by Michael Robinson-Uvalde Hesperian

03-18-16

   A cold war era F-16 warbird found an unusual place to cool its proverbial jets from a trip between two air force bases. The jet is being transported from Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls to Laughlin Air Force Base near Del Rio. The jet is taking a pit stop on the Uvalde’s Tex-Best parking lot until Saturday when it will resume its journey to Laughlin Air Force Base.

Pictures of the military war bird have been recently popping up on local social media pages.

Also, a number of curious local residents have stopped to get pictures including one woman who wanted a picture of herself with the plane.

  The Uvalde Hesperian visited with Logistics Coordinator Andrew Scott, with Wild Companies, Inc, who has been contracted to move the F16 between the two locations and is managing the aircraft on the journey. Andrew’s stepdad is one of the owners of the company.

  According to Scott, the F-16 is not air worthy but will be used by the Laughlin Air Force Base for on the ground pilot training. 

“We moved an A10 about a month ago and we parked it at a construction yard somewhere.” Scott said.

” We move a lot of these aircraft.” Scott said.

According to a Wikipedia article on the F-16 Fighting Falcon, “The General Dynamics (now Lockheed Martin) F-16 Fighting Falcon is an American single-engine supersonic multirole fourth-generation fighter aircraft developed by General Dynamics and produced by multiple companies, including General Dynamics until 1993 and Lockheed Martin until 2017.^{[3] ”} 

“Since entering service in 1978, the F-16 Fighting Falcon has become one of NATO’s most popular fighters,” an article from defenseandaviation.info said.

The article also adds, “Much of that popularity came from the film “Iron Eagle” (1986), in which a young aviator flew in an F-16 to a country fictitious (but very similar to Gaddafi’s Libya) to rescue his father.”

  According to information on www.govtribe.com it states: “Wild Companies, Inc. is a veteran-owned, for-profit small business headquartered in LaGrange, Georgia, that has been registered with SAM.gov since August 2021. The company specializes in providing specialized logistics, transportation, and relocation services to federal agencies, with a particular focus on complex, high-value equipment and infrastructure projects. Wild Companies demonstrates expertise in managing time-sensitive, technically demanding operations that require specialized handling, compliance with security protocols, and skilled labor across multiple federal agencies.”

The US Dept. of the Air Force (DAF)recently placed an ad in the  830 Times inviting the public in the area to participate in a a public scooping on the environmental impact of the T7 A Red Hawk aircraft.

A concerned citizen reached out to the Uvalde Hesperian and said the following: