demo pilot. After that he went to Kunsan for
his second tour on the Korean peninsula.
Kunsan is the “last bastion of fighter bases”,
he said, adding: “The fact that it’s a remote
tour allows you to spend a year here where
you eat, sleep, and breathe fighters.
“It’s a great place to learn how to be a fighter
pilot! Kunsan typically has a lot of new pilots.
It’s a lot of fun to teach the new guys – we
call them ‘punks’ – how to fly the ‘Viper’.”
As at Osan, the fighter pilots at Kunsan
are very focused on the threat and how
close it is. “Our focus is on being ready to
gain air superiority on the Korean peninsula
should conflict arise,” ‘Mace’ said.
Another thing that motivates the fighter pilots at
Kunsan is their heritage. Quoting the 8th FW’s
nickname since the 1960s, ‘Mace’ said: “The
‘Wolfpack’ is extremely proud to carry on the
tradition of Robin Olds. Olds was a great fighter
pilot and great leader. The ‘Pantons’ and ‘Juvats’
[the 80th FS at Kunsan] fly to embody his spirit
and will make him proud when the time comes.”‘Vipers’ in Korea
Although the F-16 has been around since
the 1970s, continual updates have made
significant enhancements to the small, sleek
fighter. Capt Watts said the Fighting Falcon
“is the workhorse of the air force’s fighter
force. It’s the best ’plane out there!”
Maj O’Connor added: “The need for a
multi-role fighter has always been prevalent
here based on the nature of the missions
we would need to accomplish if a conflict
arose. And its lifespan has been extended
far beyond what was originally planned,
both in terms of the jet itself as well as our
strategic and operational plans of what we
would use it for. It’s been around for a while,
and it’s proven to be a very reliable aircraft.”
‘Crush’ has flown almost every version of the
F-16, including the Block 15, 25, 30, 42, 50,
and 52, but at Osan he flies the Block 40.
He described the basic differences between
the variants: “Any block that ends with a ‘2’ –
like a Block 42 or 52 – has a Pratt & Whitney
engine, whereas the blocks that end with a
‘0’ have a GE [General Electric] motor. The
Block 40 we fly here has a GE-100 motor.“Also, there are different avionics in the
different blocks. The F-16 is a multi-
role fighter, so it can do many kinds of
missions, but each block is set up to do
a specific one more than the others.
“The Block 40 is focused mainly on a lot of
the air-to-ground stuff. Block 50s are SEAD
[suppression of enemy air defences] platforms
primarily, so they are HARM [AGM-88 High-
Speed Anti-Radiation Missile] shooters.”‘Vipers’ updated
Lt Morical described another improvement
made to the F-16 – the Lockheed Martin
Sniper Advanced Targeting Pod (ATP). “It’s
a great tool,” she said. “We have a TV
mode on the Sniper pod that allows us to
see, with a little more clarity, anything on the
ground. We’ve got a good zoom function
that can really make everything clearer.
“We use it for both air-to-air and air-to-
ground. If I lock someone up with my radar, I
can track that aircraft and zoom in to identify
it. For air-to-ground, the targeting pod will
take the co-ordinates from our aircraft, and
it will open up the targeting pod’s ‘eyes’
and look at that spot on the ground.
“We’re then able to take imagery we’ve
been provided, and we’ve studied, toknow what it is we’re looking for – to find
the buildings and roads and bridges, and
select our target out of all of that.
“We also typically carry the ALQ-184 ECM
[electronic countermeasures] pod and GBU-
31 2,000lb JDAMs [Joint Direct Attack
Munitions]. A GPS-guided bomb is our
go-to, bread-and-butter weapon here, but
we also train to use laser-guided bombs.”
‘Crush’ added that the Joint Helmet Mounted
Cueing System (JHMCS, commonly called
the ‘J-hamix’) “has given us an incredible
capability boost both in the air-to-air and air-
to-ground arena” in terms of the targeting
and the information it can provide.
“In the air-to-ground environment, particularly
the CAS [close air support] environment, it’s
been a huge capability boost for us. We
haven’t had any real air-to-air engagements
recently where we’ve had to use it, but I
know in training it certainly does a great
job; it would in the real deal as well.
“The technology just grows exponentially,”
he continued. “The AIM-9X is obviously
a definite air-to-air game-changer,
as well as the Link 16 data link.
“Link 16 has really expanded our ability to
operate both within our flight – to give us the
freedom to do more advanced tactics – asF-16C 88-0536 ‘36 FS’ is marked
as the commander’s jet of the
‘Fiends’ at Osan AB. Like all
‘Vipers’ in US hands in South
Korea, the squadron’s jets are
Block 40 models, optimised to
fight at night.Left: Ready for the ‘fight tonight’. A 35th FS jet
in its HAS as darkness falls on Kunsan. Airmen
work inside the shelters to protect them and the
aircraft from enemy fire in order to complete the
maintenance quickly and safely.
A 36th FS F-16C dispenses infrared flares high over
Korea. The parent 51st FW at Osan is known as
the ‘Mustangs’, and its F-16s and A-10s both wear
the black silhouette of a charging horse on the tail.http://www.airforcesmonthly.com #364 JULY 2018 // 49