*** Posted by Rapier ***
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I've noticed Your coversation, but dont think that any grill woudt prevent objects with the size of a bolt or nut to be sucked into the engine, and its here the problem is.
I've talked with some baseguards, who told that during base inspection they had to get out of their car to check the tire treads for picked up stones, wich had to be disposed before crossing the landingstrip.

If You gets the chance to see a F 16 which is taxiing or starting in wet conditions, check out the whirlabout of water going into the engine inlet to be visualised of the suck downwards from the engine!

Kim]

Hi Kim,

I understand what you are saying and you are right maybe the air inlet does suck up all the bits off the runway. Personally I would like to see the state of the engine after something like this has happened but I think the grill's that are used on some F-16's do try to minimise this. Could this be some kind of design fault with the F-16? I guess the ground crew's have got their work cut out for them if they have to keep sweeping up the runways frequently. I read somewhere that an F-16 squadron had been grounded because of a problem like this. They were grounded because an F-16 pilot went missing shortly after take off and they only found the wreckege of the plane, no pilot as they could not see if he ejected it was smashed up that bad. On inspection of the engine fragments they discovered that the turbo fans had strange chip marks on them caused by some kind of projectile being forced into the engine, so you could be right. What I cant understand though is if it is a problem why has'nt it been solved?

Regards

Rapier