I cleared final. I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. Do not crash. Do not
crash. do not crash. Oh man, it's fun while it lasted.
Hi, I'm Matthew Burchette, and this is an F-16 Viper version of Behind the Wings.
You know, now we're actually here on the flight line at Buckley Air Force Base in
the Colorado Air National Guard Area, 140th Wing, 120th Fighter Squadron.
Go Cougars. And I'm here with Lieutenant Colonel Craig "Lobo" Wolf.
How are you? It's nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you, as well.
So tell us a little bit about what Buckley does and, especially, what you do.
I'm a part of the 120th Fighter Squadron.
You are an actual fighter pilot.
Yes, believe it or not.
Wow, that is cool. I just touched a fighter pilot.
Don't quite look Top Gun-ish, but I've been doing this since 1994.
Buckley Air Field and the Colorado guard was
here long before that. Started out at Lowery Air Force Base in 1923, and then
moved out here and it was a National Guard base all the way until 2000, when
it became an active duty base.
So we're standing right here in front of a Viper can we go take a look at it?
Yeah, let's go take a look. Awesome.
Hello. Oh, that's really cool. So this is what they consider a big mouth.
That's true. So the version that we fly here is the General Electric engine. And, with the
big inlet, it allows more air to be sucked in and then turned into speed.
Everything that a fighter pilot likes.
Exactly.
Speaking of speed, what is the top speed on one of these little guys?
The book will tell you about 2.2, but,
once you start adding on all the targeting pods and external tanks and
whatnot, it gets it pretty dirty, and we have some speed limitations.
Okay, so it's like when I put my bike rack on my car.
Exactly.
Looking at the size of this thing, you guys are carrying nukes aren't you.
Well, Matthew, now I know you know better than that. However, I'm glad you asked because this
is our most frequently asked question when
people get a tour at an air show of the F-16. And they're like, "Wow, is that a bomb?"
No, this is an external fuel tank.
Yep, 370 gallons.
Yep.
This is considered a drop tank, I mean you can drop these, if you need to?
Right, so the drop tank is exactly that. We prefer not to drop them. However, if
they're in the event of an emergency, and we wanted to increase our range and make
the airplane a little more streamlined, we can drop them. And then, in a combat
situation, if you were engaged defensively, and you wanted the
airplane to be more maneuverable and lighter, than you would drop them at that point.
It's just a simple push of the button and both tanks fall away.
Okay, very cool.
Alright, so this is the cool stuff right here, the AIM-9 and the AIM-120.
Now, this is like the close in kind of weapon, yeah?
The AIM-9 is a heat-seeking missile and does have a shorter range.
It's hard to see, but it does have a little seeker in there,
infrared, and it looks out for that heat source.
And we kind of aim it, and then it goes after where it sees that heat source.
That's cool.
The F-16 truly is kind of a jack of all, because we can mix
it up with the different missiles, the different bombs. We do have the speed to
get from point A to point B, but you know we don't always have the same amount of
on-station time or the amount of firepower,
but we kind of get a jack of everything, the master of none.
Well, this was really cool. Thank you for walking us around this really cool bird.
What does it take to actually fly one of these things? It can't be easy getting ready.
So, Matthew, the airplane itself is actually really easy to fly, but as you..
So he says.
Yeah, but using it as a weapon is the challenge. So the next step
is to do the mission planning, and then we'll do the flight briefing.
Okay.
And then, from there, we'll go down and get our life support equipment on and our
safety and egress stuff. And then we'll walk out to the airplanes. We get started
up working with maintenance to generate the airplanes, and then it will taxi on
out, take off, go down to the bombing range, what would it do the tactical mission.
Oh, very cool.
Come back. We'll land, and then we'll go in, and we'll
debrief the mission and learn something from it.
Alright, so all of that is happening right now?
Yeah.
Can we go see?
Yeah.
We're going to go see.
Did you see how close that was?
Yeah, that was like 1,000 meters.
Oh alright, well, it looks scary from here. I'm a civilian.
What do you expect? Alright, so we're here at Airbursts Bombing
Range, which is south of Fort Carson. And the F-16s are flying over.
Pretty soon, we're actually going to have A-10s. You know what, why don't we get out here
and take a look at some of this stuff, if we can. Do you think we can go out there?
Yeah, let's call and make sure the range is all safe, and then let's go check it.
Alright, I like it.
So now the mission is over, these guys have dropped the bomb, they've
hit the target. So they're flying back to Buckley, which means we got to
jump in the car and race them back to Buckley. We will lose that race, but then
it's debrief and all that kind of stuff.
Right, that's where it's time for us to go back
and try and figure out why this isn't sitting in the target.
Well, you know what, we're going to head back to Buckley, and we're going to sit in
on the debrief and see what went right, see what went wrong.
Controlled area. It says "Squadron Vault." That's where the debriefings take place.
Let's go check that out.
Actually, Matthew, that's where the classified squad
debriefs takes place, so we're not going to go watch that.
Alright. Well, then, what do you do after a mission then, if you're not in there?
Well, after the classified debriefing then, it's on to the unclassified debriefing.
Let me show you.
Alright, you're not going to beat me up are you?
No.