Hello everyone. You are watching another episode of Military TV. In today’s session we are going
to discuss about all the reasons why the Air Force’s F-16 is still a deadly plane. If you
are eager to know more about this topic, don’t go anywhere and stay tuned only at this channel.
The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is a single-engine multirole fighter aircraft
originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force (USAF).
Designed as an air superiority day fighter, it evolved into a successful
all-weather multirole aircraft. It is one of the only top jet fighters in the world
to also be cost efficient. This light fighter jet is fast and extremely agile,
and it remains the most popular aircraft in modern military duty, with almost 2,700
in service around twenty-six countries out of a total production of 4,500. Needless to say,
the 1980s' cutting-edge fourth-generation fighter will be with us for a long time.
The F-16 was designed in response to a dilemma faced by the Air Force during the Vietnam War,
in which the fast and heavy F-4 Phantom fighters underperformed against the North Vietnamese
Air Force due to inadequate long-range missile capability and a lack of precision maneuvering
in dogfights. This prompted the Fighter Mafia to claim that the Air Force's design priorities
were incorrect, and instead of another heavy twin-engine fighter, what was truly needed was
a reasonably cheap, lightweight airframe that optimized energy for short-range dogfights.
The F-16 fighting falcon was built under an unusual agreement creating a consortium between
the United States and four NATO countries: Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway.
The consortium's F-16s are assembled from components manufactured in all five countries.
Recently, Portugal also joined the consortium. This program improves the F-16's combat readiness
by increasing the supply and availability of repair components in Europe.
So, why the F-16 Fighter Falcon is still a deadly plane?
All of F-16 light fighters which delivered since November 1981 have built in structural and wiring
provisions as well as systems architecture that allow expansion of the multirole flexibility to
perform precision strike, night attack and beyond-visual-range interception missions.
This upgraded program led to the F-16C and F-16D aircraft, which are the single- and two-place
counterparts to the F-16A/B, and incorporate the latest cockpit control and display technology. All
active units and many Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve units have converted to the F-16C/D.
Moreover, the single-engine F-16 used new design technologies to maximize kinematic performance.
For instance, a powerful Pratt & Whitney F100 engine with the intake slung under the fuselage
could create an excellent thrust-to-weight ratio due to the overall lightness of the Falcon,
pushinf the F-16 to twice the speed of sound at high altitude.
In addition, to support the cropped delta wings, pronounced strakes bulged out from
the fuselage like the hood of a cobra, allowing for extremely high roll rates.
A bulging bubble canopy also afforded an excellent field of view for the pilot, who was lounged
in a seat angled thirty degrees back so as to mitigate the G-forces from violent maneuvers.
Furthermore, the F-16 also could pull off very violent maneuvers indeed,
becoming the first jet fighter able to pull nine Gs in a turn,
tighter than any other U.S. fighter until the advent of the F-22 Raptor.
In fact, to maximize its maneuverability, the F-16 was intentionally designed to be aerodynamically
unstable, a deficit which its Flight Control System automatically compensated for.
This was possible because to the F-16's groundbreaking fly-by-wire control system,
which essentially meant that the pilot's commands were interpreted through an electronic interface
rather than hydraulic or cable-connected manual controls. Fly-by-wire controls were not only more
dependable, but they also allowed the flight computer to modify the pilot's maneuvers as
needed to stay within the Falcon's tolerances. Another feature was an integrated throttle in
the joystick, known as Hands-On Throttle and Stick (HOTAS), enabling much smoother operation by the
pilot. Fly-by-wire and HOTAS have since become standard features in modern combat aircraft.
However, unlike the early model F-14 and F-15, the Falcon was also designed as a multirole fighter,
and it could lug up to seventeen thousand pounds of munitions or electronic-warfare
gear on its eleven hardpoints, including a new generation of precision guided weapons
such as Maverick missiles and laser-guided bombs, and also a 20 mm Vulcan cannon in the
lower fuselage served as a backup weapon. Ironically, while the Fighter Mafia placed
little faith in guided missile technology, the F-16 arrived at a time when they had reached a
new level of efficiency, with the Falcon’s APG-66 doppler radar, Heads Up Display and targeting
computers were able to leverage these weapons to deadly effect. This was demonstrated in 1991,
where USAF F-16 multirole fighters were deployed to the Persian Gulf in support of Operation Desert
Storm, where more sorties were flown than with any other aircraft. These fighters were used to attack
airfields, military production facilities, Scud missiles sites and a variety of other targets.
Since the Gulf War, the Falcon has been a mainstay in U.S. and NATO air campaigns over the former
Yugoslavia, Iraq and Syria. Moreover, American and Belgian F-16s also shot down additional enemy
fighters over Serbia and Kosovo during the 1990s, though two were brought down by Serb
surface-to-air missiles. Furthermore, the F-16s sold abroad have also seen action in numerous
of conflicts. For instance, Pakistani F-16s shot down ten Soviet and Afghan aircraft on its border
during the 1980s. In 1992, two Venezuelan Falcons pilots played a key role in defeating a coup
by supporters of Hugo Chávez by shooting down two rebel OV-10 Broncos and a Tucano trainer.
Interesingly, by one count, the Falcon has shot down seventy-six enemy aircraft,
while only suffering one or two losses in aerial combat, generally under ambiguous
circumstances. And of course, Falcons have continued to serve as bomb-toting workhorses
for air strikes on targets in Lebanon, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Lastly, for the upgraded F-16s, they are equipped with conformal fuel tanks that considerably expand
the Falcon's limited range while reducing aerodynamic drag, as well as an APG-80 Active
Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar, which represent the cutting edge of fighter-borne radar
technology, due to their better resolution and reduce visibility to opponent radars. Currently, a
more advanced Block 70 variant is being considered for production in India. However, the prices for
these newer Falcons have risen dramatically. In addition, due to delays and cost overruns
in the F-35 stealth fighter program, the U.S. Air Force plans to keep flying its 1,200 F-16s
long into the 2040s by extending the airframe’s service life from eight to twelve thousand hours.
The Fighting Falcon has proven to be a capable and flexible combat jet, and furthermore it
costs $22,000 per flight hour to operate, compared to $42,000 for a twin-engine F-15.