lstencel

During my 15 1/2 years in service at Edwards AFB, I was associated with the F-16 four different times. I’ve had the privilege of flying in them, too. I think the F-16 is one of the few airplanes that not only met its original design objectives but greatly exceeded them. For what they cost vs. the current front line fighters, the USAF, et al, got their money’s worth. Nice to see that some of them will fly on one more time. Also, they’re now being turned into drones as QF-16’s, sadly.

Not widely known, during what was known as the “Lightweight Fighter (LWF)” flyoff in 1974, the Northrop entrant – the F-17 – that didn’t win the competition (IMHO correctly) went on to be resurrected as the F-18 Hornet for the Navy. So BOTH entrants into that fly off competition nearly 50 years ago were ultimately successful.

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lstencel

OH … I forgot some of the NUMEROUS variants of the airplane that were tested. The Grumman X-29A was basically an F-16 with forward swept wings. The F-16XL was a ‘cranked arrow’ (much larger) wing that could carry all manner of weapons. And the NF-16 “Vista” is a variable stability demonstrator airplane that replaced the CALSPAN NF-33 which flew for 50 years in support of the US test pilot schools, et al. There were others:

See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting_Falcon_variants