I just saw a flight of 4 fully armed F-16s flying over my house. How common is this? Had never seen it before and we get 16s and 18s flying over all the time. Just curious because it surprised me.

Where are you? Are you perhaps seeing external tanks, not armament?

I live up by alliance airport north of Ft Worth. They are low enough I can count the missiles. each one had the wingtip missiles a rack of 3 missiles under each wing and two larger pods under the wings closer to the body. Did not see any belly tanks.

The only bases around me are JRB Carswell and NAS Dallas about 40 miles away. Alliance gets a fair bit of military traffic too though.

Looked very similar to this but the empty attachment points in this pic had the racks of 3 missiles.

AgBQ-00 said:

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The only bases around me are JRB Carswell and NAS Dallas about 40 miles away. Alliance gets a fair bit of military traffic too though.

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I stand by my original answer.

The missiles could be training/captive carry missiles. Not all of them have live warheads or rocket motors.

Blue stripes (as in pic above) = inert

I believe the following is correct:

Yellow band = explosives

Brown band = live motor

Awesome. Did not notice stripes but doubt I could see them if I were looking for them. Was just surprised to see them loaded with missiles of any sort

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/457th_Fighter_Squadron

It's the local Guard squadron on their way to a training area.

Maybe near Cache, OK

https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/falcon-range.htm

Quote:

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Falcon Range

3423'N 9824'W

Falcon Range is located on the Quanah Range Impact Area approximately fifteen miles west of the Fort Sill cantonment area....

Munitions approved for use used on the Fort Sill Range include MK-82 (500 lb. general purpose bomb), BDU-50 (500 lb. inert bombs), BDU-33 (25 lb. practice bomb with spotting charge), 30mm/20mm practice rounds or the service equivalent. 30mm/20mm HEI will be approved on a case by case basis; however, 20mm HEI case telescoping ammunition will not be used.

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I'll probably get some heat for de-railing the thread but here goes. If you're BQ '00, were you formed up for the drill in Texas Stadium when those bozos from North Texas tried to pick a fight with the FTAB? I was in the stands and so happy and proud when all the Aggies just walked away.

I definitely was. I think that was my pisshead year. But yeah it could have gotten a lot worse. IIRC the north texas idiots got pulled away by police security.

Thanks!

AgBQ-00 said:

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Thanks!

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To be fair, it's a guess....but an educated guess.

AgBQ-00 said:

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Looked very similar to this but the empty attachment points in this pic had the racks of 3 missiles.

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Greek (Hellenic) Air Force

Hope you don't mind me continuing to comment.

Was emailing with an Aggie buddy who lives in Dallas. He said he noticed a lot of DFW traffic going over his house, when prior to now, he only saw Love Field traffic....think 767 and 787, vs. 737s and corporate.

I guessed that the difference might be that lowered traffic meant they were re-routing flights. When DAL is busy, DFW traffic probably has to loop to the north or south before heading east. Now, they are giving them direct on-course clearance, meaning they turn for the east coast almost immediately after takeoff.

Was talking with my favorite pilot tonight, and she agreed. We also wondered if that's why you saw that flight of four. Maybe they always fly like that, but maybe with lower civilian traffic, they got to take a shortcut over your house, rather than loop around.

Also, as regards this photo and your sighting:



First, there is almost zero chance that they were over your head with live munitions of any kind. Any "missiles" or "rockets" don't even carry fuel or have real motors. If I understood correctly, they aren't even set up to come off the rails in flight. Alert jets with real munitions are a rare thing.

She was going pretty quickly, but as I understood, the inboard stations with the large objects are fuel tanks. The wingtips are AIM-120 AMRAAMS (again, inert copies) and I think she said the next position in from the wingtip are AIM-9 sidewinders.

So the third position in from the wingtip is interesting. First, no way are there three missiles. There was a name she used for the device holding three things, the name escapes me. Her opinion is that the three things you saw are basically very small practice bombs with a phosphorous tip. The idea being that a range officer will be watching them bomb a target, and the little bomb hits, and sends up a white (phosphorus) smoke marker. The range officer then calls out where the bomb actually hit, vs. where they were aiming. Makes sense if they are headed out to the range in Oklahoma.

Again, those are very small, so she thought your eyesight must be very good, or the planes very low.

I appreciate the info. I get f16s and f18s both on a regular basis over my house. A lot of t38 traffic as well. They are usually pretty low. Normally catch them on approach for landing or on take off. I get some refueling tankers from time to time but they are not a normal thing. On average I probably get a flight of f 16s and a flight of f18s every week to 10 days. The t38s are a daily occurrence. The refuelers probably once every 3 to 6 months. It is always fun to see them going over. The best is when the f18s are taking off and the trailing aircraft are really.on the throttle to catch the first one. Those things scream.

Wouldn't you loved to be in that house in the 50s and 60s when they were flying B-36s out of Carswell?

Would have been cool. I can remember seeing the B52s flying and landing around Carswell as a kid.

That clip looks like it could have been filmed out there. Also we had a family friend that was a gunner on Jimmy Stewart's bomber during WW2. He had nothing but good things to say about Stewart. Was really neat hearing him talk about his experiences.


ETA: Looks like it was in fact at Carswell

IMDb link