Vought Model News Today

To meet the needs of the U.S. Navy on an aircraft carrier, the Vought 1600 was significantly larger than the original Fighting Falcon, stretching the airframe by some three feet, with a 33-foot 3-inch wingspan that was a full two feet broader than the Air Force's version of the fighter.

Because the F-16’s design wouldn’t accommodate an all-weather missile system without extensive modifications, the Vought 1600 may have been able to manage carrier operations, but still wouldn’t meet the exacting needs of the branch.

The F-16 has been the US Air Force's workhorse fighter for more than 40 years. A carrier-capable F-16 almost did the same for the US Navy.

Vought 1600: The Plan To Put the F-16 on America’s Carriers It seems counterintuitive today, with the F-16 so expertly filling the role of an attack aircraft as well as a fighter, but the original concept behind the F-16 was to create a no-frills fighter built to do nothing but dominate the skies. The F-16 Fighting Falcon has been the U.S. Air Force’s workhorse fighter for more than forty years, and at one point, it looked like a carrier-capable version would do the same for the U.S. Navy. ...