The Plane the Pentagon Couldn't Stop – Texas Monthly
West of Fort Worth, General Dynamics builds the F-16, a good little fighter plane that could have been great if the Air Force brass had kept their hands off it.
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West of Fort Worth, General Dynamics builds the F-16, a good little fighter plane that could have been great if the Air Force brass had kept their hands off it.
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 U.S. Air Force intends to continue flying its 1,200 F-16s well into the 2040s by extending the airframe’s service life from eight to twelve thousand hours.
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.
The F-16 was born out of the conundrum experienced by the Air Force in the Vietnam War.