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The F-16 story is not a simple one. What makes the aircraft so fascinating is that it represents a moment when fighter aircraft design took a dramatic and deeply unconventional turn. Long before it became a global icon, the F-16 was an engineering gamble that ultimately paid off.
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This was a fine video, but in my opinion the five and half minute intro discussing the Mountain Home AFB crash didn't add anything to the desirable qualities of the story of the F-16 and should have been clipped.
Sadly, no mention or even snippets from the movie "Iron Eagle", which was almost an advert for the F16 😅
Turns out you don't actually need to throw down on the most hyper-advanced stealth aircraft to strafe a bunch of guys in a ditch with AK-47s and RPGs.
The fighter mafia had NOTHING to do with the development of the F16, they took credit for it after she was a proven success. Laser Pig will have an aneurysm.
It is still formidable and highly agile. don't discard it until necessary.
OMG DCS looks real!!!
The Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV), or “Flying Bedstead,” was an earlier analog fly-by-wire machine, using electronic stabilization, sensors, thrusters and a gimbaled jet engine to simulate a lunar landing.
Armstrong’s 1968 ejection followed a loss of helium pressure that deprived the attitude-control system of the thrust necessary to maintain stability. At that point, neither the pilot nor the control system—and probably not even an Apollo Guidance Computer, had one been aboard—could command forces the machine was physically incapable of producing.
Apollo’s digital-control technology nevertheless became part of the developmental path through the F-8 Crusader and onward to increasingly capable and redundant computerized flight controls.
By the late 1970s, that evolution had produced the F-16, although the aircraft experienced early reliability, engine, maintenance and support problems as it entered service.
What ultimately endured was the package itself: a lightweight, inherently maneuverable airframe whose relaxed stability and computerized flight controls were designed as parts of the same system.
The technology around that combination has advanced enormously, but the soundness of the original concept is perhaps best demonstrated by the fact that, nearly half a century later, the F-16 is still being produced from essentially the same fundamental design.
The F-18 is actually two planes. The Super Hornet has many differences.
Cuz its awesome.
Fokker company name probably got alot of attention 😂
Original specs called for 7.33gs at 75% of gross, GD designed the 16 to pull 9gs at 100% of gross weight.
General Dynamics made F16 stronger than the specification called for, a LOT stronger. There's probably a lot of viper pilots who are alive because of this.
It's still a very effective aircraft, F35 is to replace it and it's great bvr, but if u have sneaky pilots who get in a dogfight with the viper you're going to have dead F35 pilots.
What a dumbo mistake for a trained pilot.
An absolutely outstanding Aircraft. I absolutely love it. Yes, there are more capable aircraft out there, F15, F22, F35 spring to mind. But if you're on a budget, the F16 will do just fine, so long as its used wisely.
Why? 1. Nobody can beat it – still (Block 70/72)
2. Nobody will beat it (Block 80)
3. The original frame was light, aerodynamically nearly perfect, and most importantly – easily modified
4. it's production line is still up, operating, and easily expandable
5. It's total package is dirt cheap compared to all other options in its class.
6. The South Korean-Israeli-US single-jet variant of the KF-21 isn't available yet.
Look for a joint venture in the creation of smaller, faster, more dynamic, single-engine F-22.
all bs to find way to stop lightweight mafa from gain control of building the aircraft. Hence the F 16 a cheap fighter.
If other countries (like Japan) want to buy the 'F-16'* ; they are going to keep making it!
More than fifty years later, the F-16 is still proving John Boyd was right.
The 15’s, 16’s, 18’s and 10’s were the Murican century’s finest
im generally much more into civil aviation so i put this on as background noise while i worked and i ended up getting GRIPPED, damn you ben for making such an interesting video!!
John Boyd had a lot of influence on the build of the F-16. He was one of the Fighter Mafia. Ron Catton ran interference for him along with a couple others. Then the Air Force got involved and started hanging all sorts of munitions and bombs on it, wrecking its pure fighter design.
If anything, the continued production of the 16, 15 and 18 show that old designs deserve to keep being built……you know, LIKE THE A-10 WARTHOG
I'm Australian. Sure we have F16s, but the thrill of an F1-11 dump and burn will live forever in my living memory…
On the F-14, check which sci-fi mecha was influenced by it and became iconic in 1982, four years before Top Gun.
How does f16 compare to f14????
No, can't watch this. It's far too painful to sit through twenty four minutes and twenty five seconds of pure cringe.
3:24 – No clue where you are getting your information on the ejection seat but that is the ACES II in the F-16 which is a zero/zero ejection seat. He was well within speed parameters. The one area where you were right is he should have ejected sooner so the sink rate wasn't going to negatively affect the ejection as much as it did. A fair amount of the rocket power used by the seat was expended just arresting the sink rate. I think it is fairly obvious that he was hoping to squeak a save in and just get yelled at after the fact versus destroying his aircraft and so he waited till the absolute last second to initiate ejection. The ACES II is so good that you can be inverted level at 140 feet AGL at 150 KIAS and eject and survive that ejection.
11:22 – Wrong again. The F/A-18 is the first fighter to be all digital fly by wire (FBW). The F-16 was always FBW but the initial A/B models were analog FBW not digital. So even though the F-16s first flight beat the F/A-18 by four years it did so with analog FBW flight controls. It didn't get digital flight controls until the C/D model so no earlier than 1984 which is a full six years after the first flight of the F/A-18.
13:01 – Same mistake as above with the claim of digital FBW. Correct in that their is no mechanical backup control. It is all FBW or nothing.
Not bothering to list out the other digital F-16 FBW references as the same as the first statement holds true. Not all digital until at least 1984.
Well that AoA isn't what doomed the F-16 on that split S. As you pointed out the nose was already above the horizon. It was the massive sink rate that the aircraft still had. I don't see the F/A-18 besting that problem because she is a heavier bird thanks to the aforementioned navalization. Even a Block 50 F-16 empty weight is 18,900 pounds. Add in max internal fuel she tips the scales at 26,100 pounds. The F/A-18 C/D model empty weight is 23,000 pounds. Add in max internal fuel she tips the scales at 33,860 pounds. The only way to even out the numbers weight wise would be for the F/A-18 to take off with no more than 3,100 pounds of fuel. Which they certainly wouldn't do. Thus the roughly same engine power but extra girth of the F/A-18 will make it sink even faster trying to do a split S that low to the ground. Sure you would be able to point the nose up that much faster on the F/A-18 compared to the F-16 but parasitic drag is going to kill your airspeed in the F/A-18 doing that and not your sink rate. There just won't be enough altitude to arrest the sink rate to save the aircraft. Same problem the F-16 had just slightly different physics to get to the same conclusion.
Short answer: export customers, replacing old airframes
Interesting to see that in some of your footage you're showing diversion that was sent overseas to some countries with a j79 engine in it. Still a competent fighter even with the older engine.
The major problem that Strickland had was he did not adjust the barometric pressure for Mountain Home before he took off. That affected his altimeter rating and it was off by quite a bit. I did my Air Force tour at Mountain home, I'm familiar with the air base. The reason we still build these things is because they are the most effective air-to-air combat vehicle that is made when things get close and in a box the only problem they do have is that since the block 20 F-16 which is more capable than any of the others I think the black 30 still had some of that capability. The vehicle will actually if you pull it into a maneuver, there are safeguards built into the flight control system which will stop you from being able to maneuver the aircraft is hard as it is capable. And that softens your turns so that you become a Target rather than becoming the Hunter. That is not an advantage. I'm hoping that that capability when you're actually going into a combat situation can be adjusted. I do not know that for sure. But anytime you go into a combat situation against an F-16 your primary concern should be getting away from it as quickly as possible. The current F-16 is far more capable than the computer that's in it allows it to be. The early ones had a problem with the third stage compressor section but it was using the same engines that we had on the f-111f model and that problem persisted until the change from the Pratt & Whitney to the general electric engine which actually put out a bit more thrust. Matter of fact the first replacement for the F-111 when they finally got rid of them in 93 was an F-16 for a while and then they went to the Strike Eagle. And added a pod for the Strike Eagle for terrain following capability
Just for your information: the original F-16A/B had an Analogue FBW flight control computer, nog a Digital one!
I bet F18 rinos will continue to be built into the late 2030s if not 2040s, just because the time frame for the new F/A XX will require 20 years to enter service, too many political interference happening
The f14 is one of the most over rated fighters ever.
Great video. Non AI commentary is the go all the way imo