The F-16 Fighting Falcon

General Dynamics' long lasting fighter.

The F-16 Fighting Falcon is possibly the most successful light weight fighter built in recent years. With its distinctive underslung air intake, bubble canopy and multi role capability, it has been operating around the world since 1978 and has gone through a number of operational updates. It can correctly be classed as a fourth generation fighter and also has an all weather, day or night capability. Furthermore, it was the first fighter jet to employ “fly by wire” control systems. When production ceased in 2018, 4,600 units had been built.

I conducted a somewhat disjointed review of the 1/32 scale Tamiya kit some while ago and, for those who haven’t seen my rambling effort, it can be found here:

As you will see, this is what is known as the “Block 50” aircraft and therefore quite a late version, but the entire series goes to Block 70/72 which does serve to highlight the extent of the changes made. It is fair to say that changes in later production blocks are more concerned with avionics and radar installations rather than with hardware like engines. However, the Block 50 units were adapted to fire the (then) new AMRAAM and “Maverick” missiles as well as JDAM munitions and an updated 20mm cannon round. The Fighting Falcon is still the aircraft of choice for the US Air Force display team known as “The Thunderbirds.”

General Dynamics is a well established American defence contractor which operates across a number of areas in the defence sector as well as in civil airliners, which is the extent of its current involvement in aviation. The company owns “Gulf Stream” which manufactures a portfolio of 7 small high technology airliners. At the top of the Gulf Stream portfolio is the G800 which has a range of 6,900 miles at Mach 0.9- which means that it can fly almost anywhere in the world but Australia without refuelling. However, Eastern Australia is within range if long range is chosen over high speed.

If you want to fly a long way with nineteen of your best friends in great comfort (and not a little expense one might add), then the G800 may be the very aircraft for your needs.

The company also runs a sub operator called “Jet Aviation” which is an aviation services provider.

General Dynamics’ history goes back to the turn of last century when a company called “Electric Boat” was incorporated and produced submarines for the US navy. It was formed when Isaac Rice bought the Holland Torpedo Boat Company in 1899 and produced the first submarines for the US Navy in 1900. During World War 2, Electric Boat produced around 80 submarines for the USN, but at the conclusion of hostilities, the workforce was reduced by around 60% and the company started to look around for new markets into which to diversify. The fortunate aspect of this was that Electric Boat were cash rich and consequently able to support the purchase of other companies.

It will undoubtedly be understood that a facet of the end of hostilities is that demand for weapons systems diminishes markedly. In cutting costs early, Electric Boat could retain cash in the business and were able to purchase Canadair, which was for sale having also suffered the expected collapse in sales at the end of the war. However, it was in a fairly poor state if we are to believe the reports of the time. Thus it was acquired into the company and traded as an arm of Electric Boat.

In the Early 1950s and following an extended period of success which owed itself mainly to the onset of the Cold War, the company decided that the name “Electric Boat” was no longer appropriate to an organisation that was (at the time) mainly manufacturing aircraft and so the name “General Dynamics” was introduced. A year after this change, the Convair company was acquired and it continued as an independent, but wholly owned division of General Dynamics, prospering as it produced the B-58 Hustler, the F-106 Delta Dart and also two civil airliners. Convair also developed the Atlas missile- the first operational intercontinental ballistic missile

Another notable aircraft in the General Dynamics portfolio was the F-111 which was a joint venture with Grumman Aircraft, which specialised in the production of carrier aircraft. The carrier version was not accepted by the US Navy, but 563 “Aardvark” aircraft were built and operated by the US and Royal Australian Air Forces. The knowledgable will be aware of the background stories around this although we can look into this in more detail another time.

In 1965, General Dynamics reorganised itself into 12 divisions which were based around product lines. This move is an astute one and allows the individual divisions to flourish and develop their expertise independently of one another. One might also suppose that it helps to prevent sensitive information in one division from leaking away via another to less benevolent recipients as there are firewalls between the business entities- a sensible precaution for a defence contractor.

The F-16 itself was the result of the US Air Force “Light Weight Fighter” program with prototype contracts being awarded to both General Dynamics and Northrop for the development of an agile new generation fighter. The result is of course history, but the loser (Northrop) was not completely outdone as the YF-17 later became the FA-18 Hornet, the US Navy’s carrier borne fighter, later produced by MacDonell Douglas and then Boeing. Good design is important.

Anyway, testing of the YF16 was conducted at Edwards AFB with the usual high speed taxi trials (amongst other things) being undertaken prior to any actual flights. You will note that the aircraft was the first “fly by wire” example built and being so, there was no experience of how the flying controls would behave. Sensitivity was built into the pilot’s controls which took the form of feedback systems which allow pilots the “feel” that they would expect from a more conventional control system, but it was not fully appreciated just how sensitive the controls might need to be. It turns out that a part of this phase of the trials included the test pilot initiating a series of side to side inputs at around 120 knots to test the response of the aircraft and the flight systems. It was at this time that the aircraft started to oscillate violently, so the pilot, faced with a choice of throttling back, controlling the lateral movements and potentially travelling off the runway, chose to maintain the throttle settings, rotate and take off. Owing to the unscheduled movements, the Starboard static probe and the port missile rail touched the runway as the craft “unstuck” and an unscheduled six minute flight ensued which some think saved the program. The official first flight took place on 2 February, about two weeks later and was a lot less eventful.

It was in 1975 that the YF-16 was announced as the winner of the competition for the LWF program and an order for 15 development fighters was issued. This was reduced to 8, but almost simultaneously with the completion of the evaluation program, an order was raised for “at least” 650 aircraft for the US Air Force. The F-16 was built at US Air Force plant 4 in Fort Worth and production space for this project increased the floor space requirement by not far off 50% to 6.5 million square feet.

As we come nearer to the present day, we see that General Dynamics have continued to develop, although in 1992 it sold nearly all of its divisions in aerospace. This concentration on core business has proved to be beneficial to the company and Electric Boat is still operating as prime contractor for all US Navy Nuclear submarines. General Dynamics also encompasses Bath Iron Works for naval surface fighting vessels and NASSCO for fleet support vessels.

Other divisions of General Dynamics also produce tanks and projectile weapons of all calibres which would include ammunition and their remaining division is concerned with high security IT systems and what are called “mission systems.”

There appears to be some confusion over the naming of the F-16 with some people mentioning that it is called “Viper,” some saying it is called, (as on the review I made), the “Fighting Falcon,” or even “Electric Jet.” Other soubriquets offered are- the “Lawn Dart,” (owing to the sinuous and sleek look as well as the high manoeuvrability) “Midnight Falcon,”(for the day or night fighter capability) “Desert Falcon” (specifically for the Block 60 variants) and “Sweet Sixteen” for reasons which should be abundantly obvious. In any event, the “Viper” name seems to have been adopted by pilots following, (it is said) the Battlestar Galactica science fantasy series which deployed a small fighting spacecraft known as a “Colonial Viper”to kill off those beastly Cylons more or less wherever they were encountered. The “Electric Jet” nickname appears to be a nod to both the “fly by wire” aspect of the aircraft’s design and a call back to the original name of the company. These both seem to be appropriate in my view.

The “Fighting Falcon” name was actually adopted in the late 1970’s to help distinguish it from the then available Dassault “Falcon” business jet and was suggested by one Sergeant Joseph Kurdell in response to a competition held to name the jet. I gather that his prize, (in addition to countless name checks in perpetuity) was a dinner of his choice at the NCO’s mess on production of his letter indicating this. A princely gift indeed.

For more than 35 years, the Fighting Falcon has served Air Forces around the world and distinguished itself in every area against potentially hostile forces. Owing to the difficulties of delivering the F-35 JSF and the quality of the underpinning engineering in the F-16 allied to its current capability, it will be seen in the air for a number of years to come, both in the US and around the world. It will of course always be seen at its very best in the hands of the Thunderbirds display team and I trust that I may get the opportunity to see them flying at some stage.

From a modelling perspective, I am not quite clear how I will finish this aircraft. I would like to paint it in the colours of the Thunderbirds, but such a finish would be complicated and requiring of much masking (and cursing too I shouldn’t wonder). My researches indicate that a mask of the Thunderbirds “skin” is not available and neither are decals for a 1/32 scale kit, but the painting project might provide a unique model and, for that reason, it is enticing. The assembly of the Tamiya kit can be forecast to be uneventful owing to the quality of the design and moulding- I believe the expression is “shake and bake.” I don’t suppose that my assertion that the nuts and bolts assembly of the project should be uneventful will be met with too much disagreement from those who inhabit “modelling land.” Some while ago, I also acquired a Quinta Studio cockpit enhancement which again, I can’t imagine would be a problem to install.

I am sure that I will get around to it all at some stage.