The Air Force Built a Robot to Wash F-16s
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The U.S. Air Force has unveiled a new robotic arm that’s designed to cut down on the time and manpower needed to clean a fighter jet.
The arm can fully wash an F-16 Viper fighter jet in just 1 hour, saving major time and manpower. The technology will likely be ported to other aircraft, and could be useful to decontaminate aircraft exposed to dangerous chemical agents.
Texas National Guard’s 149th Fighter Wing recently demonstrated the arm at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. Air Force images show the large robotic arm washing the Lone Star Gunfighters’ F-16 equipped with drop tanks.
It typically takes a team of four airmen up to 6 hours to wash a fighter jet, but the robot can do it in just 1 hour, the 149th Wing says. That’s a manpower savings of up to 24 hours, and it also reduces the downtime for a freshly cleaned fighter jet from 2 days to just 1.
AFWERX, an Air Force initiative for inspiring innovation across the entire branch, developed the robot, which the wing proudly calls its Jet Washing Robot. AFWERX encourages airmen and members of the Space Force to innovate new ways of doing things, and also invests in commercial enterprises that could have military applications down the road.
