Aileron's Air National Guard Website

Assorted F-16 Pictures

Just click on the picture to see a larger version

We transitined to the ADF F-16 (Air Defense Fighter) in 1989. Got to go down to Tucson ANG for RTU and we had a blast. Great Arizona weather and fantastic mexican food. I'm still looking for the perfect margarita - but I came pretty close down there. That's the smile of a happy camper!

Another Picture Board shot. I think it's a shame that the toilet seat is now just a historic memory. It was a wonderful way to keep all us crazy fighter pilots on the straight and narrow while flying. No one wanted to spend any time in there. It was also definitve proof that our pilots had an incredibly wicked sense of humor.

Mongo, Mork, Lightning, Two-Dogs, Aileron.
This was Mork's fini-flight. I got to go with Danny as I was getting ready to say goodbye in a few months and was already out of the cockpit. The C-model was a great jet but the ADF had some features that were missed in this version. This is one of my best memories of the Viper. All of us were Guard Babies. A very rare breed these days. We had some great times together!

23,000 lbs of thrust in AB, 9 Gs would do 360s inside most airport boundaries. This fighter had some way cool features that we really appreciated. A VID routine in the HUD, AIFF (you could actually find lead after the fight), AIM-120 AMRAAM, AIM-7, AIM-9, HF and VHF radios, pre-programable navigation waypoints, and programable weapons switchology, and a 150,000 candle power VID light that would rip your corneas out if you were looking at it when it came on. Just to name a few. Good times!

Don't forget the six-barrel 20mm gattling gun that fires 6000 round/minute. That's 100 bullets/sec. Too bad we only had 500 rounds. I loved the "Ziiiiiiiiz" as the barrels were spinning and the rounds went right by your left shoulder. I only got to shoot the gun once. I was the first one of a 4-ship. On my third run at the target I nailed the tow cable. The other three guys were none too pleased. I'm glad they safed up for the 2v2 afterwards :)

Those are some big 'ol gas tanks. The Falcon had some pretty good legs on her.
The F-4 would use around 5000 to 6000 feet for T.O. and accelerate very slowly. My first front seat ride at Tucson was a clean, mil power T.O. I was used to having lots of time to look over the instruments during the roll. As I was glancing around the cockpit my instructor asked "Are we going to rotate sometime today.? We got off in just 2000 feet and a hair before tire limit speed. Things happen fast in this jet.

This one and the next one are also in the Panama 1994 page. Just had to include them here. The visibility in the Viper is unparalleled. There were no real good outside references so sometimes it was easy to get the whirlies. Stick your head against the canopy and you could almost see straight dowm. There's the radio frequency card just below the HUD.

I love this one - you're sitting on top of the world with almost nothing around you.
Shortly after getting back from Tucson, Mark Taylor and I were out over the Pacific - some intercepts, BFM and a tanker. I still had the audio jack that I used in the F-4 on the way to Goose Bay and was listening to some tunes while we headed for the tanker. As I was approaching the boom Mark says on VHF, "Hey Aileron, everytime you key the mike I hear Layla in the radio." All I could say was, "I'll get it checked out when we get home." :) How can you not want to rock out on occasion when flying a Viper?

One of the F-16 classes in Tucson.
Ted "Chili" Christensen, Roy Stuckey, Bob "Grinder" Hervatine, two guys from somewhere else, and Al "Tich" Tichenor.

Another bunch of the boys just back from RTU.
Back row: Amos "Baggy" Bagdasarian, "JAD" Dennis, Ray "White Ray," Bill "Curly Gore
Front row: Andy Bender, Pat "Stinky" Belanger, Jamie Mackay, Larry "Cal" McKoane.
That's a pretty cool plaque.

Here's a little bigger version.
A couple of years after we all converted the squadron took a trip down to VBG for our own Fogbird. Two fun weeks of flying out of the valley fog. I was up in the tower pulling SOF duty when four F-16s came back to the pattern. The Airman controller wasn't used to anything more than one tanker in the pattern at a time. He kept trying to give them instructions for the pattern so I mentioned to him that they could keep track of the pattern work themselves if that would work for him. He said, "OK." Just then Ray Bluhm asks for Hi-Key on his low approach. The controller asked how long to get there? Ray, in the middle of his immelmann says, "Oh, about 3 more seconds." The controller couldn't stop laughing and let them do whatever they wanted. I love that airplane!!!

This is my class down at TUS. When we got the F-4s the WSOs started calling the old single-seat guys "Coneheads." So this was the Conehead Class.
Bob "Crow-Bob" Crow, John Peterson (our Det C.O.), Ron "Aileron" Yelton, Dennis "Meat" Mast, Chris "Snort" Hill, Sean "Sparky" Bautista. Sean went on to find fame and fortune as the tecnical advisor for the Pixar movie Planes.