One late Thursday night, as I proudly walked through one of our four assembly areas observing the multiple tables of F-16 wiring harnesses, I remembered the story I had heard about the F-16’s first flight. This made me want to share it with you. So, I thought it would be fun to write a quick article on three things you might not know about the F-16.
- The YF-16 first flew on January 20, 1979, with the first operational F-16 being delivered that same month to the 388th Tactical Fighter Wing at Hill Air Force Base, Utah. What you might not know is that the first flight was not scheduled to be that day. The plan was to practice high-speed taxiing, but the F-16 had other ideas. The pilot was forced to take off or suffer crash damaging the jet.
This is my favorite video of that accidental take off, which also shows the 2nd flight, which resulted in a textbook crash landing. (Be sure to watch until the end to see the pilot hop out of the jet and run away from it as soon as he possibly could!) - The F-16 was built under an unusual agreement creating a consortium between the United States and four NATO countries: Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway. These countries jointly developed and produced (with the United States) an initial 348 F-16’s for their air forces. Final airframe assembly lines were located in Belgium and the Netherlands. These four partner countries are affectionately called the EPAF countries. EPAF stands for European Participating Air Forces.
- InterConnect Wiring’s president and founder, John Ashour, actually wrote the specification “16PR8817”, which is a Lockheed Martin specification that details wire termination procedures for wiring harnesses and panels on the F-16 aircraft. Specifically, it’s used in conjunction with 16PR145, to define how wires should be terminated on F-16 wiring harnesses and panels. This means that InterConnect Wiring, that manufactures wiring harnesses and panels for Lockheed Martin, DLA Aviation, Hill AFB, and F-16 user countries, must adhere to these specifications when crimping contacts, soldering wires, and performing other assembly processes.
There you have it; three things you may not have known about the F-16. Feel free to contact us if you have any more interesting facts and tidbits about the F-16. Even after 32 years of making F-16 wiring harnesses at my company, I still love learning about this fantastic fighter jet!
Who knows, maybe in another month or two I will send out 3 more things I learned about the F-16 that I learned from one of you!
