Private adversary air company
Top Aces has now begun flying its F-16 Vipers, the only ones currently in the hands of a private operator, with the ubiquitous military data link capability known as
Link-16. The addition of Link-16 completes a vision started years ago for an adversary aircraft that truly represents the current 4th-generation-plus fighter threat. Equipped with Top Aces’ open architecture Advanced Aggressor Mission System (AAMS), these aircraft can now replicate the high-end threats that U.S. military pilots may soon face in the Pacific and elsewhere.
Top Aces began receiving its F-16s, which are early block
ex-Israeli Air Force F-16A/B Netz variants, in 2021 and subsequently began upgrading them with a host of new capabilities. The AAMS is the core of that upgrade package and includes an
active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, an
infrared-search-and-track (IRST) pod, the Thales Visionix Gen III
Scorpion helmet-mounted display system, and, with a recent provisional approval to operate Link-16, now has a fully integrated datalink. AAMS permits the rapid integration of new sensors and functions that a customer wishes to use to improve the threat representations to their fleet pilots,
such as IRST and
advanced jamming pods like the
ALQ-188.
The War Zone was on hand as the newly integrated aircraft (N854TA) performed adversary missions with other Top Aces F-16s during a
large force exercise known as Sentry South 26.1. The private aggressor support firm actually led the entire ‘red air’ operation for the exercise, which is a unique arrangement that puts immense trust on an entity that exists outside of the Department of War.
