The fire sparked in New Jersey in May by an Air National Guard F-16 prompted not only massive claims against the Air Force for property damage, but also several changes in leadership positions for the units involved, including the Warren Grove training range commander and the 177th Fighter Wing operations group commander, reports the Press of Atlantic City. Brig. Gen. Lawrence Thomas, head of the New Jersey ANG, “We have folks retiring and there are some who won’t fly F-16s again.” He said, too, that a top-to-bottom review was continuing.
Today’s armament maintainers are tasked with performing flightline (O-Level) maintenance with an assortment of legacy test sets that greatly limit the ability to quickly and efficiently verify armament system readiness, diagnose failures, and ultimately return the aircraft to full mission...