Start up of the F-16C is simple….no external APUs or other equipment is necessary. One switch turns on the battery and then another switch hits the Jet Fuel Starter.
When you see the green JFS light, unlock the throttle and in less than a minute you’re up to idle speed, and the only thing left to do is aligning the inertial navigation and perform pre-flight checks.
BTW, the sound you hear at the beginning, its not an APU, its the motor from the canopy. You’ll here a buzz, that is the battery, then you’ll here it spooling thru N (nancy) stages.
You’ll notice he then glances over at the fan turbine inlet temp, oil pressure, nozzle position (NOZ) and RPM gauges.
After that he glances left and as the two lights go out on the left side panel, its all clear on engine start. He then reaches to the right, turns on the lights, and turns on navigation and other nav functions.
As the navs start coming up and the ICP is lit up, you will notice the green lettering in the box to the fight of the ICP, that is the inertial navigation system, and as that goes thru its checks you’ll see “RDY” which means its ready and aligned.
Then the MFD’s come up and the HUD comes alive. The F-16C has a new wide angle HUD, which provides all flight info and weapons aiming Q’s so the pilot can keep his head out of the cockpit and on target.
Directly below the HUD you’ll see the square box, called ICP or Integrated Control Panel, on either side you’ll see two MFD’s that can show tac, nav, weapons and other information.
When you see him hit the buttons on the MFDs that is the pilot inputting mission parameters from the box.
