Four-Ship Record Under Attack

The combined F-16 four-ship (single-seat) formation record was corrected, broken, and rebroken since the last Code One events section. Our letters section notes that the record previous to the October 1999 issue belonged to the former F-16 AFRES training unit at Kingsley Field in Oregon (10,922 hours for the front-seat pilots in the four two-seater effort).

That Reserve/Guard four-ship record as well as the previous active Air Force record of 10,006 hours set by Aviano’s 510th FS Buzzards set last June was surpassed last November by the 55th FS at Shaw AFB in South Carolina. The Shaw four-ship consisted of Lt. Col. Mark Miller (3,629 hours), Lt. Col. Bob Weiland (2,769 hours), Lt. Col. Bob Harvey (2,502 hours), and Lt. Col. John Fyfe (2,383 hours).

The Shaw squadron held the overall record of 11,283 hours until the 457th FS in Fort Worth crushed it by over 700 hours in December when Maj. Lefty Vastano (3,281 hours), Maj. Eric Overturf (2,909 hours), Lt. Col. J.T. Thornton (2,925 hours), and Maj. Jeff Smiley (2,899 hours) took to the air as an F-16 four-ship. The flight marked the final F-16 flight for Vastano, who retired from the Air Force Reserve. Total hours for the new record: 12,014.

Not to be outdone, four high-hour F-16 pilots from the 63rd FS at Luke AFB in Arizona joined forces in February to better the Texans by more than 400 hours. The flight included Maj. Jim Morris (3,008 hours), Maj. Keith Edwards (3,033 hours), Lt. Col. Mike Comnick (3,099 hours), and Lt. Col. Bob McCutchen (3,318 hours). This flight also marked the first time four 3,000-plus-hour F-16 pilots flew in the same formation. So, the new four-ship mark stands at 12,458 hours.