Israel to launch F-16 fighter upgrade

[tigershark]

Israel to launch F-16 fighter upgrade
By Arie Egozi

The Israeli air force will soon begin a series upgrade to its Lockheed Martin F-16C/D fighters, with the "Barak 2020" programme aimed at equipping the legacy aircraft with almost the same level of avionics equipment as used by its latest F-16Is. The aim of the project is to enable the F-16C/D fleet to serve until at least 2020.

Israel's modernisation effort comes after a long test period, during which an upgraded avionics suite has been test flown using one F-16D operated to the limit of its flight envelope. The air force says the upgrade will boost interoperability with its fleet of 101 F-16Is, and facilitate the integration of new weapon systems with its operational fleet of approximately 124 C/D-model aircraft.

Source
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2009/05/12/326330/israel-to-launch-f-16-fighter-upgrade.html

[Eldorado82]

hey...now we've hit my spot:)
a half year before I've left the army i was leader of the IAF tech. group that released, together with IAI factory  the first and second prototype, and then a batch of 5 A-4's that were upgraded to "Avionics Skyhawk"
the idea behind that upgrade was boiling on fire bout 2 years before but untill it had gone through all the financial and developing stages, the execution of the upgrade came exactly when i was around, and i'm really happy and honured that i've participated a great upgrade like this. beside my work as being in charge of a whole line of aircrafts i was in charge of that upgrade, that tok place in my aircraft parking, in the last aircraft parking place. it was amazing to see how the old A-4 wras a new look of almost F16 with 2 MDF's and lots of other improvements. we had lots of headache untill the first A-4 gone trough system and engine testing levels because this system assimilated itself in parralel to almost all the A-4's systems but in the end it was better avionics, better feedback bother for the pilot and navigator about engine and weapons condition, improved computer and lots of other improvements that came along. finally the A-4 moved from old-fashin mechanical gauges to somehow-21 st. looking aircraft with digitalized gauges that have numbers running on them and not arrows:))