General Dynamics F-16A Fighting Falcon

Operational lessons from the Vietnam War led the U.S. Air Force to seek a small, nimble dogfighter with an onboard gun for air-to-air combat, prompting development of the single-seat F-16 Fighting Falcon, which entered service in 1978. A single-engine, compact, highly maneuverable fighter, it has a frameless bubble canopy for unobstructed visibility, an ejection seat fixed at 30 degrees to place the pilot in a semi-reclined position that helps withstand intense combat maneuvers, and a deliberately aerodynamically unstable design that, through a sophisticated computer-assisted fly-by-wire system, allows extreme maneuvering while maintaining control. The aircraft has undergone many upgrades and remains in production by Lockheed Martin, and in part because of economical maintenance costs, more than 4,500 F-16s have been built and flown by 27 nations. The nickname "Viper" came from pilots who thought the plane resembled the viper fighters in the 1970s television series Battlestar Galactica. In 1991, this F-16A served with the 138th Tactical Fighter Squadron of the 174th Tactical Fighter Wing of the New York Air National Guard in Syracuse, New York; the squadron deployed to the Persian Gulf in support of Operation Desert Storm, and on the first day of Desert Storm the aircraft was flown by Col. Brent Richardson, a veteran of 224 combat missions over North Vietnam who later flew the F-16 on a total of 47 combat missions during the Gulf War.

New York, New York · United States