As Zip said, NAS Dallas is no more. There are some Army guard/reserve units there but it’s not an active airfield. There’s a VR at NAS/JRB Ft Worth along with reserve F-16’s, guard c-130’s, Marine reserve c-130’s, f-18’s, and soon to be c-40’s.
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The Great, Constantly Changing Picture Gallery, Troisième partie: la vengeance!
- Thread starter SynixMan
- Start date
I apologize, Zip, Griz, and Treetop- I messed that one up!
I've flown over the old NAS Dallas a bunch of times on final when DFW is on the north flow, never put two and two together that the old NAS and NAS-JRB were clear across town from each other. (Over but not quite directly over.) Speaking of storage of all kinds of crap, last year it looked like a fleet of rental cars or who knows what was on the north-south runway. (I've been off for a few months so I have no idea what's down there now.)
COVID zombies...mostly just milling around but COVID zombies.
The DFW area has a lot of airfields. Strangely enough there’s also a lot of abandoned or repurposed airfields as well just outside DFW. NAS Dallas being one of them, also the remnants of Amon Carter Field are pretty identifiable over by the American Airlines training center. The north/south runway is now Amon Carter Blvd. with the northern most portion still some what recognizable and also used to park rental cars...
Also, since we’re on some A-4 love right now, some Draken birds that saw former service with the Kiwi’s.
Since we're talking A-4's, I attended a service-wide A-4 NATOPS conference in P-cola in the late '80's. The Kiwi's sent a couple guys to give us a brief of what they had done with their birds. They basically took the equivalent of what we called the A-4 Super Fox (J52-P408 engine which gave it close to 1-to-1 thrust to weight when below 2k lbs. of fuel, and we would often fight down to 1200 lbs. when in Fallon), installed a glass cockpit, a nice HUD, and the F-16 radar. This made it an awesome close-in fighting machine except for one small problem - it wasn't supersonic, so the U.S. Navy wasn't interested in extending the service of our A-4's. When I left VFC-12 to go back to NAS Dallas as the A-4 Program Manager, Dallas was slated to be the first of the reserve adversary units to transition to the Hornet. While in transit, BRAC started happening and by the time I was in-place, the A-4's were just going to be retired. So in March of '94 we flew them to the Boneyard and I got early-retired in August after 18 years of service, which is what happens when you don't follow the normal career path, stay in the cockpit the whole time, piss off a few heavies, and get passed over for O-5 a couple times.
Wow, that's really cool.
Speaking of Kiwis...reminds me of this awesome video concocted by a Kiwi Pilot about them....
Jet Pilot...yeh!
Got this rare Viper in Yuma 1981. Sorry for the poor quality. Inspired by Hey Joe I have been collecting some old slides for scanning and found this quick snap shot I took as I drove by the flight line while seeing a Marine buddy in the F-4 RAG.
President Carter put severe restrictions on front line aircraft FMSs. DOD wanted an aircraft that qualified for FMS, principally to replace the F-5s around the world and placate the air forces being turned down for F-16A/Bs. That led to this J79 powered F-16 and the F-20 Tigershark. Of course neither sold. Coincidentally, the Navy was looking for a new adversary aircraft. The aircraft pictured was being evaluated, for that requirement. It is sporting the old VX-4 XF, but no bunny ?, and USN markings. The heavier and lessor powered F-16 J79 also failed the Navy cut, but it may have inspired the eventual F-16N buy. Old guys got anything else on the F-16 J79?
Wow! Very rare capture!!! Thx for sharing!!
I always thought it was odd that the F-16 evolved into a multi-mission, all-weather airplane- and a pretty expensive one while the F-20 went nowhere (and took years and years to get there). I understand all of the politics in the progression of both airplanes as well as the technical/business/sales side of them. The story kinda comes down to a case of sometimes it's funny how things turn out.
I think the F-16/79 is kind of an interesting footnote that is part of a bigger picture from that era. Weird concept that unsurprisingly went nowhere, like a four cylinder Ford Taurus of foreign military sales. The F-18L also comes to mind as an interesting footnote but for different reasons. Also the IAI Lavi and one or two others, all of them eclipsed by the straight F-16 (and the F-18 having a respectable second place showing)... not to mention the eastern bloc and a few other country competitors. The SAAB 39 overlapped the same era and somehow it survived (good airplane, but remarkable that it made it into production and a few foreign sales through such an evolving but always tough economic environment).
Wiki doesn't even mention the F-16/79 (the page for the J79 engine barely mentions it but only in passing).
I think the F-16/79 is kind of an interesting footnote that is part of a bigger picture from that era. Weird concept that unsurprisingly went nowhere, like a four cylinder Ford Taurus of foreign military sales. The F-18L also comes to mind as an interesting footnote but for different reasons. Also the IAI Lavi and one or two others, all of them eclipsed by the straight F-16 (and the F-18 having a respectable second place showing)... not to mention the eastern bloc and a few other country competitors. The SAAB 39 overlapped the same era and somehow it survived (good airplane, but remarkable that it made it into production and a few foreign sales through such an evolving but always tough economic environment).
Wiki doesn't even mention the F-16/79 (the page for the J79 engine barely mentions it but only in passing).
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