Disabled Jets Ground Top Gun Class : Aircraft: Pilots at famed Navy school are shot down by cracks found in the airframes of jet fighters used in the training.

Cracks in the F-16N Falcon aircraft forced the Navy on Monday to cancel the current class in the famed Top Gun fighter pilot school.

“They can’t do it (the training) without the F-16s. Right now, they’re trying to look at some alternatives to use as adversarial trainers,” said Cmdr. Mark Van Dyke, a Navy spokesman in Washington.

The class began Aug. 19 and lasted only one week before it was officially canceled.

A Navy pilot at Top Gun told The Times that the cracks cannot be seen with the naked eye but are in critical bulkhead areas of the aircraft that undergo tremendous stress.

The pilot, who requested anonymity, said the cracks first were discovered about eight months ago and have been found in 13 of the 14 F-16s used at the school. This was the first time that a Top Gun class has been canceled since the school was founded in 1969. The Navy now is examining all 26 of its F-16s for the flaws.

The F-16 was introduced in 1979 and is a single-engine, single-seat fighter capable of operating at twice the speed of sound at 40,000 feet. General Dynamics has built about 2,900 F-16’s, and 1,861 are flown by the U.S. Air Force.

Pilots at the school, at Miramar Naval Air Station, fly the F-16s to simulate Soviet combat aircraft and tactics used by Soviet pilots. The planes are pitted against Navy F-14 Tomcat fighters flown by pilots who attend the school.

Air Force spokeswoman Capt. Betsy Freeman in Washington said cracks also have been found in some of the about 1,800 F-16s flown by Air Force pilots. However, the Air Force has not grounded any of its planes, which were flown without problems during the Persian Gulf War, because officials do not consider the cracks a safety risk and have instituted a strict maintenance program for the aircraft, she added.

Competition to attend the six-week Top Gun course--officially known as Fighter Weapons School--is fierce.

On Monday, Navy officials said they are not sure if the 20 pilots in the canceled class will have another opportunity to go through Top Gun, which was made famous by a movie of the same name starring Tom Cruise.

“It was an agonizing and painful decision for us,” said the pilot, who is familiar with the Top Gun school. “Our job is to train these guys. These guys may only have one opportunity to go through this course. This may be it for them.”

The next class is scheduled to begin in October, and officials said they do not know if that class will also have to be canceled. The classes include intense academic courses, but it is the aerial combat training that draws Navy aviators to the school.

Miramar officials, who requested anonymity, said the Navy and General Dynamics, the plane’s manufacturer, are in dispute over who has to pay for the repairs. The officials said the Navy wants General Dynamics to pay for most of the work.

“The Navy has already obligated money for repair of some of the cracks,” a Miramar official said. “But the Navy and General Dynamics are currently negotiating over who’s going to pay for what.”

General Dynamics released a statement Monday saying repair costs will be shared between the company and the Navy.

Air Force Capt. Freeman said cracks are not unusual in fighter planes. Like the cracks in the Navy F-16s, Freeman said, the cracks found in the Air Force planes are microscopic. So far, the Air Force has found cracks in “less than a dozen” of its F-16s, she added.

“There are cracks throughout the planes. That’s not unusual over the lifetime of the plane,” Freeman said. “The most recent cracks were found in the bulkheads between the wing and the fuselage. We’re talking about cracks so small they can’t be seen by the naked eye.”

Freeman said the Air Force has attributed the cracks to harsher demands that have been put on the aircraft, particularly the additional weight of new weapons systems.

“We have added about 2,000 pounds to the airframe and flown it much harder than originally anticipated. . . . This (cracks) is not a show stopper for us,” Freeman said.

“It’s not a safety factor. If it was a safety factor, the planes would be grounded.”