What It Felt Like: I Took The F-16 Fighter To Nearly Mach 2.0
- Thread starter BlueOvalFitter
- Start date
Flew in the C-130 many times. It could reach mach .47, less than half the speed of sound. Maybe that's why we could hear the SMAJ barking instructions all the way to the back of the cargo area. I think that's me at the end of the conga line. In the rear with the gear. The d'oeuvers were dusty and the flight attendants were *****.
Flew on one of these bad boys from Guam to Korea, loved it when those R3350's were rolled up to max power and when they released those brakes it felt like you were gonna break the sound barrier, with rear facing seats you were lucky you didn't get whiplash. 
Mach 2.1, 37,000 feet, a bit over 900 knots indicated airspeed.
Pulling the throttles back (out of AB) the deceleration was impressive for both rate and duration.
Pulling the throttles back (out of AB) the deceleration was impressive for both rate and duration.
It had a P&W F100 engine.
I’m partial to the F110 myself but the article has a detail that is distinctly F100.GE all the way.
The link won't open.GE all the way.
Are you describing what you flew Astro?
Yes. I took an F-14A to Mach 2.1 on a maintenance check flight many years ago.
I can share the date and bureau number of the airplane when I get a chance to look at my logbook.
I‘ve mentioned this previously:
Post in thread 'F-14 Questions Answered - Ask Away'
https://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/threads/f-14-questions-answered-ask-away.191767/post-5674607
Post in thread 'F-14 Questions Answered - Ask Away'
https://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/threads/f-14-questions-answered-ask-away.191767/post-5598706
I apologize if I offended you by asking my question. I did read your answered questions the BITOG members put forth to you. I had forgotten. Sorry.
What was the giveaway that it was an F-100, the 5 stage burner?
These F-16 engines that you are discussing, what is the difference between them, if any?
They are the Pratt & Whitney F100 and the GE F110. I don't know much about the difference other than the F100 was the first engine offered in the F-16. I believe the GE has more thrust but that the later versons of the F-100 are close and may be lighter weight. But I am not really sure of that.
Someone who has flown them both would have to give us the lowdown on them.
Wasn’t taking offense, my friend, and I hope you don’t, either.
I was just pointing out that I’ve talked about my top speed run before, because in my reply, it occurred to me that it might look like I was making up a story to counter/top this story, when that wasn’t my intent.
So, just saying that my story isn’t new (it was about 1994).
cheers,
Astro
The link won't open.
It's not a link per se. It was General Electric's PDF sheet on the F110 and it's just two pages that I linked as an inline image, where it only displays the first page. But you can always open the "image" in a new tab/window and get this:
https://www.geaviation.com/sites/default/files/GE-F110-turbofan-engine-family-datasheet.pdf
I dream about flying an F16 through the Navy's Top Gun hangers... "Wake up Pudknockers"...
You are correct. F100-100 and -200 had some issues but later models (-220 & -229) were good. I was a F110 ( and F101) mechanic in a shop that had both F110 and F100 (amongst many others) so my knowledge is their mechanical / maintenance differences. I know very little about their flight differences. The design/maintenance philosophy is very different between GE and P&W with modules vs split case designs.
The detail was the stages of afterburner, The F110 doesn’t have stages of augmentation.
The Navy already has F-16s in those hangars.
