Flying the world's first CIVILIAN F-16

hey it's hazard and today we're playing with the aggressors at top aces big one targeted 32 miles 35 000. big one hostile there [Applause] [Music] this is totally targeted it knows 20 miles what's up motor how are you doing are you doing great thank you i got some badges for you but we'll get in and get started right away okay let's do it cool look at this looks like a hangar during a hervec i'm at top aces here on the first civilian f-16s in the world they bought 29 of them from israel who is currently transitioning to the f-35 these aren't just for joy rides though they're being used by the air force as aggressors to help train fighter pilots let's go for a flight with me two one hack zero eight hundred again welcome aces five one flight today going out there for doing some uh tactical intercepts and we'll take that into a bvr engagements to a wvr transition objectives out there looking for 35 nautical model locks shots and according to the atrg and then really looking for billy bob and i effective bvr to wvr transition we depart from mesa airport which is down the road from luke air force base in phoenix arizona after taking off we headed northeast on a heading of zero seven zero until we reached the operating area there we were able to execute our aggressor role helping blue air train against an adversarial country's air force [Music] a6501 is a contract adversary air company we are the world's first company to own and operate a modern 4th gen aircraft the f-16 right so these aircraft definitely not the air force aircraft so where'd you guys get them from so we bought these from israel so they were initially uh u.s air force jets that were initially scheduled to go to iran back in the 70s but obviously due to the political issues that happened during that time the jets were reallocated to israel under the peace marvel program so israel got these jets in the late 70s and early 80s and then about five years ago top aces went out and procured a sales agreement with israel to buy 29 of these f-16s i noticed a lot of markings on the left-hand side typically in the air force those are for kills so what are some of the markings on these yeah so uh these jets of the 29 that we have we have 16 jets that account for 19 total air-to-air kills all against syrian migs primarily mig-21s and mig-23s there's also a couple helicopter kills in there that's the syrian rondelle that you'll see on the left side and then two of our jets were involved in the iraq nuclear raid what are we getting set up for now all right so here your first engagement we'll set up for our first intercept that's a little bit different than we hear in the air force what's he saying here so one of the key things about the air force aggressors and something that we've uh adapted and uh incorporated into top aces [Applause] gonna be our and target 000 track north this one trying to find them on our radar here so essentially with baron.com you know so especially fighting to get the 5th gen aircraft obviously we're going to have reduced radar contacts and reduced awareness especially at those longer ranges but baron through their control can see they basically have that god's eye picture and they can see this is one striker slightly left as your nose 11 o'clock blow 15 miles [Applause] okay just get them on the radar so i can achieve a lock so bearing there helps a point exactly where i need to look both eyeballs and uh in with my radar so in the u.s the pilots are a lot more autonomous so you guys are replicating adversarial countries where a lot more reliant on the ground controllers affirmative so uh just as you said there right in the u.s we uh basically give the authority to the flight lead primarily looking uh for them to run the game getting playing with uh being backed up by gci [Music] standby we're coming to the merge here now we won it's one tally this is high back right five o'clock it's got a little bit of an advantage on us so i'm fighting down here cutting across the circle right nine level got all right so in a good offensive position deep low back up is now for fuel considerations [Music] so these jets even though they were built in the 70s and 80s do not have those old avionics yeah so we've done some upgrades there have been a few upgrades to the jet um to improve the radar operation some of our jets are still pretty much kind of the baseline uh oem jets if you will that uh with the minimal upgrades and then we have our advanced aggressor fighter that is a essentially a modern aircraft in a in the original body with our advanced investor fighter what we've been able to do is take these older aircraft but put in a new mission system that allows us to operate modern systems and advanced modern systems such as our aesa radar our helping mountain queueing system uh link 16 and ir search and track capability and then we do that through a new modern multi-function display that we have integrated in where the old radar display used to be from that i can pretty much operate all the sensors through that multi-function display and through my helmet with the helmet mounted tubing system you know there was a time a while ago when quantity was really what the air force was after putting up multiple numbers of adversary aircraft for our blue forces to train against however over the past decade or so we've needed more quality if you will over that quantity you know there's a good aspect to having lots of numbers uh but as f22s and f35s have come online and especially now with the f25s multiple fifth gen fighters and because of our adversaries bringing on you know fourth plus and fifth gen uh adversaries and potential adversaries it's important now to have an adversary that our forces can train against that can replicate uh some of those adversary capabilities uh so some of the older third gen planes just don't have that capability close right aces five one break left departure in let's try one left break the parts run quick [Music] clear all right ray i guess you're the one i should be thanking foreign yes sir so what's your title here uh i'm the flight line maintenance manager sir so anything that happens on the fly line i'm responsible for so you're responsible for all these aircraft here all these aircraft right now are nine flyers that we have up and running uh yeah i'm responsible for every piece of uh maintenance that happens to it all the scheduled maintenance uh the preparation for flight all that just managing the people make sure they're doing what they're doing so snake was talking about these all came from israel what's that process like bringing them from here there to here so i've been through that process um i actually went over there with uh with our counterparts over working in israel and i taught them how to disassemble an aircraft most of them knew how but they're a little bit rusty so we uh had to defuel the aircraft uh de-puddle all the tanks we yanked the wings off of them the engine out the stabs and the vertical tail and then we uh we trucked them to van gorion airport and we threw them on an antonov and uh late january of last year our first four arrives okay so you guys are shipping them over on antonov so you guys taking off the wings uh yes sir there's uh 16 bolts that hold each one of these wings on and they're underneath these panels they come off fairly easy got a sling that yanks them off once all the bolts are out is it hard to put them back on uh it's actually easier to put them on than it is to take them off as long as you get them lined up properly so you guys are stripping them down packing them onto an antenna off like sardines and then ship them over uh yes sir and then we bring them here and we do a major structural modification to the wings themselves it's called three amigos and then we put the wings on them uh the stabs everything else do all the operational checks and then we fcf them how long are you expecting these things to fly for so i would say probably the next 10 years easily and what kind of engines are you flying with uh 220 efis pretty much the 220 easter 28 thousand pounds for us very light aircraft they get off the ground quick as i'm sure you just experienced yeah yeah we just did it after takeoff and this is the fastest i've ever accelerated yet one thing i noticed is these things look a little different than what we have on us f-16s uh yes sir this is the ad system the iaf put on there allows us to carry more chaff and more flares on this b model they're only down on the ventral but on all our a models are also up up top on the vertical tail is there anything else that's different about this jet from a us one uh not much after that sir the engine's a little bit different but it's it's it's basically a 228 so awesome well thanks for your time yes sir [Music] no more questions no more i want to thank snake ray and all the other members of top aces for inviting me out it's a world-class organization looking forward to seeing you guys next time from the blue side fights up [Music] do you

Channel: Hasard Lee

Views: 2,525,690

Keywords: day in the life, fighter pilot, f-35, f-16, professionals playbook, Justin lee, hasard lee, hasard, pilot, upt, usaf, top gun, f-22, A-10, Usafa, afrotc, pilot life, supt, aviation, flight school, real fighter pilot, upt 2.5, upt next, fighter pilot requirements, how to become a fighter pilot, Usafa requirements, supt 2.5, fighter pilot vision, jsf, joint strike fighter, f-35A, f35, force, fighter pilot day in the life, takeoff, jet takeoff, top aces, aggressor, red air, civilian f-16

Id: 34Sa0vzmBfs

Length: 13min 38sec (818 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 16 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/thalesmaximus]

Are they civilian like working full time at a factory and fly in the weekends, or civilian like retired with a military background with lot’s of flight hours in military aircraft.