Air Guard Practices on Museum’s F-16

ERMA- Here’s something you don’t see every day, an F-16 jet hanging from a crane while Air National Guardsmen turn it 360 degrees by pulling on ropes.
Naval Air Station Wildwood Aviation Museum (NASW), located at the county airport, added an F-16 Fighting Falcon to the museum’s collection last June. On Dec. 5, 20 Air National Guard 177th Fighter Wing technicians from the crash recovery unit based in Pomona came to the museum in a troop transport truck for a training exercise to simulate removal of a disabled aircraft from a runway.
The team was familiar with this F-16 because they helped assemble the plane after it arrived from Texas.The unique two-seat F-16 was donated by from Sheppard Air Force Base in Texas where it was used as a training aircraft.
Rich Ryan, a museum volunteer and a 30-year Air Force member, said the 177th would also be called if a commercial jetliner was disabled on the runway at Atlantic City Airport. He said one or two cranes would be available to the 177th Fighter Wing.
Ryan said the team worked together flawlessly.
“It’s a lot easier for them to work on this because it’s a non-operational aircraft,” he said. “If they were to practice on operational aircraft and something did go awry and they damaged it, then they’re down an aircraft in their fleet…”
Ryan said once a plane is damaged beyond 62 percent, it is considered a total loss. He said a non-repairable aircraft would be dragged off the runway not carefully removed. The drill was designed to practice removing an aircraft without damaging it.
Ryan said the F-16 had its engine removed before being donated to NASW. The jet weighs 15,000 pounds, according to a crane operator from Shaw Crane Company.
He said the plane tended to tip nose down while hanging from the crane cable since its center of balance was changed when the engine was removed.
“It would have been dead level with the engine in there,” said Ryan.
With an engine, the F-16 would weigh about 26,000 pounds, he said.
Ryan said he worked on F-16s for 10 years and 20 years on F-106 aircraft.
The guardsmen were conducting the exercise with a 20-knot wind which caused them to tug hard on the ropes. While on site at the museum, the technicians installed a triple ejector rack on the F-16 designed to carry up to the three missiles.
Master Sgt. Chris Leconey, of the 177th, said guardsmen needed to train to remove an aircraft from a runway under any conditions including wind. He said they would not hang a flyable F-16 from a crane due to the stress it would places on the jet’s bulkheads.
“Because it’s a static display, it makes it so much better for us,” said Leconey.