“Air-to-Air? No problem. Air-to-Mud? No problem. Close Air Support? No problem. It is easy to maintain and quick-turn capable. It’s not a glamour jet; it just can do everything well.”

Former USAF Crew Chief Derek Palos explains how to keep an F-16 flying, how to avoid ‘Falcon bites’ and the story of inter-unit aircraft graffiti in South Korea.

What’s the easiest way to get injured at an airbase? 

    On an active flightline the easiest way to get hurt, is not to be aware of your surroundings, and respecting the sheer power of that machine, you see people get falcon bites all the time, getting hit with flight controls, running into static dischargers, I saw a guy get his arm caught in between a horizontal stabilator and the body of the plane, he was very lucky to still have his arm. 

What is the most annoying bit of maintenance to do on an F-16?

        I never had to personally do one but the Emergency Power Unit Removal and Replacement (EPU R&R) is said to be a legendary pain in the ass, from what I understand it is almost impossible to get in without brute force haha. The most frustrating part about maintaining the F-16 for me personally was all the fasteners on every panel, such overkill. The top and bottom leading edge flap seals had at least 400 hundred screws, with butter-soft torque tip fasteners that would round out if you breathed on them wrong. Late in my career I was the NCO in charge of the second shift phase hanger, we would do programmed maintenance on a hours flown schedule, every phase required those flap seals to be removed. They were the bane of my existence.

“We had a saying at Luke: What’s the difference between a cactus and an F-16? On a cactus, the pricks are on the outside”

The tight spaces in the engine bay made it difficult to safety wire a lot of the engine mounts after R&R, but you made adjustments for that the more you did which was instrumental during one of the challenging times, which I’ll tell you about later  

Describe the F-16 in three words

   

   Lawn Dart Baby! That was a common dig on the F-16, since it had one engine; if it fails, it drops like the summertime front-yard game here in the states, where we throw giant darts (yes, giant darts) into a circle, similar to horseshoes.   

What was your role?

  I was a Crew Chief, responsible for preflight and postflight inspections, servicing the aircraft, including everyday maintenance like refuelling and tyre changing, taking oil samples post-flight for SOAP (Spectrographic Oil Analysis Program) removal and replacement of airframe components like flight controls and landing gear, minor fixes like door latches, and basically anything not related to the Avionics or Weapons system.  

What was the most challenging time with the F-16 force?

   

I was stationed at Luke AFB in Arizona from 1993-97 in the 314th Fighter Squadron and 61st FS (the 314th deactivated, and we became the 61st). There was a giant dust storm, what we call a haboob in Arizona (among other places). The whole base was not prepared, but the 61st was positioned just right, and our planes caught the brunt of the dust storm; every jet that was out on the flightline was filled with dust and small rocks in every opening. There was a freshly painted jet that we had just towed back from the paint barn that looked like half of it had been sandblasted. Every canopy was trashed, and depending on which way it was facing on the ramp, it decided which half of the canopy looked like it was rubbed with sandpaper. We had to take air out of the front struts to then run water through the exhaust, while an airman in raingear spun the blades from the intake. We had to resort to that because we used all the engine trailers for removed engines. The 61st worked night and day for eight days I believe, to get our 30 jets back to mission capable.  

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