F-16 holds strong allure

Photos by USAF Senior Airman Kathrine McDowell An F-16 aircraft of the 79th Fighter Squadron moves on the taxiway during operational readiness exercises Sea Lion 09-06 at Shaw AFB May 13. Shaw is the home to the 20th Fighter Wing, the Air Force's largest F-16 Fighter Wing.

By ANNABELLE ROBERTSON
Item Staff Writer
arobertson@theitem.com

Aleksas Juskys always had his eye on the sky. He grew up attending air shows around Chicago, where he dreamed of climbing inside the cockpit with the pilots.

At 7, he got to fly in an experimental, open-air Breezy, and “that planted the seed,” said Juskys, now the 30-year-old flight commander of the 79th Fighter Squadron at Shaw Air Force Base. “It was exhilarating — a real adrenaline rush.”

Bill Lutmer, Juskys' flight school companion and now flight commander with the 77th Fighter Squadron at Shaw, first soloed in a T-37, a former Air Force training jet dubbed a “Tweet” for its high-pitched squeal.

The ride was everything he expected — and then some. The “then some” was flying upside down. That, and the acceleration.

But for Lutmer and Juskys — and many Air Force pilots — flying wasn't enough. They dreamed of flying the F-16. And that meant coming to Shaw, home to the USAF's largest F-16 fighter wing, with about 80 jets.

“The F-16 was what I always wanted to fly,” Lutmer said. “It does everything. It's air-to-air, air-to-ground, close air support. Any mission that USAF does as a fighter, the F-16 does. And it looks pretty sweet, too. It's fun to have your own airplane. You're the mayor of cockpit city.”

The F-16 — also known as the Fighting Falcon or, to its pilots, as the Viper, for its snake-like shape — is a single-engine, supersonic, multirole tactical aircraft originally developed for the Air Force by General Dynamics. More than 4,400 F-16s have been produced since 1976.

Twenty-five air forces around the world, including the U.S., still fly the jet, now made by Lockheed Martin.

Fifteen years after his first flight in the Breezy, Juskys was at pilot training school at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas. He'd worked hard to get there, graduating from the University of Illinois in 2001. But making the cut was another thing.

“They say you're three flights away from washing out of the program at all times,” he explained. “There's definitely stress in the back of your mind. ... It's hard. You're competing the whole year with your friends.”

Lutmer laughed when asked whether pilot school was anything like “Top Gun.”

“Uh, no,” he said. “No jeans, no volleyball and no dog tags. The first six months is like basic training, only with a lot of frontloaded academics.”

G-forces in the F-16, which can accelerate vertically, reach crushing levels.To prevent that, pilots don special gloves, helmets and masks that make up the Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System. Their g-suits inflate to help to combat the forces. A reclined seat works toward the same goal, but pilots must still perform specific abdominal exercises every time they accelerate into g-forces.

“It's mentally and physically exhausting, but really rewarding in the end,” Juskys said.

At a little under $20 million apiece, the F-16 is smaller and lighter than its predecessors and boasts numerous innovations, including a frameless bubble canopy and a side-mounted control stick to combat g-forces

The F-35 Lightning II, the replacement for the F-16, is expected to be ready in about two years. Still, the F-16 is scheduled to remain in service until 2025.

During Shaw's recent Operational Readiness Inspection, the F-16s and their pilots, along with hundreds of aircraft and ground crew members, were put to the test. They made 230 sorties in two days, flying late into the night against simulated air strikes from the “enemy” — fellow airmen piloting F-15s, or Eagles, and F-18s, or Hornets — who flew in from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia and Seymour Johnson AFB in North Carolina.

“It's a surge operation,” explained Lt. Col. Marc Dauteuil, 20th Fighter Wing chief of wing plans and inspections. “We're hitting them hard. We're hitting them consistently. And to do that requires a lot of 24-hour operations and a lot of effort, which is challenging to sustain. That was the intent.”

For the pilots, it was a chance to test their skills in a way they had never done before.

During the large force employment exercise, 12 F-16s would take to the skies against four opponents, whose mission was to “destroy” the fighters and “kill” their pilots. The F-16 pilots had no idea how many aircraft would be coming at them — if any — or what they would be doing.

Typically, the enemy would launch simulated weapons at Shaw's pilots, who were required to defend themselves against the strike while simultaneously carrying out their mission, such as dropping concrete-filled bombs at another base.

Computers tracked how well the pilots did with their responses and assignments.

“That's one of the most challenging things about this job,” Juskys said. “The timescale that we make decisions on. You might fly for an hour, but the actual tactical flying portion is only about four minutes.”

Four F-16 pilots must work together during all this, Lutmer said.

“The radios are nonstop,” he said. “And you have to make split-second decisions, all the while knowing that you still have to do your primary mission, such as dropping a bomb, in a specific window of time. Then you have to fly your way out.”

Lt. Col. Ken Ekman, commander of the 79th Fighter Squadron, compared the Occupational Readiness Inspection to the “shock and awe” campaign before the 2003 Iraq invasion, when pilots made more than 2,000 sorties during 21 months. It was the same level of flying here, he said, only carried out during two days.

“You know what kind of threats your own guys are going to throw at you when you fight against other F-16s, but to see a different aircraft and different tactics is really great,” Ekman said.

The base received an “excellent” grade for its performance — a powerful reassurance, especially for the airmen of the 79th, who will deploy to Southwest Asia in September where, of course, they will fly F-16s.

Until the introduction of the F-35 — and no doubt beyond — the allure of the Falcon will endure.

“It's the sound of freedom,” Lutmer said.



Contact Staff Writer Annabelle Robertson at arobertson@theitem.com or (803) 774-1250.


F-16 Facts
Design: Single-engined, supersonic, multirole tactical aircraft

Origin: United States

Manufacturer: General Dynamics/Lockheed Martin

First Flight: February 2, 1974

Introduction: August 17, 1978

Primary User: United States Air Force

Number built: 4,400

Cost (1998 dollars): $14.6 million (F-16 A/B) and $18.8 million (F-16 C/D)



F-16 Operators

Bahrain

Belgium

Chile

Denmark

Egypt

Greece

Jordan

Indonesia

Israel

Italy

Morocco

Netherlands

Norway

Oman

Pakistan

Poland

Portugal

Singapore

Republic of China (Taiwan)

South Korea

Thailand

Turkey

United Arab Emirates

United States

Venezuela

Capt. Aleksas Juskys, flight commander, 70th Fighter Squadron, Shaw Air Force Base, performs a pre-flight check of an F-16 on the flightline at Shaw.