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F-16 Falcon

http://www.aviationlive.org Online Aviation Pics,Videos and Forum The F-16 Fighting Falcon is an American multirole jet fighter aircraft developed by General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin for the United States Air Force. Designed as a lightweight fighter, it evolved into a successful multirole aircraft. The Falcon's versatility is a paramount reason it was a success on the export market, serving 24 countries.The F-16 is the largest Western fighter program with over 4,000 aircraft built since production started in 1976. Though no longer produced for the US Air Force, it is still produced for export. The Fighting Falcon is a dogfighter with innovations including a frameless, bubble canopy for better visibility, side-mounted control stick to ease control while under high g-forces, and reclined seat to reduce the effect of g-forces on the pilot. It was also the first fighter aircraft to be deliberately built to sustain 9-g turns. It has a thrust-to-weight ratio greater than one, providing enough power to climb and accelerate vertically - if necessary. Although the F-16's official name is "Fighting Falcon", it is known to its pilots as the "Viper", after the Battlestar Galactica starfighter. In 1993, General Dynamics sold its aircraft manufacturing business to the Lockheed Corporation,which in turn became part of Lockheed Martin after a 1995 merger with Martin Marietta. During the 1960s, the U.S. Air Force and Navy both concluded that the future of air combat would be determined by increasingly sophisticated missiles. Future "fighters" would be designed primarily for long range, high speed, and equipped with extremely large radar systems in order to detect opposing fighters at long range. This made them much more like interceptors than classic fighter designs. In the early 1960s, both the Air Force and Navy expected to use the F-111 (then still in development as the TFX) and F-4 Phantoms for their long and medium range needs complemented by several single-engine designs including upgraded F-100 Super Sabres, F-104 Starfighters, and F-8 Crusaders. Future twin-engine fighter programs were getting underway and the Air Force began a replacement for its single-engine fighter designs to maintain its high-low mix of air superiority aircraft. Real-world experience in the Vietnam War showed the continued need for the 'high-low' fighter matrix system. Soviet-bloc fighters over Vietnam were proving to be more of a problem than expected for US designs. Even though the US had very large kills to losses ratio in its favor, combat revealed some shortcomings. Missiles of this era still had notable reliability issues, and restrictions on how they were functionally used. Combat invariably closed to short ranges where air-combat maneuverability and short range air-air weapons became critical. Dedicated interceptors like the F-102 Delta Dagger had also been tested in combat which revealed certain shortcomings. Although US training, doctrine and air control more than made up for these disadvantages, it was nevertheless clear to some in the Air Force that the all-missile doctrine was seriously flawed. Both aircraft of the future high-low mix for the USAF would have guns (F-15 and F-16). In particular, Colonel John Boyd developed the theory of energy maintenance in fighter combat, which relied on larger wings in order to preserve maneuverability.