F-16 For Close Air Support
By Joe Bill Dryden — Senior Experimental Test Pilot

Much has been said lately about a new airplane to replace the A-10 in the Close Air Support, or CAS, role. Depending on your political (or technical) persuasion, you may or may not be a proponent of the F-16, A-10, F-18, AV-8B, or Mud Fighter to perform the CAS mission for the United States Army.

I am prepared to go out on a limb and say that I think the F-16 Fighting Falcon can easily perform the CAS role, as well as Battlefield Air Interdiction, or BAI, and provide for its own self-protection against airborne threats. Experience in various parts of the world has shown that the F- 16 can, while hauling the iron, achieve a better air-to-air exchange ratio than the dedicated air-to-air guys. I am not sure that I would feel good trying to extrapolate the other CAS contenders into the same real-world situations.

The F-16 has already shown that you can physically hit any target that you can see. This has been proven many times over in every competition that the F-16 has entered (fourteen major competitions to date). The question is never whether the plane is going to win, but rather which F-16 outfit or pilot is going to win the competition or Top Gun. The F- 16 was designed to deliver its bombs within six mils of accuracy. It has repeatedly demonstrated that it can deliver ordnance consistently with much better results than this six-mil design specification. In order to ensure a win, some competitors have been compelled to deliver ordnance to less than one mil. (Not an altogether easy task.)

The winner of the level bomb part of Gunsmoke '87 (I believe my memory serves me correctly) had a circular error average of 0.25 meter. That's less than ten inches. Not bad when you consider that you're moving at over 800 feet per second. Given such impressive performance, we knew that the F-16 could easily handle the CAS mission. But would the pilot be able to use the capability of the airplane? You can hit any target that you can see, but can you always see the target in question (or at least see the target locations)?

So my pardner in crime, Mr. Jon Beesley, and I came up with seven questions that need answering before the accuracy of the F-16 can be fully utilized.

1. Do you really know where you are in your F-16?
   
   
2. Does the ground observer or any other agency that you are working with really know where he is?
   
   
3. Does the ground observer really know where the bad guys are?
   
   
4. Can the ground observer tell you where the bad guys are in realtime and in a hostile comm environment?
   
   
5. Provided that all the above can come true, can you enter all the information in the airplane without making errors?
   
   
6. If we are still keeping up with all the requirements, is there some display in the airplane that can show us where the bad guys really are so that you can pick them up visually?
   
   
7. Will this also work at night? How about in bad weather?

None of these is any small task. Let's address them one at a time.

We quickly came to the conclusion that, although the INS in the airplane is much better than we were used to in the past, think F-4, for example, it was not good enough to point us to within six mils of the target. You could not even depend on the INS to ensure that you were pointed where you would be able to find the target area, much less see the target.

One system that we were asked to help develop falls under the general category of digital terrain systems, or DTS. British Aerospace joined with us to help demonstrate a system that they called TERPROM, short for TERrain PROfile Matching. As I have pointed out in previous articles, this system has to be seen to be believed. Its accuracy is a fundamental change in the way that you can use fighter, strike, or recce airplanes. It has a favorable impact on the trash haulers as well. Anytime that you need to say exactly where you are, a system like DTS is the only way to go. It is in the same category as jet engines, powered flight controls, and airborne radar in the impact that it will have on aviation.

TERPROM will also significantly reduce the pilot's workload. Jon and I have had a hard time quantifying the exact reduction, but suffice it to say that the time you have to spend on the navigation problem is effectively reduced to zero. All you have to do is keep the symbology on the HUD in the correct order, and you are going to get where you want to go and arrive at exactly the time you intended, with very little effort on your part.

The myriad of things you had to do in the past with the map - the clock, updates, the possible problem of being on the right page in the folder, worse yet dropping the folder, and so on - are all gone. You now have time to keep track of your wingman, scan for surface or air threats, possibly react to these threats, and, when you have negated these threats, have the ability to center the needles and still go straight (or curved if you prefer) to the target. I have said it before and I will say it again, that, based on my own experience as a fighter pilot, this system should be an urgent action TCTO in every TAF aircraft presently equipped with an inertial. This system works, guys, and it works in spades. Also don't forget that TERPROM can also provide many other useful items, such as predictive group proximity warning (something no other system will do), very covert terrain-following capability, and passive ranging.

But enough said about TERPROM. It works. We feel confident that we have completely solved the problem of knowing where we are in the F-16. Now, how about the ground observer knowing where he is?

I don't want to get into any proprietary information, but I can say that we have designed a piece of equipment for the ground observer that is not too much larger than an M16 rifle (although it's still shaped like a rifle). Incorporated in this rifle is a GPS receiver (so the observer knows where he is) and the necessary equipment to allow the ground observer to determine the target's exact location. A patent is pending. The rifle can also encode the location and type of target and then send all this information in a data burst to the F-16. And all this can happen in less than a second. You can actually be receiving updates on a moving target during your pop.

So with one piece of equipment for the ground observer and a black box labeled ATHS (for automatic target handoff system), we have solved numbers two, three, and four concerns. ATHS is nothing more than a smart modem that allows us to use whatever radio net that is common to us and the ground observer. And if we can keep all the software gurus working in the right direction, all this equipment will be compatible with the Army's present comm and info nets. By that I mean we can all be part of the same net in real time. The ground observer can send target type and location information to the artillery, to helicopters, or to us (the fast movers) at the same time. He can coordinate all of our efforts to ensure the most efficient use of what munitions we have at that time. He can coordinate strike times so that the bad guys never have any respite. And while he is doing this, he can see that there is no conflict between our arrival and departure times to minimize any possible fratricide. Wonderful.

ATHS also solves problem number five. As it receives this data burst from the ground observer, it is talking on the multiplex bus in the airplane. It inserts the data that the ground observer has burst to us under one of the waypoints that we have told it ahead of time. This is exactly how the system works now with a data transfer cartridge - or as if we keyed it in manually (without any errors).

For the latest demonstrations, we have been using a B model F-16. We have wickered the software so that, as the ground observer transmits to us in data burst, the system can insert the location of turnpoints and IPs the observer wants us to use directly into Waypoints D and E. Waypoint F is reserved for the target location. In addition to the location of the target, the ground observer can use any one of twenty-two target identifiers (for instance, bunker, armor, AAA, and intersection) to better describe the type of target. With a C or D model, we could devote an entire page on the multifunction displays so that the ground observer could transmit a whole encyclopedia of info to us about the target.

Now we know where we are and how we are going to get to the assigned area. The ground observer can determine exactly where he is and precisely where the target is located. He can get this information to us in realtime (and not very much realtime at that), and we can ensure that the information is inserted into the system just as fast and without the chance of our making an error. So now on to point number seven.

Since I can position my aircraft precisely and the ground observer can give me the precise location of the target, I can make book that the target that the observer wants me to hit - once it is in the head-up display, or HUD, field of view - is located within a very few meters of the symbology on the HUD combining glass. Slick.

There will no doubt be those in the audience with the idea that, in order to see the target, I must slow down. I disagree. If the bad guys are doing their dead-level best to make sure I don't see them, it makes little difference whether I'm going 200 or 600 knots. We have done extensive simulation that shows that there is no difference, this side of three decimal places, between going slow or fast as to whether I will acquire the target visually. Plus I am more survivable going fast.

Another item that helps is the laser used by the ground observer to determine target location. If the observer resumes lasing as I start down the chute (and if I have brought a Pave Penny pod along), I will see the Pave Penny symbology overlaid on the target symbol on the HUD. Bomb the symbology. It works, and it works well. With what I have seen I would not hesitate to drop (depending on the weapon I was carrying) within 100 meters of the friendlies. And I don't take that decision lightly.

I know that a lot of you old infantry types will not feel too good about my explanation concerning this new equipment. But don't be too quick to make a judgment. Once you have seen this system in action, I feel certain that you would not hesitate to call in an airstrike on the bad guys 100 meters in front of your position. If you knew the call would be answered by a flight of F-16s equipped as I have described, you would be very eager for them to arrive. The system really works that well. The combination of TERPROM, our neat equipment for ground observers, ATHS, and possibly Pave Penny means that, if that target is visible, we can get the pilot's eyes on the target. If the pilot can't acquire the target visually, it is still possible to get excellent results just by bombing the symbols.

The question still exists, How about at night? Jon Beesley and I devoted two articles in Code One to the subject of how very strongly we feel that we can operate the same in the dark as we can in the daytime. All you have to do is add the right combination of fixed FLIR pods and NVGs or perhaps a head-steered FLIR to the equipment list above and you can perform equally as well in the dark. An additional trick I can do with the head-steered FLIR is to look for the target without having to point the airplane where I want to look. With the ability to see the target, in its still-accurate location, off axis - and further use the ability to zooomm - means that I might be able to see the target better at night than I could in the daytime. It really works. And you of little faith only have to ask the right people the right questions and Jon or I will be more than happy to show you the error of your ways. With only one sortie in the F-16B that we have been using for the company engineering hack, we can show you all of what I have just described (on your nickel).

This leaves the question of weather. If the ceilings are really low, we are not going to be able to acquire the target visually. Again, based on our experience with the equipment, you could use continuously computed release point, or CCRP, to bomb on the coordinates transmitted to you by the ground observer. When flying in bad weather, I would want to carefully consider the run-in heading and would not be eager to drop within 500 meters (once more depending on the weapons I had on board) from the friendlies, but you could still do effective work.

If you equip your F-16 as I just described and provide the ground observer his part of the list, the problem of CAS no longer exists. In fact, with this equipment, the delineation between CAS and BAI becomes blurred. The only variable is in the accuracy of the target location that I received from whatever friendly source. I can effectively deliver ordnance to within 100 meters to the friendlies. Or I can go to the limits of my fuel range or your intel range (whichever comes first) to ensure the guys on the ground the best possible situation.

Nothing I have told you is in the concept stage - concepts are always free. Rather, Jon and I, with the help of our able engineering and maintenance effort, have been flying this equipment for several years. We should all remember that nobody controls anything until there's a nineteen-year-old private with a rifle standing on it. Providing the TAF with the F-16 I have described will sure make the private's job easier. I know that he will certainly thank you.

Check six.