79-0291 in Black Widow Marks

F-16A-10-CF, 79-0291 assigned to the 421st TFS, 388th TFW, home based at Hill AFB seen at Luke AFB during a deployment in November 1982.

Note the loaded and armed SUU-20A practice bomb rack on station 7. The cart retainers are installed in the six SUU stations, the electrical safeing device is installed in the aft area of the SUU and the safety pin pouch is hanging from the six safety pin lanyards under the forward part of the rack.

You can also see some 'spotting features' of the early Block 1, 5 and 10 F-16s:

Note the small vertical fin mounted air refueling light is not installed.  This small 'probe' looking light installation was added to the Block 15 and later acft.

Note the lower UHF blade antenna under the intake. This was moved between the ventral fins on the Block 15 and subsequent acft.

Note the small dark grey dot just aft of the intake cover.  This was a vent for the F-1 fuel bay. This was moved aft on block 15 and subsequent jets.

Note the lack of stiffener plates under the intake NAV light. There were stiffener plated installed in all single seat F-16s from Block 15 and on. The stiffeners under the NAV light were never installed on F-16B/D acft with the NSI (small mouth) intake, but they were used on F-16Ds with the MCID (big mouth) intakes.

Note the small external power and intercom cord access door just aft and below the 388th TFW patch on the side of the intake. This was enlarged and nover up and forward on Block 15 and subsequent blocks.

The changes to the intake areas were a result of the installation of the two intake stations (5R and L) for carriage of LANTIRN and later SNIPER pods as well as the HTS pods on the Block 50 SEAD jets.

Note the 550th TFTS jet climbing out in the background as well.