Review of the F-16 Individual Aircraft Tracking Program

In this study, the Individual Aircraft Tracking methodology was reviewed to determine the accuracy of projected structural fatigue life of the F-16 aircraft based on actual flight usage of the Republic of Korea Air Force. Since the crackgrowthpotentialvaluescalculatingtheCrackSeverityIndexaredifferentwithrespecttousagevariations,not onlya discrepancy inmission typebutalsothe missionmix deviatedfrom the predefined usagevariations may cause inaccurate structural fatigue life prediction. Also, the Crack Severity Index methodology using the NzW does not alwaysaccurately interpolate the structural fatiguelife ofthe F-16control pointsbecauseNzW haslittle effect onthe horizontal tail and vertical tail bending moment. From these results, the current Individual Aircraft Tracking methodology for the Republic of Korea Air Force F-16 aircraft is not enough to monitor the structural fatigue life of all critical areas of the F-16 airframe. Therefore, the mission-type classification algorithm, and the baseline crack growth curves should be updated based on the actual flight usage to interpolate the accurate fatigue life. The additional flightparameters,besidesNzW,needtobemonitoredtopredictthefatiguelifeoftheareasmainlyaffected by horizontal and vertical tail structural loads.