HOW THE F-16 CHANGED AIR WARFARE FOREVER
AIRPOWER
BY ALEX HOLLINGS
JANUARY 19, 2024
The F-16 Fighting Falcon, known affectionately by many pilots as the Viper, is the most widely operated fighter aircraft on the planet for a reason.
In an era when fighter designs were largely focused on what could be argued were glamour metrics like top speed and service ceiling, the F-16 emerged as the embodiment of a new approach to air warfare. Using a classified analysis of air-to-air combat as its guide, General Dynamics devised a fighter that emphasized performance within the specific speed-envelope in which dogfights were likely to occur.
The result was an aircraft that may not set any speed or climbing records like the F-15 Eagle that preceded it, but that could nonetheless outmatch, outturn, and outperform nearly any fighter it could come across… and all for less than half the cost of top-tier fighters of its day.
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