Left page: The
Toledo jets are
equipped with the
Pratt & Whitney
F100-PW-229
engine, giving
them a welcome
boost in thrust to
29,100lb.
Above: The
nose of 90-0731
bears a lightning
bolt marking in
homage to the
unit’s F-51s.
Below: The 112th
FS covers a vast
swathe of US
airspace in order
to protect the
homeland.Barasch. ‘As well as Detroit, Cleveland
and Cincinnati, we can get to New York
and Washington DC. If they have bad
weather on the east coast that might
have grounded units out there, we can
pick that up.’
The ACA mission means the unit has a
slightly higher manning footprint when
compared to a regular guard fighter
squadron. ‘We typically fly the alert jets
multiple times per week and for training
scrambles we call on outside assets to
provide realistic intercept training for
us. We fly a full-up scenario each month
within the NORAD structure.’
While regular, day-to-day, training
instills many of the skills required for
the ACA mission, Barasch says that
the alert pilots must maintain certain
‘ticks in boxes’. ‘It’s a natural piece of
our training plan, but we have specific
upgrades to be qualified for alert, so we
have CT [continuation training] sorties
dedicated to the alert mission. Some
units have dedicated alert crews, but
we share it between all of us. Our aim
is to keep everyone combat-ready in all
mission sets.’Latest capabilities
The ACA mission threw the spotlight on
to the F-16 in 2017 as rumors suggested
the guard was ready to throw the
F-15C under the bus in order to secure
funding for upgrades for the ‘Viper’
community. Such extreme measures
have not become necessary and the
urgent radar replacement project is
now in train. Now Raytheon has ‘bangedthey will prioritize geographically for the
ACA units.’
The service life extension program
(SLEP) that the USAF has now embarked
on is something the Toledo squadron
hopes to benefit from, but as its jets are
the lowest-houred in the CAF, Barasch
says it might be a while before they
begin the process. This will increase the
current 8,000-hour limit to 13,856 hours
by modifying and repairing life-limiting
safety of flight-critical structures in up to
841 Block 40/42/50/52 F-16s.
In the meantime, the ‘Stingers’
have had their aircraft modified to
operational flight plan (OFP) M7.1
standard, with 7.2 set to appear this year.
M7 dates back to January 2013 and was
the first OFP to be developed organically
by the USAF in conjunction with the
Ogden Air Logistics Center (ALC). It was
also the first to be jointly developed
concurrently by the development test
and operational test communities. M7
included integration of the AIM-9X Block
II and the addition of the AN/ALQ-213
electronic warfare management system
in the Block 42 variants.
Barasch’s squadron is also receiving the
new Raytheon center display unit (CDU),
a 6 x 8in (15.2 x 20.3cm) screen that
becomes the primary flight reference.
He explains, ‘That was originally a Block
30 initiative, but a few years ago we sent
one of our jets to the test community
in Tucson [Arizona]. They used it for
trials work and one of the results is CDU
for the Block 40/42. All of our jets will
receive the CDU this year. Eventually we
will see full integration of the Sniper SEout’ of the F-16 radar modernization
contest, the Northrop Grumman APG-83
scalable agile beam radar (SABR) is the
upgrade of choice. ‘The AESA [active
electronically scanned array] is huge for
us’, enthuses Barasch. Many would agree
that the current APG-68 in the Block
40/42 isn’t the most potent of air-to-air
sets. In fact, it’s one of the differences
when compared to the Block 50/52.
The upgrade plan is likely to see jets
being rolled out simultaneously to the
various ACA ‘Viper’ squadrons to cover
the immediate needs of the mission,
before the squadrons are bulked out
with upgraded F-16s. ‘Each squadron will
receive a certain number initially, andhttp://www.combataircraft.net // May 2018 77
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