent in that arena.

For the OP: Did you happen to notice the tailcode?
 
I didn't get that close to the F-16 to notice some of the things that MikeD brought up. Not only did I have a charter to deal with but I didn't think it would be too good of an idea to wander around the fighter.

MikeD's description of the rockets seem in line with what I saw. It makes total sense that they weren't live rounds. Sitting on the ramp at signature and all...

Didn't notice the tailcode. There was a really cool graphic of a falcon on the tail. It looked just like this
 
USMCmech said:
I'll bet money the missiles you saw were blue practice units for training. Live warshots are painted white.
Click to expand...

Sort of.

Inert ordnance has a blue stripe, and live missile ordnance has yellow and brown stripes.

amraam.jpg
 
Minuteman said:
It doesn't explain the stuff under the wing, but I think there's a requirement that the F-16 has to have some weight on the wintip rails to reduce the chance of wing flutter.
Click to expand...

That's the gist of it. Having a store on the pylon reduces span-wise flow which cuts down on flutter. In the F-15E, stores loading and compatible configurations is relatively simple: with very few exceptions..if it fits, it can fly. The authorized configurations section of the Strike Eagle dash one is only about 20 or so pages long. In the Viper, the authorized configurations have their own seperate ~1600 page publication. There's seperate big-ass configurations pubs for Block 40/50s and Block 30s.
 
hook_dupin said:
That's the gist of it. Having a store on the pylon reduces span-wise flow which cuts down on flutter. In the F-15E, stores loading and compatible configurations is relatively simple: with very few exceptions..if it fits, it can fly. The authorized configurations section of the Strike Eagle dash one is only about 20 or so pages long. In the Viper, the authorized configurations have their own seperate ~1600 page publication. There's seperate big-ass configurations pubs for Block 40/50s and Block 30s.
Click to expand...

Sheesh...test pilot dorks. :)

Recognize where I shot the photo I posted above of the live AMRAAM on the CFT station?
 
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