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It should be noted regarding every test combat of F16 vs F35 where the F16 won, it was only in tests where the F35 was forbidden from using it's Distributed Aperture System, which allows it to target and fire missiles at targets directly behind it, or anywhere else (it does NOT need to face it's target to fire a missile at it, making it's lack of maneuverability irrelevant). The F35 was never defeated by F16s when it was allowed to use the Distributed Aperture System. It was intentionally handicapped in those mock dogfights and not reprepresentative of how the aircraft would actually kill air targets in a real fight.

When someome mentions Boyd as though he was a genius I die inside a little. He did serve in Korea but he never served in vietnam. He was a flight instructor. An instructor whose students would either have to come back to retrain, because he'd done it badly, or came back in boxes, again because he'd trained them badly.

Test pilots really don't get the praise they deserve. Accidentally taking off a completely new aircraft with very unfamiliar controls and being able to cruise it around and safely land it must of been one hell of a hellraising experience. Kudos to that man!

As a former lawn-dart avionics technician, I can confirm. The F-16 is, without-a-doubt, one of the planes of all time.

One side note about the comment regarding the dogfight between the F16 and F35. My understanding is that this was prior to the F35 being cleared to 9Gs and wasnt able to use its full capabiliy. Those restrictions have since been lifted but that story is often used to say the F35 cant turn. Pilots ive heard have said exactly the opposite

Thank you Simon! I'm a USAF vet where my job was as an F-16 crew chief. We typically know the nitty gritty of getting the Viper in the air for the mission, but we never got the behind the scenes story about the "making of" the F-16. I really enjoyed this video for the background aspect and the achievements of the airframe over the decades, but please keep in mind all the ground maintenance that goes into keeping these fighters in the skies. There are many man-hours of inspections and maintenance by various specialists for each system if the aircraft- including, but limited to the crew chief, munitions, avionics, fuel, phase docks, and so many other logistical support technicians as well. Without maintainers, the planes dont fly. That's just my little shout out for the maintainers. Again- thank you for this great video, Simon!

Nobody show this video to LazerPig or he will lose it

Its pilots and crews often use the name "Viper" instead, because of a perceived resemblance to a viper snake as well as to the fictional Colonial Viper starfighter from the television program Battlestar Galactica, which aired at the time the F-16 entered service.

Fighter Mafia....really? Are we going to continue to credit people who were NOT involved in this project?

the f35 in the early trials against the f16 was the 002 (literaly the second f35 ever produced) version it was still handicapped in g loading by computer limited controls, the f35 still scored a kill even though it was heavily limited. the limits were removed as the structure was analyzed under load in tests like the one quoted. nowadays f35 pilots who flew the f16 have said the f35 is more agile specialy when it comes to roll at high angles of attack

Thank you for this great look at this amazing aircraft. I recently had the honor to design a special tail for one of our Belgian Air Force F-16's. FA-95 reached it structural design limit of 8000hours, making it the first European Viper to reach this milestone thanks to the amazing work of the maintenance crews, keeping this plane flying since the 80's. I spoke to the pilot after and he said 'She flies just like a brand new viper'. A true testament to this amazing jet.

F16 has always been my favorite ever since I was a kid. Beautiful looking aircraft.

To top it off, she's also a top tier work of engineering art.

I was aircraft refueler at Edwards AFB in 1974. I fueled all the YF16's in test status at that time. It was recognized as an amazing aircraft by all us at that time.

I'd like it to be known as I'm from the town where the F16 was designed and built, it wasn't the 'Fighter Mafia' it was the 'LIGHT Fighter Mafia'! America HAD fighters but they were ALL multi-role, the Viper was never designed for that it was initially designed to ONLY dogfight. The fact that this frame is amazing at everything is a testament to the true passion and dedication of these truly genius gentleman.

Worked on this aircraft for 4.5 years, and it is so incredibly versatile. Also had some of the best coworkers.

I saw a video of a pilot taking a journalist up in an F16 and they were going through an example of the fighter school training process, one on one combat scenarios, and the pilot said that he loved the falcon, it was a great plane with a great radar, but the f35 could draw a bead on it before he would even know it was there. I do think that is a very good thing to have the falcon as a measuring stick for any new design aircraft that might come into the inventory. Interesting to me how when the designers think in terms of simple, stripped down, elemental designs like the "Heinneman Hotrod" A4 Skyhawk and the F16, wonderful designs result rather that the kind of bloated cram it all in complexity of the Phantom, Tomcat, and F22. I'm not saying the Skyhawk and F16 are superior aircraft, just that there is definitely a place for basic, clean and economical designs, and I think we (and the contractors) forget that.

I was on a deployment in Korea in early 1990 when one of these things came ripping down the valley that we were advancing through. He was at maybe 300 ft. Next thing we heard was " tanks, halt in place. Your dead." That's one seriously bad ass plane. And way effective

7:45 - LOL it looks like a Goose :D That F16 *REALLY* wanted to fly! Let's not forget, F-16XL ~

I thought the event with F-35s was testing it's capabilities without stealth or advanced targeting systems? The F-35 can shoot targets without pointing its nose and this feature wasn't used in the test. If an f-35 has to dogfight, things have gone horribly wrong for it.

@11:15, he mentions the 1st planes were delivered to Hill AFB in Europe. My only problem with that statement, is that Hill AFB is in Utah.

When I was a young boy I build model planes and fighters. The F-16 Falcon was my favorite. I read magazine articles on this wonderful fighter. It was groundbreaking and dubed the Porsche of fighters.

Yesterday, our first F16 is retired from the Belgium air force, also because we're changing to the F35. I still think the F16 is the most elegant fighter ever built.

One thing that this video didn't mention is that, whilst not the first FBW aircraft or even one of the first FBW fighters, the F16 was one of the first designed to take full advantage of FBW technology. It's deliberately designed to be somewhat less stable aerodynamically than is normally considered desirable. This would make it at best a handful and at worst impossible for a human pilot to fly, but the FBW system can cover this instability up by automatically making all the adjustments needed to maintain stable flight far faster than a human pilot ever could. The upshot of this is the plane is extremely manoeuvrable, with the upper limit set more by human factors than any technological limitations (the airframe and the flightcontrol systems could in theory both handle more than 9G in a turn, but the odds of the pilot blacking out are too high, so 9G was set as the upper limit). This is one of the big contributing factors to the manoeuvrability of the jet, combined with small size, light weight, and high thrust/weight ratio.

Coming from a Navy family, my heart lies with the F-18, but the F-16 is a pretty good airplane, too. LOL

And Lazerpig would be upset because these two planes can not be compared because they were both designed to 2 totally different things. Comparing those 2 planes would be like comparing Steven Seagal with Bruce Lee.😂

The F35 isn't intended as a dogfighting platform. BVR engagements are its bread and butter. With its stealth playing a huge role in its survivability. Can't dogfight it if you're dead already. The F16/F35 dogfight was part of an evaluation scheme to determine its strengths and weaknesses, which would help mold pilot doctorine when fighting the aircraft.

The years of my time in the USAF as a aviation mechanic the F-16 was known as the 'Fighting Falcon', or just 'Falcon'. As maintainers we would just refer to an aircraft by it's tail number. I think it was towards the end of my career that 'viper' seemed to start creeping in. Now 'viper' seems to be set in stone.

Nobody is saying its the best fighter. What the article is saying is its the ultimate MULTIROLE fighter. The combination of the relatively very low price, reliability, kinematics and arguably the best cockpit layout make this thing top notch. Edit- No shit the F35 is better in many ways, hence why I said "relatively very low price". Not every country is America, and not every country can afford the F35.

The F-16 is my favorite jet, with the A-10 Warthog as a close second, and the F-15 Eagle third. One of my favorite game series is Ace Combat. I think I'm just a big kid because I love planes and trains.

One of the big things the F16 has in its favour is its availability. With so much operational use over such a long time, they've had all the reliability issues they ever had worked out, and with so many in service the logistics chain for spares is good. If an air force buys 50 F16s, it can keep most of those available. If it buys something else, it'd need to buy many more and a lot of spares up front to maintain the same level of availability. So the F16's military effectiveness is very good. You can have your planes *and* fly them.

Hill Air Force Base is in Northern Utah and not in Europe, but it's nice to hear it's name in your video. Our family home is a mile off the southern end of the main runway at Hill Air Force base in Layton, Utah and HAFB was the world-wide headquarters for the F-16 program and home of the 388th and 419th Fighter Wings both now equipped with F-35 Lightning IIs.

"The woods are dark and deep and I have many promises to keep. Many miles to go, before I sleep." That should be the mission statement for all US made aircraft. C130, B 52, F 16, F 15, F 18, C 5, and the B 1B. Yeah, still flying.

My father worked at General Dynamics during the 80s so I was always an F16 guy, they are quite impressive although too quiet for airshows. Saw a RC airplane get its maiden flight in similar fashion although didn't have a successful landing.

In 1975 I was sent to the General Dynamics plant in Fort Worth, TX to review and edit technical documentation for the FB-111A fighter bombers (I was an in-shop avionics technician stationed at Plattsburgh AFB NY). One day they told us that one of the F-16 prototypes was going to be doing a practice session for the upcoming Paris Air Show, and we all went outside to watch. The previous week there had been an incident where the landing gear did not properly deploy, and the test pilot bellied the plane in on the grass strip between the runway and taxiway. They said he could not have made a better landing, but there was a pile of gravel at the end that damaged the intake, so they painted up the other plane in the red-white-blue color scheme they were using and we got to see their top test pilot take this one through the demo flight regime. At one point the pilot took the the plane at about a 45-degree climb angle into a cloud, but it didn't come out the other side...he did a 180 degree turn inside the cloud and came out the the same way he had gone in.

I think history will show that the "teens" designation of aircraft are some of the best all around designs of all time. Be it the F14, F15, F16 or F18.

It's a jack of all trades and master of none. It can accomplish 90+% of missions at a very affordable price, this is why seemingly everyone wants or wanted it when their current aircraft aged out.

Simon, great video about one of my very favorite planes, thank you! One thing, I actually live right next to Hill Air Force Base, but I live in the state of Utah and not in Europe. It's true that we have two fighter wings that primarily consist of F-16s that we're quite proud of. But we are here on Utah. We have a very large maintenance and repair depot on base and we are replacing older falcons with F-35s and the plan was to convert over completely to the lightning II but between all the snafus they had in producing the F-35 and the fact that the updated F-16 s are so good I think they're going to hold onto them for awhile yet.

There’s an old saying in aeronautical design, and that is if a plane looks right it’ll fly right. The Viper really does look right

If you look into that story about that mock dogfight it was early in the f35 development and it was restricted electronoicly so they would not damage the plane

I do t think anyone has called the F-14 underwhelming….. ever

That first Y16 story is LEGEND. I have a huuuge smile on my face

I was in High School when in 1975 Paris air show the F-16 & the Mirage F-1E were debuting. When the F-16 did a full afterburner turn within the confines of the airport then immediately when vertical out of sight. No one had seen an aircraft like this, the F1E was almost ignored. The U.S. sold a lot of F-16's that day if not immediate the sales would come.

I’m proud to say for four years I serviced and maintained her, and glad to see her still relevant to this day. Also when I was in we still called it the falcon plus kinda hard to to call a snake a bird

One thing you can’t deny. That f-16 is one sexy mechanical contrivance.

Simon, I love/hate the weird/adorable/awkward thing you do when you bring up hypothetical situations, it's fantastic! Thanks for being you and giving us awesome stories homie!!!

0:55 - Chapter 1 - Development 2:20 - Mid roll ads 4:00 - Back to the video 11:40 - Chapter 2 - Specs & evolution 15:10 - Chapter 3 - Service life & deployment 18:35 - Chapter 4 - Present & future

Finally after all this time! A Megaprojects video about the f16

Calling the foxbat "Highly advanced" is like calling a turd a diamond 😂😂😂

I was an assistant crew chief on F-16s at HAFB back in the late 80's. I loved working with it. It was the ultimate sports plane. The pilots had to gain hours so they were allowed to take it to fly on weekends. The funniest thing I saw was one pilot trying to fit his surfboard into the converted center drop tank the used as a luggage carrier. I loved that plane. Launching and recovering it are some of my favorite moments. It was also know as the runway Hoover with that huge under carriage intake.

Been an aviation enthuiast for years, only recently have I read up on the real Top Gun, dog fighting and fighter aircraft. Your videos are great for bringing me up to speed on half a century of fighter plane technology.

Not a single pilot or crew member involved with the F-16 will ever call it a Fighting Falcon. It's real name is the Viper. This is similar to how the A-10 is officially called the Thunderbolt ii but is actually known by literally everyone as the Warthog. When the Air Force picks silly names for it's planes the crews will always come up with something that stick better. This doesn't always result in a cooler name because some planes like the F-35 named Lightning ii is most commonly called "Fat Amy" these days.

Dollar for dollar, the best multi-role righter ever and likely will be for years to come, and a gem of a design aesthetically

The F4 is my favorite. It blasted the guys that were shooting at me with a mortar. When two Phantoms came streaking in a tree top level, the mortar went quiet real quick.

I always loved the Viper. It was light years ahead of its time when it was developed. Small and light. Lots of power. Fly by wire. It had the goods. Now it has more power and great radar . It did very well dropping bombs without any fancy laser guidance. I think the F16XL would have been awesome also

Budget f-15 became a masssive asset of being the wildest of weasels, air to air, ground support and close air support just because something is less expensive doesn't mean its a terrible tool! Oh the stories my older siblings told me during desert storm seeing them buzz oh wow the little brother does more than the big brother

The F-16 couldn't FIND an F-35 in an air to air fight. So, it's hard to understand how it's "better."

Not to be a stickler, but Hill AFB is in Utah.

The F-16 will always be my favourite just because to my eyes it's the most beautiful looking plane ever designed. I also love the Swedish Gripen, the Eurofighter and Rafale since they are similar looking in many ways.

One of the early buyers of the F-16 was the Shah of Iran, however the revolution resulted in planes which were already on the production line being embargoed and then diverted to Israel. Iran had already received several shipments of spares and support equipment, these sat in a warehouse for 20 years until they were sold to Pakistan after it was hit with US sanctions after its nuclear tests in the late 1990’s. One of the clauses in the deal between the Americans and Iran over its nuclear program was the refunding of what Iran had already paid towards its F-16 order.

The f16 flies extremely well with extremely streamlined controls and cockpit that make the plane very easy to operate under stress. However, the f16 cannot hold as many AMRAAMs or fuel as the f18 or 15 which can be deadly when air to air combat begins to draw on.

this plane has a special place in my heart 52FW / 22FS ❤- 480FS ❤

When I was about 11 years old we heard a loud noise approaching very fast when we were in class in our small village in Belgium. 2 F 16'ns buzzed the church tower across the street from our classroom. That's how low they got flying their then brand new jets in Belgium. Some kids where actually in shock. Teacher stopped lessons and told us to go to the olayground to unwind from this ordeal. I, on the other hand, and some friends, wanted to see it again.....

When I was a kid, I saw the documentary Iron Eagle. It featured rare, declassified footage of a pair of F16s completely dismantling an integrated air defense system, while dogfighting state of the art Soviet jets. One of the pilots was a 16-year-old, which demonstrates the ease of flying and technological domination of this fighter.

The F16 is also the sexiest looking aircraft ever built. It's performance is stunning. Amazing plane, I want one just to look at it in the garden 😃

a very capable aircraft but my favorite will always be the JAS 39 Gripen :)

I think something that goes over most of people's heads when it comes to F-16 vs F-35A in terms of BFM, is that F-16 might be a better dog fighter, but only if it's clean. Combat-load, not so much. But gen4 planes generally carry more munitions than the gen 5's since they're not designed with stealth in mind. So there's give and take, and to be honest, who cares--they're gonna be working together more often than not because US and those with the F-35 aren't just gonna send one plane to deal with something. The F-35 is a force multiplier, and not just for air assets. They're even capable of taking an interceptor fired from a Patriot system, grabbing it with it's sensors and guiding it into a drone meant to simulate a cruise missile. Absolutely nothing else has the capabilities (so far) in the sky. I don't feel the "jack-of-all-trades, master of none" fits the F-35 at all. It does more than any single platform out there at the moment. I am a big fan of the F-35s obviously, but honestly, I'm not much of a hater. I love the F-16s, but I gotta defend the F-35.

Export release of the F-16 came under President Reagan and was a Presidential Order in 1982. Otherwise, the USAF was preparing to adopt the F-20A Tigershark, a single engine development of the F-5A/B Freedom Fighter and F-5E/F Tiger II, just so other countries would buy it as well. The two had similar performance characteristics and capabilities. But the F-16 had two more pylons, one on each wing, to mount more ordnance and stores and could actually carry more bombs almost to the aircraft's own weight which was more akin to the A-4 Skyhawk. The F-14 Tomcat was also not underwhelming, it was an excellent aircraft. Able to reach over Mach 3, about Mach 3.6 if I recall right, which made it the Fastest US Production Fighter ever built. It could also carry more ordnance than most other aircraft while retaining a level of agility that most Fighters craved with that load. The single issue it had was cost. The Swing-Wing Design and the sheer size of it meant that the design was extremely expensive. Especially with its advanced Radar and its very unique AIM-64 Phoenix Missiles. It was also designed as a Bomber Interceptor and later also assigned to intercept Cruise Missiles. Otherwise, the F-14's power output matched that of the F-15 but was a few thousand pounds heavier. Retired F-14s had their engines pulled and refurbished before being installed on F-15s. Tells you the power output of the engines. The F-16s requirement not to displace the F-15 in production was indeed an added requirement. The USAF wanted the F-15 because it was designed to meet the MiG-25. The F-16 finally started to be developed but not with MiG-25 in mind, but rather the F-15 got a confirmation because the Air Force needed a Fighter just as fast and nothing they had in design or development was as good. Which is the crux of the F-15 and F-16 developments, the USAF needed to scrap all previous programs because the MiG-25 literally shot past all American Fighters. Which meant a reliable Tubrofan was needed. And the F-16, with the F-15, got reliable Turbofans for improved Afterburning capabilities. The dogfight with the F-35 was actually an early prototype model. A few of them actually. The USAF wanted to discover any potential issues while the aircraft factory was being tooled up to build them and to learn anything specific. The tests were a series of them and they weren't meant to actually have the F-35 Lightning II win, but rather find out how it would be defeated. In addition to that, they wanted to find any other potential issues that would crop up. In addition, the F-35s were flown by test pilots and not combat pilots and were restricted in how they would function. Additionally, the final stealth coating hadn't been added yet and a number of other standard functions were not included as they were not available yet. Among things not available was the intended engine, so the F-35 was actually using a loaner engine and was underpowered for a few of its prototypes. Once the proper engine was installed, another series of tests were included. It should be noted that the F-35 doesn't use full motion tail rudders but goes back to the older configuration with the rudder attached to the vertical tail fins. The USAF was pleased with the way things worked out and the F-16 got some good data to add to future developments as well. It was actually Pierre Sprey, the last of the Fighter Mafia, who made the claim, but not on any reputable Media Source. He did so, on Russia Today. If anything would shock the Fighter Mafia about the F-35, it would be their last living member making a false claim on a hostile nation's government funded primary propaganda mouthpiece. Sort of how Matt Gaetz made an idiot of himself for referencing the Chinese Communist Party-owned Global Times about the Azov Regiment. The article was even inaccurate using wildly out of date information on the Azov Regiment. It referenced the unit as the Azov Battalion, a name they haven't used since 2016 after it was taken over by the Regular Ukrainian Army and retrained and reorganized as a Mechanized Regiment.

Note on the matter of the F-35: air-to-air combat performance isn't as important on a 5° gen fighter due to its stealth. The F-16, though a fantastic plane, both in terms of versatility, looks and efficency, would find itself with a missile on its tail without having detected the F-35 long before a dogfight starts. That said, it's an optimal weapon platform and like the F-15EX would work very well in tandem with its successor.

You failed to mention the F 16 XL.

Been on the 16 since just out of high school. I'm 44yr old now, she is a beast and second to none. With a little hardwork a rub on the stab she will never stop. Code 1 for days the Viper has a serious bite, no one can clip the falcons wings...this is the knife you bring to a gunfight!

Just don't ask an F4 Phantom pilot about his time in nam. Hearing what napalm does and seeing the horror in his face as he recounted coming around for a second pass will haunt me forever. I was just installing his satellite system, saw an F4 on the mantle and asked.....boy did i get an answer!

4:30 If you are making a point about unmanuverable, missile only fighter, don't show a picture of two F8 crusaders. The best fighter the Navy had in Vietnam. Known as THE LAST GUNFIGHTER!!!

Certainly one of the most beautiful jets of all time, only eclipsed IMO by the F-15.

This is exactly what I need in the background while contracting my 1/48 f-16 model kit.

The only one interested in a navalized F-16 was the SecDef because of its perceived cost saving. The Navy didn’t want it because they were leaning towards twin engined planes and understood how much extra work was involved in making it sea worthy. The Air Force didn’t want the Navy’s involvement because they had “cut the weight to the bone” and had no interest in adding one ounce more. Both had been forced to work together before on the F-111 program and have such different requirements for what they want in an aircraft that any future collaboration would be nigh on impossible. The Navy eventually received F-16s, but only in an adversary role that replaced the F-21 Lion. They don’t operate off of carriers and aren’t used in a front line role.

If you want to see why half the names mentioned in this video are idiots i direct you to Laserpig's channel. The F-16 is a great plane, for sure, but that's despite most of the names in this video, not because of them. Also, the F-16 would never shoot down an F-35 without the F-35 pilot literally letting it happen.

As I have always thought, "SIMON WHISTLER" presents the information the best!

The EPAF New Year's party at Bass Lake Lodge at Wright-Patterson AFB were legendary.

An absolutely beautiful piece of hardware, I love seeing them fly manoeuvres, and I get to see them a lot being near a base.

Hill AFB is located in Utah sir

the F-16 is the ultimate fighter if your source is wikipedia and article headlines

There was a lot of amazing stuff that happened with the F-16. Due to both Northrop and General Dynamics being contracted a year before the advanced day fighter to work on something like the light weight fighter program so they were a year ahead. As a result general dynamics finished a bit early and started working on taking it from 9g at 80% fuel to 9g at 100% fuel, those reinforcements came in handy when the AF decided they wanted to make it a multi-role fighter. The really great part is the person in charge of determine it’s armament was told “we don’t care what you do so long as you don’t put a sparrow on it, we don’t want to jeopardize the F-15 program” so what did he do? Put out a request for what would later become the AIM-120 😂 gangster move right there.

When you hear that a F-16 can hit an enemy from 500 miles away, its hard to register just how far that is. I live in Minneapolis, MN. If an F-16 was flying past the Sears Tower in Chicago, it could launch a missile and hit the US Bank Stadium downtown Minneapolis. That blows me away (and would also blow away the stadium). Kind of like a nuclear sub hitting a house in Minneapolis, because they were in Lake Superior. The US can reach out and touch you, no matter where you are.

Falcons - _the bird_ - are smaller than Hawks. Probably that's why this was named the way that it was, as opposed to the larger "Eagle", which is _definitely_ a big bird-of-prey.

You didn't add that Lockheed Martin is currently building new block 70 models with even more upgraded avionics and radar for the export market

No doubt (especially when considering the "F2 or F16XL) a true pioneer in many of it's own regards bit more importantly, a "true", "multi-role" fighter. Thankyou for the video.

The F-14 was not underwelming, it was saddled with crappy bomber engines, and it was too big to safely operate from the smaller conventional powered carriers the zu.S. Navy was still operating at the time. The hornet was to replace A-7 and F-4 aircraft. The A-7 on all carriers and the F-4 on smaller carriers. The F-14 outperformed the F-15 in speed and could attack from far outside the F-15's sensor range.

Originally the F-16 was slated to retire in the 2030s

WAIT! @10:15 Nobody gonna mention the fact that Simon's beard is half shaved on the right, but full on the left? Did you get interrupted half way through the shave Fact Boy? Half beard or not, Great video as always

to me its the perfect looking/textbook jet fighter, sure the F22&35 have stealth&co, but they still follow the F16 design scheme

I consider myself a fighter aircraft afficionado and the Fighting Falcon a.k.a. "Viper" is for various reasons my personal favorite.

No real F16 pilot calls it a "Fighting Falcon." It's the Viper.

The USAF asked for a cheap airplane that can do everything, and got it. It's not GREAT at any role, but it's decent in a lot of different roles (as opposed to the original F-15, which was designed with the mantra "not a pound for air-to-ground" and was REALLY GOOD at shooting down other planes but not much else ... until they took the two-seat trainer version, added fuel tanks on the sides of the intakes, covered said extra tanks in bomb racks, and made it a really good medium bomber.) Look up "I Wish I Had a Gun Just Like the A-10" by Dos Gringos, it's a (NSFW) song by a couple of F-16 pilots, each verse is about the great thing another US tactical aircraft -- the A-10's gun, the F-15C's air-to-air missile loadout, the F-15E's fuel capacity, the F/A-18's low-energy maneuverability -- and then the last verse is about their plane: "Yeah, all you [****]ers wish you flew the Viper Probably since the time you wore a diaper We got every mission that you do And we fly 'em all better than you Yeah, all you [****]ers wish you flew the Viper 'Cause we're single seat, multi-role We can fly right up our own a**hole Yeah, all you [****]ers wish you flew the Viper

As always, an amazing video and very in-depth analysis/descriptions of various aircraft, whether it is civilian or military, which always draws me back to your videos (as well as all the other topics and engineering feats that you cover). But there is always one thing that I am always curious on and think a lot about, which again popped up in this video, and that is the logistics of transporting a large amount of aircraft across the globe to serve in various bases in a short amount of time. I am not sure whether it is extensive enough to warrant its own 'Megaprojects' video or if it can be included amongst other military logistics topics. But I would be very interested in viewing a video on either 'Megaprojects' or on ' Sideprojects' that covers such a topic or topics.

boyd didnt even invent energy manueverability theory : Although Boyd appears to have come up with these ideas independently, he was not the first to do so. A decade earlier, in 1954, an aerodynamics engineer working for Douglas named Edward Rutowski had the same concept. Rutowski’s work did not apply to dogfighting, but to calculating fuel ranges of various types of aircraft.[4] However, the equations and the charts are almost the same as Boyd’s, who later admitted to copying the charts after denying it for years. he also didnt design the f16 he was part of the push to make a lighter fighter yes but hes didnt design it although his idea did become fleshed out as the f16 the f16 has over time evolved away from his original idea which it did not fullfill in the first place entirely, boyd wanted a plane with no radar no afterburner no ejection seat, only enough fuel for the dogfight, only one big cannon, no missiles, no tech, only off the shelf simple flight instruments, all of which was rejected as the f16 is an all weather fighter with all the same tech used in the f15. if you go by boyds deffinition of a lightweight figter th f16 fails but it is the single most sold fighter jet ever made boyd only later took credit after complaining about the results of the program, the fighter mafia did this with the f15 and f16 they sent a list of things to remove from the f15 tht included: radar, ejection seat, fuel tanks, afterburner (making the plane subsonic), missile carrying capability, any ability to carry or deploy bombs. in general the fighter mafia is just a cult of lies in fact boyd wanted to replace all f15 and f16 with the f5 tiger because it fit his clowded idea of a light cheap fighter. all that said the f16 is still a great fighter just not because of john boyds flawed ideas. it became what a fighter needs to be to succeed in its time and nowadays thats what the f35 is

Thank you Simon! I had a wonderful PC based air simulation game many years ago that used all military aircraft. I almost never used my F-16. Now I know how severely I underrated it at the time. Sadly, I no longer have the game so I can't make up for my earlier mistake...

So good!!!! I'm really looking forward to the follow up F-16XL video now!

When I was in the Air Force I was lucky enough to get an "Incentive" flight in one of these. Twin seat. What an experience.