Info About the F - 16 "Fighting Falcon"...
Volume - 3...
From "Kofana"...


General Characteristics...

Nation : USA
Manufacturer : General Dynamics Corp, Lockheed Martin
Type : Multirole class A fighter
Year : First prototype started 13th December 1973 and second prototype YF-16 started 9th May 1974.
Engine : F-16A/B : One Pratt and Whitney F100-PW-200. F-16A/B : One Pratt and Whitney F100-PW-220E. F-16C/D : One Pratt and Whitney F100-PW-200/220/229 or General Electric F110-GE-100/129
Thrust : F-16A/B, 23,830 pounds(10,794 kilograms) F-16A/B MLU, 23770 pounds (10,767 kilograms) F-16C/D, 27,000 pounds (12,150 kilograms)
Versions : A,B - C,D
Wingspan : 31 ft (9.45 m) - 32 ft 8 in (9.8 m)
Lenght : 47 ft 8 in (14.52 m) - 49 ft 5 in (14.8 m)
Height : 16 ft 5 in (5.01 m) - 16 ft (4.8 m)
Wing aspect ratio : 3.2
Tailplane span : 18 ft 31 in (5.58 m)
Whell track : 7 ft 9 in (2.36 m)
Wheelbase : 13 ft 11 in (4 m)
Weight : F-16A/B : 33,000 lb (14,968 kg) /full loaded/, F-16C/D Block 50/52 : 42,300 lb (19,187 kg) /full loaded/, F-16C : 18,591 lb (8,433 kg) - 18,917 lb (8,581 kg) /empty/, F-16D : 19,059 lb (8,645 kg) - 19,421 lb (8,809 kg) /empty/
Max. internal fuel (JP-8) : F-16C : 7,162 lb (3,249 kg), F-16D : 5,924 lb (2,687 kg)
Max. external fuel (JP-8) : 7,072 lb (3,208 kg)
Maximum takeoff weight : 37,500 lb (16,875 kg)
Maximum speed : 1,319 mph (2,123 km/h) at 39,370 ft (12,000 m)
Ceiling : 50,000 ft (15,240 m)
Radius of action : 676 - 866 NM (1,252 - 1,604 km)
Ferry range : 1,961 - 2,276 NM (3,632 - 4,215 km)
Crew : Version A - C : 1, version B - D : 2 or 1
Armament : General Electric M61A1 20mm six-barrel cannon and two wingtip sidewinder or sparrow air-to-air missiles; nine additional hardpoints capable of carrying up to 15,200 lbs of other stores
Systems : AN/APG-66/68 pulsed-Doppler radar AN/AAQ-13, LANTIRN NAVIGATION POD, AN/AAQ-14 LANTIRN/SHARPSHOOTER, AN/AAQ-20 PATHFINDER NAVIGATION POD, AN/ASQ-213 HARM TARGETING SYSTEM POD, AN/ALQ-119 ECM POD, AN/ALQ-131 ECM POD, AN/ALQ-178 internal ECM, AN/ALQ-184 ECM POD, AN/ALR-56M threat warning receiver [F-16C/D Block 50/52], AN/ALR-69 radar warning system (RWR), AN/ALR-74 radar warning system (RWR) [replaces AN/ALR-69], AN/ALE-40 chaff/flare dispenser.


Features...

The General Dynamics/Lockheed Martin Fighting Falcon is considered by many to be the most agile modern fighter. Less than half the weight of the F-14, it carries a larger payload; less than one-fourth the cost of the F-15, it has superior maneuverability. In addition, advanced avionics and electronics give it excellent air-to-ground precision. The F-16 can deliver a crippling ground strike and still maintain a credible air threat. In an air combat role, the F-16's maneuverability and combat radius (distance it can fly to enter air combat, stay, fight and return) exceed that of all potential threat fighter aircraft. It can locate targets in all weather conditions and detect low flying aircraft in radar ground clutter. In an air-to-surface role, the F-16 can fly more than 500 miles (860 kilometers), deliver its weapons with superior accuracy, defend itself against enemy aircraft, and return to its starting point. An all-weather capability allows it to accurately deliver ordnance during non-visual bombing conditions. In designing the F-16, advanced aerospace science and proven reliable systems from other aircraft such as the F-15 and F-111 were selected. These were combined to simplify the airplane and reduce its size, purchase price, maintenance costs and weight. The light weight of the fuselage is achieved without reducing its strength. With a full load of internal fuel, the F-16 can withstand up to 9 G's -- nine times the force of gravity -- which exceeds the capability of other current fighter aircraft. The cockpit and its bubble canopy give the pilot unobstructed forward and upward vision, and greatly improved vision over the side and to the rear. The seat-back angle was expanded from the usual 13 degrees to 30 degrees, increasing pilot comfort and gravity force tolerance. The pilot has excellent flight control of the F-16 through its "fly-by-wire" system. Electrical wires relay commands, replacing the usual cables and linkage controls.


For easy and accurate control of the aircraft during high G-force combat maneuvers, a side stick controller is used instead of the conventional center-mounted stick. Hand pressure on the side stick controller sends electrical signals to actuators of flight control surfaces such as ailerons and rudder. Avionics systems include a highly accurate inertial navigation system in which a computer provides steering information to the pilot. The plane has UHF and VHF radios plus an instrument landing system. It also has a warning system and modular countermeasure pods to be used against airborne or surface electronic threats. The fuselage has space for additional avionics systems. All F-16s delivered since November 1981 have built-in structural and wiring provisions and systems architecture that permit expansion of the multirole flexibility to perform precision strike, night attack and beyond-visual-range interception missions. This improvement program led to the F-16C and F-16D aircraft, which are the single- and two-place counterparts to the F-16A/B, and incorporate the latest cockpit control and display technology. All active units and many Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve units have converted to the F-16C/D. The Falcon’s versatility is still being explored. The variety of stores it can carry and wide range of missions it can undertake with great effectiveness are staggering. The F-16 has proven itself capable of air superiority, "Wild Weasel", strike, and reconnaissance missions without any structural modifications. The simple addition of the proper external pods or ordnance is all that is required. There is even an experimental GPU-5 external gun pod which contains a 30 mm cannon firing the same shells as the A-10’s famous tank-busting Avenger.


Service Life...

The Falcon Up Structural Improvement Program incorporates several major structural modifications into one overall program, affecting all USAF F-16s. Falcon Up will allow Block 25/30/32 aircraft to meet a 6,000 hour service life, and allow Block 40/42 aircraft to meet an 8,000 hour service life. In view of the challenges inherent in operating F-16s to 8,000 flight hours, together with the moderate risk involved in JSF integration, the Department has established a program to earmark by FY 2,000 some 200 older, Block 15 F-16 fighter aircraft in inactive storage for potential reactivation. The purpose of this program is to provide a basis for constituting two combat wings more quickly than would be possible through new production. This force could offset aircraft withdrawn for unanticipated structural repairs or compensate for delays in the JSF program. Reactivating older F-16s is not a preferred course of action, but represents a relatively low-cost hedge against such occurrences. The Air Force will soon be flying only Block 40/42 and Block 50/52 F-16s in its active-duty units. Block 25 and Block 30/32 will be concentrated in Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve units. The Fighting Falcon forms the backdone of the USAF. The F-16 also serves in the air forces listed below.


Country... Number... Block...
Bahrain 12 40
Norway 72 10 / 15
Belgium 160 10 / 15
Pakistan 40 15
Brazil ? 15
Portugal 20 15
Denmark 58 10 / 15
Singapore 46 15
Egypt 80 15 / 32 / 40
South Korea 36 32 / 52
Greece 80 30
Republic of China ? 120 / 30
Indonesia 12 15
Thailand 34 15
Israel 150 ?
Turkey 152 30 / 40 / 50
Japan ? ?
United Arab Emirates 80 ?
Jordan 16 ?
USA 1,985 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 / 32 / 40 / 42
Netherlands 213 10 / 15
New Zealand 30 ?
Venezuela 24 15


Operation...

USAF F-16 multi-mission fighters were deployed to the Persian Gulf in 1991 in support of Operation Desert Storm, where more sorties were flown than with any other aircraft. These fighters were used to attack airfields, military production facilities, SCUD missiles sites and a variety of other targets.


Design Features...

Structure : Cantilever mid-wing monoplane of blended wing-body design and cropped delta planform. The blended wing-body concept is achieved by flaring the wing/body intersection, thus not only providing lift from the body at highangles of attack but also giving less wetted area and increased internal fuel volume. Basic wing is NACA 64A-204 section with 40o sweepback on leading-edges. The tail unit is a cantilever structure with sweptback surfaces. Optional extension of fin root fairing houses ECM equipment in some aircraft and a brake parachute in other aircraft. Ventral fins three-quarters along fuselage. Wing, mainly of aluminium alloy with 11 spars, five ribs and single upper and lower skins, is attached to fuselage by machined aluminium fittings. The fuselage is a semi-monocoque all-metal structure of frames and longerons built in three main modules: forward (to just aft of cockpit), centre and aft. Nose radome built by Brunswick corporation. Highly swept vortex control strakes along the fuselage forebody increase lift and improve directional stability at high angles of attack. The tail unit fin is a multispar, multirib aluminium structure with graphite epoxy skins, aluminium tip and glass fibre dorsal fin and root fairing. Tailplanes constructed of graphite epoxy composite laminate skins mechanically attached to a corrugated aluminium substructure. Each tailplane half has an aluminium pivot shaft and a removable full-depth bonded honeycomb leading-edge. Ventral fins are bonded aluminium skins.


Engine...

The development of the Pratt & Whitney F100 turbofan began in August of 1968 when the USAF awarded contracts to both P & W and General Electric for the development of engines to be used in the projected F-X fighter, which was later to emerge as the F-15 Eagle. In 1970, Pratt and Whitney was declared the winner of the competition and was awarded the contract for the engine for the F-15. The engine was to be designated F100. Two versions of the engine were planned, the F100 for the USAF and the F401 for the Navy. The latter engine was intended for later models of the F-14 Tomcat, but was cancelled when the size of the planned Tomcat fleet was cut back in an economy move. The F100 is an axial-flow turbofan with a bypass ratio of 0.7:1. There are two shafts, one shaft carrying a three-stage fan driven by a two-stage turbine, the other shaft carrying the 10-stage main compressor and its two-stage turbine. For the F100-PW-200 version, normal dry thrust is 12,420 pounds, rising to a maximum thrust of 14,670 pounds at full military power. Maximum afterburning thrust is 23,830 pounds. The F100 engine was first tried in service with the F-15 Eagle. The Air Force had hoped that the F100 engine would be a mature and reliable powerplant by the time that the F-16 was ready to enter service. However, there were a protracted series of teething troubles with the F100 powerplants of the F-15, compounded by labor problems at two of the major subcontractors. Initially, the Air Force had grossly underestimated the number of engine powercycles per sortie, since they had not realized how much the F-15 Eagle's maneuvering capabilities would result in abrupt changes in throttle setting. This caused unexpectedly high wear and tear on the engine, resulting in frequent failures of key engine components such as first-stage turbine blades. Most of these problems could be corrected by more careful maintenance and closer attention to quality control during manufacturing of engine components. Nevertheless, by the end of 1979, the Air Force was being forced to accept engineless F-15 airframes until the problems could be cleared up. However, the most serious problem with the F100 in the F-15 was with stagnation stalling. Since the compressor blades of a jet engine are airfoil sections, they can stall if the angle at which the airflow strikes them exceeds a critical value, cutting off airflow into the combustion chamber which results in a sudden loss of thrust.


Such an event is called a stagnation stall. Stagnation stalls most often occurred during high angle-of-attack maneuvers, and they usually resulted in abrupt interruptions of the flow of air through the compressor. This caused the engine core to lose speed, and the turbine to overheat. If this condition was not quickly corrected, damage to the turbine could take place or a fire could occur. Some stagnation stalls were caused by "hard" afterburner starts, which were mini-explosions that took place inside the afterburner when it was lit up. These could be caused either by the afterburner failing to light up when commanded to do so by the pilot or by the afterburner actually going out. In either case, large amounts of unburnt fuel got sprayed into the aft end of the jetpipe, which were explosively ignited by the hot gases coming from the engine core. The pressure wave from the explosion then propagated forward through the duct to the fan, causing the fan to stall and sometimes even causing the forward compressor stage to stall as well. These types of stagnation stalls usually occurred at high altitudes and at high Mach numbers. Normal recovery technique from stagnation stalls was for the pilot to shut the engine down and allow it to spool down. A restart attempt could be made as soon as the turbine temperature dropped to an acceptable level. When it first flew, the YF-16 seemed to be almost free of the stagnation stall problems which had bedeviled the F-15. However, while flying with an early model of the F100 engine, one of the YF-16s did experience a stagnation stall, although it occurred outside the normal performance envelope of the aircraft. Three other incidents later occurred, all of them at high angles of attack during low speed flights at high altitude. The first such incident in a production F-16 occurred with a Belgian aircraft flying near the limits of its performance envelope.


Fortunately, the pilot was able to get his engine restarted and land safely. The F-16 was fitted with a jet-fuel starter, and from a height of 35,000 feet the pilot would have enought time to attempt at least three unassisted starts using ram air. When the F100 engine control system was originally designed, Pratt & Whitney engineers had allowed for the possibility that the ingestion of missile exhaust might stall the engine. A "rocket-fire" facility was designed into the controls to prevent this from happening. When missiles were fired, an electronic signal was sent to the unified fuel control system which supplied fuel to the engine core and to the afterburner. This signal commanded the angle of the variable stator blades in the engine to be altered to avoid a stall, while the fuel flow to the engine was momentarily reduced and the afterburner exhaust was increased in area to reduce the magnitude of any pressure pulse in the afterburner. Tests had shown that this "rocket-fire" facility was not needed for its primary purpose of preventing missile exhaust stalls, but it turned out to be handy in preventing stagnation stalls. Engine shaft speed, turbine temperature, and the angle of the compressor stator blades are continuously monitored by a digital electronic engine control unit which fine-tunes the engine throughout flight to ensure optimal performance. By monitoring and comparing spool speeds and fan exhaust temperature, the unit is able to sense that a stagnation stall is about to occur and send a dummy "rocket-fire" signal to the fuel control system to initiate the anti-stall measures described above.


At the same time, the fuel control system reduces the afterburner setting to help reduce the pressure within the jetpipe. The afterburner-induced stalls were addressed by a different mechanism. In an attempt to prevent pulses from coming forward through the fan duct, a "proximate splitter" was developed. This is a forward extension of the internal casing which splits the incoming air from the compressor fan and passes some of this air into the core and diverts the rest down the fan duct and into the afterburner. By closing the the gap between the front end of this casing and the rear of the fan to just under half an inch, the designers reduced the size of the path by which high-pressure pulses from the burner had been reaching the core. Engines fitted with the proximate splitter were tested in the F-15, but this feature was not introduced on the F-15 production line, since the loss of a single engine was less hazardous in a twin-engined aircraft like the Eagle. However, this feature was adopted for the single-engined F-16. These engine fixes produced a dramatic improvement in reliability. Engines fitted to the F-16 fleet (and incorporating the proximate splitter) had only 0.15 stagnation stalls per 1,000 hours of flying time, much better than the F-15 fleet. In recent years, the USAF became interested in acquiring an alternative engine for the F-16, partly in a desire to set up a competitive process between rival manufacturers in an attempt to keep costs down, as well as to develop a second source of engines in case one of the suppliers ran into problems. In search of a source for an alternate engine for the F-16 and for the Navy's F-14 Tomcat, in 1984 the Department of Defense awarded General Electric a contract to build a small number of F101 Derivative Fighter Engines (DFE) for flight test.


The DFE was based on the F101 used in the B-1 but incorporated components derived from the F404 engine used in the F/A-18. The Navy decided to adopt the DFE as a replacement for the Tomcat's TF30 turbofan, but the USAF announced that they were going to split future engine purchases between Pratt & Whitney and General Electric. GE was given a contract for full-scale development of its new engine, which was to be designated F110. The General Electric F110 is similar in size to the Pratt & Whitney F100. The F110 has a three-stage fan leading to a nine-stage compressor, the first three stages of which are variable. The bypass ratio is 0.87 to 1. The annular combustion chamber is designed for smokeless operation, and has 20 dual-cone fuel injectors and swirling-cup vaporizers. The single-stage HP turbine is designed to cope with inlet temperatures as high as 2,500 degrees F (1,370 degrees C). Blades are individually replaceable without rotor disassembly. An uncooled two-stage LP turbine leads to a fully-modulated afterburner. When afterburning is demanded, fuel is injected into both the fan and core flows, which mix prior to combustion. All F110s ordered by the USAF were for the F-16 fleet, with the F-15 retaining the F100. The choice of engines for the Fighting Falcon began with the Fiscal Year 1985 Block 30 F-16C/Ds. About 75 percent of the F-16s purchased from that time on by the USAF were powered by the GE engine, with the remainder being powered by the P & W engine. However, it is not intended that individual units operate with F-16s powered by two different engine types, since that would create a spare parts and logistics nightmare. The choice of engines for the F-16 is made at the Wing level. In an attempt to address some of the reliability problems of its engine, Pratt & Whitney developed the -220 model of its F100 turbofan. It has the same thrust as the -200, but is much more reliable, having improvements which radically lowered the number of. unscheduled engine shutdowns. Many older -200 engines were rebuilt to the -220E standard, becoming directly interchangeable with new-build -220 engines. In an attempt to make the F100 more competitive with the General Electric F110, Pratt & Whitney introduced the more powerful F100-PW-229 version in the early 1990s. This engine is rated at 29,100 pounds of thrust with full afterburner. It has a higher fan airflow and pressure ratio, a higher-airflow compressor with an extra stage, a new float-wall combustor, higher turbine temperatures, and a redesigned afterburner.


It has about 22 percent more thrust than previous F100 models. The first F-16s powered by the -229 engines began to be delivered in 1992. However, the degree of mechanical changes introduced in the -229 make it impractical to rebuild -200 or -220E engines to -229 standards. On the export market, the higher thrust of the F110 made it the engine of choice through the mid to late 1980s. The more powerful F100-PW-229 finally gave P & W the chance of re-entering the export market. In 1991, South Korea chose the F100-PW-229 for its license-built F-16s, maintaining engine commonality with F-16Cs and Ds that were purchased earlier from the USA. The F100-PW-200+ is intended for foreign air forces which operate significant numbers of F-16s that are powered by -200 and -220E engines, but which are denied access to the more powerful -229. It combines the core of the -220 with the fan, nozzle, and digital control system of the -229. It develops around 27,000 pounds of thrust with afterburning.


Flying Controls...

Leading-edge manoeuvring flaps are programmed automatically as a function of Mach number and angle of attack. The increased wing camber maintains lift co-efficients at high angles of attack. These flaps are one-piece bonded aluminium honeycomb sandwich structures actuated by a Garrett drive system using rotary actuators. The trailing-edges carry large flaperons (flap/ailerons), which are interchangeable left with right and are actuated by National Water Lift integrated servo-actuators. The maximum rate of flaperon movement is 80o / sec. Interchangeable, all-moving tailplane halves. Split speed-brake inboard of rear portion of each horizontal tail surface to each side of nozzle, each deflecting 60o from the closed position. National Water Lift servo-actuators for rudder and tailplane.


AN/APG-66/68 Radar...

The AN/APG-66 is a pulse-doppler radar designed specifically for the F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter aircraft. It was developed from Westinghouse's WX-200 radar and is designed for operation with the Sparrow and AMRAAM medium-range and the Sidewinder short- range missiles. APG-66 uses a slotted planar-array antenna located in the aircraft's nose and has four operating frequencies within the I/J band. The modular system is configured to six Line-Replaceable Units (LRUs), each with its own power supply. The LRUs consist of the antenna, transmitter, low-power Radio Frequency (RF) unit, digital signal processor, computer, and control panel. The system has ten operating modes, which are divided into air-to-air, air-to-surface display, and sub-modes. The air-to- air modes are search and engagement. There are six air-to-surface display modes (real beam ground map, expanded real beam ground map, doppler beam- sharpening, beacon, and sea). APG-66 also has two sub-modes, which are engagement and freeze. In the search mode APG-66 performs uplook and downlook scanning. The uplook mode uses a low Pulse Repetition Frequency (PRF) for medium- and high-altitude target detection in low clutter. Downlook uses medium PRF for target detection in heavy clutter environments. The search mode also performs search altitude display, which displays the relative altitude of targets specified by the pilot. Once a target is located via the search mode, the engagement sub-mode can be used. Engagement allows the system to use the AMRAAM, sidewinder, and sparrow missiles. When engaging the sidewinder, APG-66 sends slaving commands that slaves the missile's seeker head to the radar's line-of-sight for increased accuracy and missile lock-on speed. An Operational Capability Upgrade (OCU) was developed to modify the APG-66 to use the AMRAAM missile. The OCU is designed to provide the radar with the necessary data link to perform mid-course updates of the missile.


The sparrow's semi-active homing seeker is facilitated in the engagement mode by a Continuous Wave Illuminator (CWI). The CWI also permits APG-66 to be compatible with Skyflash and other missiles with similar semi-active homing seekers. Target acquisition can be manual or automatic in the track mode. There are two main manual acquisition modes, single-target track and situation awareness. The situation awareness mode performs Track-While-Scan (TWS), allowing the pilot to continue observing search targets while tracking a specific target. While in this mode, the search area does not need to include the tracked target's sector. Four Air Combat Maneuvering (ACM) modes are available for automatic target acquisition and tracking. In the first ACM mode, a 20 x 20-deg Field Of View (FOV) is scanned. This FOV is equal to that of the Head Up Display (HUD). Once a target is detected, the radar performs automatic lock-on. The second ACM mode's FOV is 10- x 40-deg, offering a tall window that is perpendicular to the aircraft's longitudinal axis; this proves especially useful in high-G maneuvering situations. A boresight ACM mode is used for multiple aircraft engagement situations. The boresight uses a pencil beam positioned at 0-deg azimuth and minus 3-deg elevation to "spotlight" a target for acquisition. This is especially useful in preventing engagement of friendly aircraft. A slewable ACM mode allows the pilot to rotate the 60- x 20-deg FOV. The automatic scan pattern gives the pilot up to 4 sec of time. This mode is designed for use when the aircraft is operating in the vertical plane or during stern direction conversion. The slant range measurement to a designated surface location is generated by the Air-to-Ground Ranging (AGR) mode. This real-time mode acts with the fire-control system to guide missiles in air-to-ground combat. AGR is automatically selected when the pilot selects the appropriate weapons deployment mode.


Terrain in the aircraft's heading is displayed via the real beam ground map mode. The radar provides the stabilized image mainly as a navigational aid in ground target detection and location. An extension of this mode is the expanded real beam ground map. The expanded real beam ground map provides a 4:1 map expansion of the range around a point designated by the pilot via the display screen's cursor. Doppler Beam Sharpening (DBS) is available to further enhance the higher resolution of the expanded real beam ground map. This mode, which enhances the range and azimuth resolution by 8:1, is only available from the expanded real beam ground map mode. In the Beacon mode the system performs navigational fixing. It also delivers weapons relative to ground beacons and can be used to locate friendly aircraft that are using air-to-air beacons. The high-clutter environment of the ocean surface is countered in the sea mode. There are two sub modes in the sea mode. The first sub-mode, Sea-1 is frequency-agile and non- coherent to locate small targets in low sea states. The second sub-mode, Sea-2, is fully coherent, with doppler discrimination for the detection of moving surface crafts in high sea states. The freeze sub-mode can only be accessed through the air- to-ground display modes. It pauses the display and halts all radar emissions as soon as the freeze command is received via the controls. The aircraft's current position continues to be shown on the frozen display. This mode is useful during penetration operations against stationary surface targets when the aircraft needs to prevent detection of its signals, yet continue to close in on the target. The system's displays include the control panel, HUD, radar display, with all combat-critical controls integrated into the throttle grip and side stick controller. The modularity of the LRUs allow for shortened Mean Time To Repair (MTTR) since they can simply be replaced, involving no special tools or equipment. The MTTR has been demonstrated to be 5 minutes, with 30 minutes for replacement of the antenna unit. APG-66 has also demonstrated a Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) of 97 hours in service, but the manufacturers contend that it has achieved 115 hours. A cockpit continuous self-test system monitors for malfunctions. The manufacturers claim that the system's Built-In-Test (BIT) routine can isolate up to 98% of the faults to a particular LRU in the event of a malfunction. A new version of the AN/APG-66, designated the AN/APG-66(V)2 is being installed in F-16A/B aircraft as they are modernized in the Midlife Update program. The equipment is lighter and provides greater detection range and reliability for the modernized F-16s.


ACES II...

The ACES II (Advanced Concept Ejection Seat) is considered a smart seat since it senses the conditions of the ejection and selects the proper deployment of the drogue and main parachutes to minimize the forces on the occupant. The seat is a derivative of the Douglas Escapac seat. Removal from the aircraft is by a three part pyrotechnic sequence. A gun catapult provides the initial removal of the seat from the aircraft. A rocket sustainer provides zero/zero capability to the seat. To prevent the seat from tumbling when the aircraft is in a roll maneuver or there is a center of gravity imbalance, another (smaller) rocket called a STAPAC is attached to a gyroscope. This senses the motion and attempts to keep the seat from spinning by automaticly providing a correcting force. Once clear of the aircraft, the pitot - static system on the seat measures the conditions and selects one of three operating modes depending on the conditions present at egress. Mode 1 - Low speed (< 250 knots) and low altitude (< 15,000 feet) operation. The main parachute deploys as the seat clears the rails. Drogue parachute remains undeployed to prevent line tangle. Mode 2 - Moderate speed (250 - 650 knots) and low altitude (< 15,000 feet) operation. Drogue parachute deploys as the seat leaves the rails. Main parachute deploys 0.8 to 1.0 seconds after the drogue. Drogue chute is then released to prevent line tangle. Mode 3 - High speed (250 - 650 knots) and high altitude (> 15,000 feet) operation. Drogue parachute deploys as the seat leaves the rails. The pitot - static system senses the conditions and delays the main parachute until mode 2 conditions are met. Then the main parachute deploys after 0.8 to 1.0 seconds. Drogue chute is then released to prevent line tangle.


Landing Gear...

Menasco hydraulically retractable type, nose unit retracting aft and main units forward into fuselage. Nosewheel is located aft of intake, to reduce the risk of foreign objects being thrown into the engine during ground operation, and rotates 90o during retraction to lie horizontally under engine air intake duct. Oleo-pneumatic struts in all units. Goodyear mainwheels and brakes; Goodrich mainwheel tyres, size 25.5 × 8-14, pressure 14.48 to 15.17 bars (210 to 220 lb/sq in) at T-O weight less than 11,340 kg (25,000 lb). Steerable nosewheel with Goodrich tyre, size 18 × 5.5-8, pressure 14.82 to 15.51 bars (215 to 225 lb/sq in) at T-O weights less than 11,340 kg (25,000 lb). All but two main unit components interchangeable. Brake by wire system on main gear, with Goodyear anti-skid units. Runway arrester hook under rear fuselage.