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Show ptodificatkms For F-16 : - V- it V - - ' - ) ! ;l j MECHANIC AT WORK :n Smith, aircraft mechanic in the Ogden Air ' tics Center maintenance directorate is seen hard irk. LUCLNDA SCHUFT FB - Personnel in the orate of Maintenance at ir Force Base are install- first major depot level fications to the F-16 I i'n8 Falcon through a 1 un called Pacer-Loft I. -ER-LOFT is a package 1 possible modifications 'Ped in the last four years enhance the avionics ,pons delivery systems ' Air Force's most adv-fighter adv-fighter jet. ?c modifications are J installed on 140 F-16 A model aircraft by the i Air Logistics Center ft Division, Directorate mtenance. Planes re-1 re-1 Pacer-Loft I are pri-"own pri-"own by the 388th Tac-Fighter Tac-Fighter Wing at Hill ind the 56th Tactical r "ingat MacDill AFB, I ANCES are incorpo-. incorpo-. 'fne design of U.S. Air Aircraft continually on auction line. Pacer-j Pacer-j js designed to bring r-16s manufactured in ) Jfough 1980 to the more configuration. ,en the airplane leaves , 3t it will be a current ' j electronically," said fan", of the F-16 Air-)yision Air-)yision Planning Sec- ! I PRODUCTION pro-, pro-, commodates up to 17 a time in the Pacer- Loft I program. Eighty-nine planes have been finished and the program is scheduled for completion in August 1983. The F-16 is the first electric aircraft with no mechanical connections from the cockpit to the flight controls. Its 'fly by wire' technology allows a pilot to control the aircraft's flight with computers. PACER-LOFT I modifications modifica-tions are improving the sophisticated sophis-ticated F-16 to make it even better. "Most of the equipment equip-ment on the F-16 is new, innovative, in-novative, and it will set the pace for the next decade," said O. Dale Quinlan, chief of the F-16 Production Management Branch, Directorate of Materiel Mater-iel Management. Mr Quinlan's branch oversees over-sees the Pacer-Loft I program. They manage the acquired parts and materials for the modifications which are installed instal-led by the Aircraft Division. THE MODIFICATIONS in the Pacer-Loft I program are primarily managed by the System Sys-tem Project Office, A.F. Systems Sys-tems Command, Wnght-pTerson Wnght-pTerson AFB, Ohio. While the F-16 is in the early acquisition acquisi-tion stages, much of the system management is handled hand-led by AFSC. Ogden ALC has been assigned the logistics management and depot maintenance responsibility for U S Air Force F-I6s. Eventually Even-tually all of the system management man-agement will be transferred to Ogden ALC. . , The Air Force received its first F-16 in 1978 and Mr. Quinlan said, "With the mliny modifications the F-16 of today to-day is considerably improved from the first ones which came oft" the assembly line." THE F-16 is the first fighter aircraft designed and co-manufactured co-manufactured by more than one country. Pacer-Loft I modifications are also being incorporated in-corporated on planes from the same production blocks in Belgium. Bel-gium. Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands in European depots. The Pacer-Loft I changes include in-clude major aircraft tiring changes and changes in computer com-puter components. Workers here remove the 'black boxes' containing computer parts and ship them to the manufacturer for modifications. They then install the wiring and hardware changes to match the improved im-proved components returned by the manufacturers. Operational Opera-tional checks on various systems sys-tems such as the radar and flight control are also done by the workers. HE SAID, "The Tactical Air Command is the basic driver of the Pacer-Loft I modifications." modifica-tions." Many of the changes affect placement of the controls con-trols in the crew stations. The improvements organize the control configuration so a pilot can easily switch from a plane made in on of the production pro-duction blocks to another. Prior to Pacer-Loft I, changes made in the crw station area were not matched to the configuration con-figuration of earlier models. THE MOVEABLE control stick is a major Pacer-Loft I modification in the crew station. sta-tion. The original F-16 had a stationary stick which picked up the pressure from the pilot's hand and relayed the information informa-tion to a computer for flight control. A new control stick with some flexibility was designed de-signed to give pilots a better feel of flying the airplane. To make this change, workers work-ers on the Directorate of Maintenance production line remove the stick compoment and send it to General Dynamics Dyna-mics for modification. The crew station hardware and wiring wir-ing on the plane is then modified mod-ified to match the nez stick configuration. WHAT DO pilots think of the Pacer-Loft I modifications? modifica-tions? Major Bob Barrett, Ogden said, "One of the modifications modifica-tions adds a moveable stick which gives better response and the pilot a betterfeel of the airplane. It's always been a fun airplane to fly and the changes just make it easier." |