Fjordmonkey

Yep, under the left wing, between station 3 and 4.

Nothing about it in the patchnotes. Besides, it's a cosmetic issue at best. There's bigger issues with the Viper that should be solved first, like the missing damagemodel.

Wrong. Hornet got a small update 4 days ago. Yes, it's small (RWR Symbols corrected), but it's still an update. Before that, another set up updates on october 3rd, september 4th and august 21st. So no, you got updates three times in those two months, not counting general bugfixes and stuff affecting all aircraft.

ANG F-16C block 50 tape 4.2 anno 2007 is what I've seen around. That should narrow it down some more, although I'm not sure which sub-block the 4.2-tape points to.

Hard lock and fire, my friend :P

Bodø. Conscript Crewchief-assistant from March to December of 2000. Would have loved to stay in longer, but they already had two grenadiers. Did have some fun, though. Wrote a TS on 659. A certain Crewchief was less than enthused, to put it mildly, and outright murderously pissed to say it frankly :P

Been there, done that, even had a mis-start on a Scramble. THAT sucked, glad we were three in the shelter, heh. Also had to utterly demolish the speed-limits on the taxiways to get the pilot to the spare during a Scramble-launch. Fun shit, MP's were NOT happy :P

I've noticed something in the sim: If you pull the main handle with the seat safed and then arm the seat, the seat will fire. Since the seat-sequencer is active at that point, I'd think that the same would happen if one was stupid enough to do this in real life?

Most likely coming after the 3D- and damage-model is finalized. I do hope they add the little puff of soot the JSF tends to cough out when it shuts down, though.

I learned this the hard way :P @Eagle7907: Just remember that many here, and especially in this part of the forum, to have firsthand knowledge on the Viper, be it as currently or previosly serving groundcrew or pilots from a variety of current and previous operators of the aircraft. Many of us are also not native english-speakers which can complicate things even more. As an old crewchief once told me: you're either in accordance to the book, or not at all.

We got served enough horror-stories about what happens when the seat malfunctions, including one where the seat and occupant slammed into the ceiling of a full-sized maint' hangar large enough hard enough to partially poke through and stick there. No idea whether it was true or not, and I didn't bother finding out. Of course, given how fast and high the seat is designed to go should give an indicator of the power they have. Humans are squishy as hell and we lose the fight every time. There's a reason as to why one of the first things you're taught is that the aircraft can and will kill you instantly if it gets the chance to, and that it doesn't care if you die. You treat the seat as live and armed at any given time until and unless you've verified that it's safe, and even then you treat it with respect.

From what I know, even if the seat is armed and the canopy jettison is pulled, the seat shouldn't fire. The seat is still live, however, and and will fire if you yank the primary or backup handles.

Not correct. You can jettison the canopy without initiating ejection of the seat. You have a canopy jettison-handle on the outer side of the lefhand console. Pull the main or backup ejection handles (between your knees and on the righthand side of the seat, respectively, and you'll leave the premises of the cockpit about a second or so later. Pulling the ejection-handle on the ground is done if safe egress cannot be completed in a timely enough manner to save the pilot. If poop really hits the fan, the priority is for the pilot to get out safe and fast. If that entails the fun event of a zero-zero ejection, then so be it. In case of a fire, pilots have the option of either raising the canopy manually or blowing it off, and then egressing the aircraft over the nose. You don't want to drop down the side of the jet, expecially if it's running, since there's quite a bit of a blowjob waiting for you even at idle power. But again, if poop has really hit the fan and there's a definite risk to the pilot, ejection will happen. Easier to replace the aircraft than the pilot, anyway. You don't pull the handle on the ground even IF the seat is safed unless you have a damn good reason to AND is strapped in properly. That's one of the first things you're taught as a groundcrew on the Viper. A few reasons for that, one of which is that there has been incidents over the years where the spline that holds the arming-pin to the arming-handle having been broken, which leads the seat to be armed even if the arming-handle is in the safe position. Pull the handle, and off you go into the wild blue yonder. Or the shelter/hangar-roof, whichever comes first. Another reason is that unless memory fails me, pulling the handle means activating the sequencer for the ejection-system. If that were to malfunction in any way (short-circuit or even a big enough jolt to the aircraft), the seat could very well fire with the predictably bad results that an out-of-posture ejection entails (broken spine/neck, loss of limbs and other fun effects of such events), plus of course the whole issue of you suddenly being 60-70 meters into the air without being connected to the parachute. Tends to have a very negative effect on your life-expectancy when you inevitably come back down. There's a small inspection-hole on the righthand side of the seat that anyone entering the cockpit, groundcrew or pilot alike, will check. If there's a pin in the hole, that means the sequencer has fired. This again means that you exit the cockpit and the aircraft VERY carefully (the seat will fire straight into your chest if it fires, since you're coming into the 'pit from the lefthand side and thus are leaning over it to check the hole), and the aircraft is cordoned off for anything from two to six hours while you wait for the battery in the sequencer to run out of juice. After that the Weapons/Egress-people move in and removes the seat even more carefully than they normally do. You don't mess around with things that can and will violently kill you if given half a chance.

Gotcha, thanks for the reply :)

Is it possible to cause an FTIT overtemp due to speed on the Viper?

And did the ANG Block 50 tape 4.2 anno 2007 have color MFD's?

I'll consider myself sufficiently humbled, then. My big mouth has a tendency to get me into trouble about as fast as my stubbornness. Weird, because all the info I've got, was taught and have had others tell me is that the JFS has a nominal power output of about 220bhp, not 450. Recharging the accumulators pneumatically was something we never did, mostly because it's far easier to just recharge them through muscle-power than it is to fetch tools and gear needed to do it. Plus, as you say, it's a good workout. Sucks to have the acc's at 850-900psi after a mis-start. Yeah, realized that I'm hung up on on groundstarts. My bad. Weird, because again, we were taught to never use the JFS to get the accumulator-pressure back up to normal. If that was because of wear and tear on the JFS itself or not I don't know, but that's at least what we were taught. And also what other groundcrew, mostly USAF, has told me. Either way, sorry for being a bit of an ass about this. I'm far too stubborn for my own good at times.

First of all, the outlined section tells me that you've never worked a day on a Viper flightline. No Viper either replenishes the reservoirs that fast, nor do they replenish the reservoirs from the JFS. How do I know? Because I've had to re-pressurize the damn reservoirs more than once through the manual T-handle in the left wheel well on the AM/BM's I served on, and that mirrors what other present-day and former Viper C-groundcrew say. Mvsgas on these boards is one of them. A mis-start will empty the bottles if the engine fails to light off, depending on whether or not you used START 1 or START 2. A START 1 that fails MIGHT have enough pressure for one more attempt, a START 2 will leave your arms and torso aching after pumping. Also, please state the pages in the flightmanual that states that the JFS can and will pressurize the B-system while it's running. I'll wait.

Limits AOA, not G. One can argue that G is a function of AOA + airspeed, however, but still.

It can be used in flight to facilitate an air-start. That's different. The JFS also does NOT provide enough torque to drive the ADG at any sort of speed where the A or B-pumps deliver any pressure, regardless of whether you're in the air or on the ground. If you have to use the JFS to windmill the engine, you're already on EPU due to the CSG going offline, and the EPU is what's driving the A-system. At a lower pressure as well, I might add. Correct, I should have said both primary and secondary flight-controls. The secondary meaning the LEF's and the speedbrakes. I never claimed that the EPU had anything to do with lowering the gear. The nitrogen pressure in the JFS accumulators will blow open the MLG doors and unlock it, the airflow will handle the rest to lock them in place. The NLG will need to be extended fully due to the nitrogen, as it opens against the airflow. Again, the JFS WILL NOT drive any of the hydraulic systems during operation. Please state sources for this, and I'll agree with you. The braking ALSO comes from the accumulators, but from the hydraulic section of it. It will, as you say, provide braking-power for a short while.

Which block has this?

If you want to see what Hell looks like when Satan himself is hung over as after drinking for three weeks straight AND has a bad case of the runs, come back to the Crewchief with a jet that you've hit 10G in deliberately. You will know pain, damnation and hellfire worse than anything you've ever experienced before you're handed over to the Maint' boss for more buttchewing, and then to your fellow pilots that might just give you a new callsign for it IF you still get to fly. Besides that, the Viper doesn't have a G-limiter. The FLCS will try to limit your maximum AOA depending on your speed and which CAT you're in, but it's up to the FSA (FlightStick Actuator), aka pilot, to not deliberately break the jet and subject himself to the fun effects of causing potentially catastrophic structural damage to the jet he/she is currently occupying. The ACES-II seat can do much, but it can't save you from stupid every time.

JFS is not run in flight, and wouldn't help you even if it could. It's job is to spool up the main engine to the point where ignition is possible (about 20% RPM), and that's where it's job is done. The EPU, on the other hand, will fire up when the generator goes offline or both HYD A and HYD B drops below 1000psi in pressure. That will give you enough power to run the HYD A hydraulics (which includes primary flightcontrols, speedbrakes and the fuel flow proportioner) for give or take 10-15 minutes until the EPU-fuel (Hydrazine) runs out. When THAT happens, you'd better have either landed, or get ready to punch out. Or die on impact with the ground, which is always an option. If you're operating only on the EPU, you should still be able to lower the landing-gear through nitrogen-pressure. You won't have much in terms of wheelbrakes, however, and no NWS. The wheelbrakes are fed through stored hydraulic pressure from the JFS-accumulators, but once that's gone you've either stopped OK, lowered the hook to take the BAK-12 arrestor-barrier, or get to choose between staying with the jet as it goes off the runway or seeing what a zero-altitude ejection is like.

Nope, as BIGNEWY posted earlier in this thread, they're aiming for an update on friday.

No worries :) I've got a full bucket of patience and a shitload of work to do the next few days anyway, so time should pass fast :D