The F-16 Fighting Falcon Multinational Weapon System, 1972 to 2019

By Herbert A. Hutchinson

This book starts with an overlap of the period from 1963 to 1975, described in final chapters of the “Inside History of the USAF Lightweight Fighters, 1900 to 1975”. The next major portion of this book then describes the Transition Contract to “missionize” the General Dynamics YF-16 and Northrop YF-17 designs into a USAF Air Combat Fighter (ACF) and also to “navalize” both ACF designs for potential procurement as the USN Air Combat Fighter (NACF).
The latter portion of this book describes the early F-16 Full Scale Development activities and then describes the numerous Block changes made to increase the capabilities of the production F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft. In the concluding chapter is captured the very purpose for the development of “the fighter pilot’s fighter” – the use of the F-16 in operations world-wide.
The F-16 Fighting Falcon Multinational Weapon System became the cornerstone of the fighter inventories of over 25 free-world countries for the past forty years and remains in their future plans for a few decades. F-16C/D service life extensions and upgrades continue to be made.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781796082081

Herbert A. Hutchinson

Herb Hutchinson is retired from a highly successful aeronautical engineering career spanning over 40 years from 1953 to 1994. After serving as an officer in the US Army in the Korean War, the initial 5 years of his engineering career were as a Wind Tunnel Test Engineer, an Aerodynamicist at Republic Aviation in New York, and Flight Test Performance Engineer at General Dynamics in Texas. The middle half of his career was as a Chief System Engineer (GS-15) for several USAF Weapons Systems, including the USAF Lightweight Fighter Program (the subject of this book) and the USAF F-16 Fighting Falcon Multi-National Weapon System, developed by the US Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. Herb’s tactical call name, awarded by former F-16 pilots, is “Stuffer”. He has served as the USAF Representative on several US Presidential Advisory Committees and on USAF aircraft major accident and incident investigations. The final 13 years of his career were as a Manager of System Engineering at the Northrop Aircraft Division in California for a joint NATO Fighter Aircraft design with the Dornier Company in Germany, for the Tri-Service Standoff Attack Missile, and for the Northrop YF-23 Advanced Tactical Fighter stealth prototype (which competed against the Lockheed YF-22 ATF prototype - now the USAF F-22 Raptor). Herb graduated from the Brooklyn Technical High School (Arista), and received Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Aeronautical Engineering degrees at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. He is an Associate Fellow Emeritus in the AIAA, a Life Member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and is a member of Mensa. Herb and his wife Arline reside in the Heritage Ranch (at Lake Nacimiento) section of Paso Robles, California.

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Copyright © 2020 by Herbert A. Hutchinson. 796478

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Opening Remarks

The Inside History of the USAF Lightweight Fighters, 1900 to 1975 – the General Dynamics YF-16 and the Northrop YF-17 – was described in a recently published book with that title by the author. This second book by the same author continues the second half of the metaphor As the twig is bent, so shall the tree grow and describes how the YF-16 twigs grew into The F-16 Fighting Falcon Multinational Weapon System, 1972 to 2019 forest. Both books have been written with three objectives: (1) to inform readers interested in the process of how one major USAF weapon system was created and developed; (2) to provide the inside information and decisions made for the F-16 and to correct incorrect data published in earlier publications; and (3) to recognize the key persons who played major roles in the USAF Lightweight Fighter Program and the F-16 Fighting Falcon development program.

On the back cover of this book is shown a photograph (courtesy of General Dynamics) taken at the USAF acceptance ceremony in August 1978 of the first five of the USAF F-16A Air Combat Fighters manufactured at the General Dynamics facility in Fort Worth, Texas. The acceptance ceremony was conducted by the Secretary of the US Air Force John McLucas and with government representatives of the Ministries of Defense of a consortium formed by four European Participating Governments (EPG) in the NATO alliance. Next to the United States flag on the podium are the national flags of Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway. At the conclusion of the 1975 Paris Air Show, the four EPG countries committed to purchase 348 of the USAF F-16A and F-16B Air Combat Fighters.

This book starts with an overlap of the period from 1972 to 1975, described in the final chapters of Inside History of the USAF Lightweight Fighters, 1900 to 1975. The next major portion of this book then describes the transition contract activities to missionize the General Dynamics YF-16 and Northrop YF-17 designs into a USAF Air Combat Fighter (ACF) and also to then navalize both ACF designs for potential procurement as the USN Air Combat Fighter (NACF).

The latter portion of this book describes the early F-16 full-scale development activities and then summarizes the variants and numerous block changes made to increase the capabilities of the production F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft. In the concluding chapter is captured the very purpose for the development of the fighter pilot’s fighter – the use of the F-16 weapon system in multi-role fighter aircraft operations world-wide.

This book also contains accounts and photographs of the people responsible for the creation of a magnificent fighter aircraft, of the people who maintained the aircraft to be at their peak of availability for use in emergency and tactical war scenarios, and most importantly of the pilots who flew and fly the fighter pilot’s fighter. They together comprise the team that made the Viper one of the best fighter aircraft in military aviation history.

The F-16 Fighting Falcon Multinational Weapon System became, and has been, the cornerstone of the fighter inventories of over 25 free-world countries for the past forty years. F-16C/D service life extensions and upgrades continue to be made. F-16E/F designs have been designed with many contemporary new avionics capabilities that are emerging on fifth generation fighters. Lockheed Martin has opened a new production line in Greenville, SC, to produce F-16Vs for the inventories of several countries other than that of the US military.

This book contains many photographs in full color, diagrams, and copies of the actual correspondence documents to document the unique development trail of the aircraft regarded by aviation historians as the world’s best fourth-generation fighter aircraft.

Disclaimer

Much of the material contained in this book – information, dates, photographs, diagrams, charts, etc. – have been obtained from documents and correspondence generated by US Government personnel during the planning for and/or during technology development activities conducted to advance the capabilities of military flight weapon systems. There are also illustrations, diagrams, charts, and tables that were generated by the two USAF Lightweight Fighter Program contractors (General Dynamics and Northrop) which were prepared for briefings to the USAF Lightweight Fighter Program Office revealing the status of their development activities required to be performed per the terms of their respective contracts with the USAF. Regardless of the source of those government documents in the technology information database, if the document (in any format) was developed using US Government funds, the control of dissemination of the information is maintained by US Government regulatory organizations and with regulations over the content of the information to adhere to any security classifications and any release restrictions to the general public. Government documents are not controlled by the same copyright restrictions and regulations as for non-government (that is, commercially or privately created as some form of intellectual property) documents or products. Some government documents (for example, those regarding policy and/or budgetary matters of the US Congress) are controlled under the US Government Freedom of Information Act of 1966 with all subsequent interpretations and modifications for the purposes of transparency in those government activities related to the public tax monies planned and expended to support national defense.

Further, some of the material in this book is taken from the author’s personal career memorabilia files and holdings amassed while as a civilian employee of the US Government in the USAF at Wright-Patterson AFB, Dayton, Ohio. All material that at one time was classified up to a high level of security classification has since been downgraded by the US Government to be Unclassified and Approved for Release to the Public under the provisions of the US Government security classification laws and rules in existence at the time of the creation of the classified material. All the official file copies of those documents and materials used herein have been destroyed under the provisions of paperwork reduction directives as the need for retaining and maintaining those official files had expired. Government organizations holding those files for the period 1971 to 1975 have been also disbanded and eliminated. The author attests that there is no residual classified material contained in this book. All material originated by US Government activities and contained in this book is provided only for educational or informational purposes but expressly not for the purpose of selling that material or information for financial profit.

It is known that previously published reports by authors outside government employment regarding the historical development of the USAF Lightweight Fighters are not entirely factually correct and/or does not reveal a critical event happening without which the F-16 Fighting Falcon weapon system might never have been created. The author has published this book as a previous insider government employee to clarify and correct that erroneous, misleading, or missing information in the historical technology development database on which the F-16 Fighting Falcon and other military flight systems relied during their respective developments.

Some of the material herein (dates, places, model numbers, etc.) has been derived from reference sources on the internet, but only those identified as having an origin as a government document are used in this book. The material in that latter category that is contained herein includes photographs of military aircraft used by the United States Armed Forces and taken by personnel on active military duty. Where photographs of military aircraft are created by US military photographers and are shown, they have been copied herein for educational and visual informational transfer purposes only. When known, the name of the producing company of the aircraft (known to be in the military inventory) shown in a photograph is acknowledged for its contribution to the technology historical database.

Additionally, some material has been extracted from an Aviation Week and Space Technology (June 16, 1975, issue) which describes the performance of the YF-16 Lightweight Fighter demonstrated at the 1975 Paris Air Show. The editorial, A Good Show by then-Editor Robert Hotz, very concisely describes the highly impressive capabilities of the YF-16 design and which appeared at the Paris Air Show as the F-16, the newest USAF Air Combat Fighter. Permission to reprint the A Good Show editorial in its entirety in this book has been graciously given by the current editor Joe Anselmo of the Aviation Week and Space Technology publication having world-wide distribution. Some of the material from the time period after 1993, when Lockheed Martin acquired the F-16 Fighting Falcon program and manufacturing assets from General Dynamics, is extracted from information sources on the internet which are copyrighted by the Lockheed Martin Company. Permission has been obtained from John Losinger of the Lockheed Martin Company to use those extracted exhibits in sections of this book (principally in Chapter 6, in the Closing Remarks section, and in Appendix 2).

The author stresses that publication of this book is to be considered as a not-for-personal-profit venture so as to achieve maximum distribution without any copyright limitations excessively restricting it from being distributed openly to the educational, technology interested, and professional engineering public. This book of encyclopedic nature is copyrighted by the publisher as an entity, i.e., the book is prohibited from being copied as a whole and resold for financial profit.

As this book is not intended to be sold for personal profit, once the author has been compensated by royalties from its sale for the costs expended in its publication, any further royalties from sales will be gifted to the not-for-profit Alumni Foundation of the Brooklyn Technical High School on Fort Greene Place in Brooklyn, New York, for its discretionary use toward the teaching of the technology development process in the commercial, military, or public aviation production or testing domain. The author was a student in the College Preparatory course at the Brooklyn Technical High School from 1945 to 1949. It is hoped that any monetary profit will be applied by the Alumni Foundation of Brooklyn Tech to inspire and further the technical education of young students aspiring to pursue some field of science or engineering.

There is no intentional infringement of any copyrighted material from any source and contained herein to enhance profitable gain. The publisher of this book is absolved of any and all proven copyright infringements that may be inadvertently contained in this book.

Preface

An underlying theme, being carried in this book from when it was first envisioned, is the metaphor As the twig is bent, so shall the tree grow. The author published an earlier book entitled Inside History of the USAF Lightweight Fighters,1900 to1975 in where is described the first half of the metaphor "As the twig is bent …" for the USAF Lightweight fighters – the General Dynamics YF-16 and the Northrop YF-17. Emphasis was on the genealogy of the primary flight technologies for their application in the USAF Lightweight Fighter created by John Boyd and Harry Hillaker. This book The F-16 Fighting Falcon Multinational Weapon System,1972 to 2019 represents the second half of the metaphor …so shall the tree grow.. The two books are written in stand-alone content, so as to provide readers with the full story in two books and not being confronted with the formidable prospect of reading one book the size of War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.

Combined, the two books describe the first 120 fascinating years of military aviation history and of the technologies related to military fighter aircraft. The F-16 Air Combat Fighter is almost externally the same configuration as that of the YF-16 Lightweight Fighter, which won the USAF Lightweight Fighter fly-off flight test competition ending in December 1974. However, the additional equipment and increased safety, maintainability, and survivability features and functions inside the F-16 Air Combat Fighter were totally ‘missionized’ to transform the F-16 Air Combat Fighter from being an advanced technology demonstrator into a highly effective yet very affordable multi-mode, operationally-capable, multi-national weapon system. The F-16 Fighting Falcon in several variants has been and continues to be in the military fighter aircraft inventory of over twenty-five free-world countries.

It is commonly accepted that the next war will not be fought just like the previous war. It is the wisdom and hindsight/foresight of program managers, requirements definition personnel, technology creators and developers, creative designers, engineering, manufacturing, and flight test personnel to bond as a team in developing the next weapon system for that looming unknown war wherever and whenever it may erupt. Also commonly accepted is that there is no crystal ball that will prognosticate why, where, when, and between what opponents that next war will be fought. Based on the history of fighter aircraft aviation, the only assurance is that regrettably there will be a next war, and the losses of life and equipment on both sides are inevitable. In general, the winner of a war is that country that suffers the least losses of human lives and war equipment.

Readers of this book should bear in mind that when John Boyd created the concept of a daylight, clear-weather, light-weight, low-cost fighter in the early 1960s, he had no crystal ball predicting that there would be a war in Bosnia, or Iraq, or Afghanistan. It was the foresight of the General Dynamics chief of design Harry Hillaker who applied the set of advanced technologies (that were emerging from USAF Research Laboratories based on needs and changes in capabilities derived from battle damage assessments of the F-4 Phantom II in the Vietnam War) to be applied to the GD Model 401 design, identified later as the YF-16 in the USAF Lightweight Fighter Program. The prime example of Harry Hillaker’s foresight was in his selection of the survivable flight control system technology developed to reduce the losses of fighter aircraft to enemy ground gunfire. Those survivability needs led to an all-electric implementation of the YF-16 flight control system that became more commonly known as the all-electric, fly-by-wire system.

A fly-by-wire flight control system incorporated in the YF-16 design dictated the use of a central flight control computer with quadraplex (four) channels having multiple failure redundancy - that is, the pilot having the capability to fully control the aircraft after two hard failures in the flight control system and continuing to function in a limited but controlled manner after a third failure for survivability. Having a flight control computer on a fighter aircraft also provides the flexibility for integrating flight control algorithms with advanced targeting and weapons delivery controls and displays. More details of this appear later in this book and are surfaced here summarily to provide readers with the need to recognize that there is much need to ‘think outside the box’ when selecting a technology for one purpose and finding it to have beneficial (and synergistic) effects when combined with another technology or technologies integrated in the same flight platform. Conversely, there must be constant analysis and testing done to assure that incorporation of one technology does not degrade or nullify the benefits of an allied technology integrated into the same platform.

For those readers who are planning to be employed as engineering interns or junior engineers and to be assigned to an on-going technology or system of technologies development activity, their value to the program will be determined by the timing of their employment relative to which phase identified above and at a time relative to a completed progress milestone. Regardless of which phase exists or is underway at the time of employment, the new employee (engineer or technician) is well advised to rapidly become familiar as to what is the state-of-the-art (in other words, what has already been learned and accomplished) in that technology or system of technologies.

An example of what a typical progress tracking and planning chart looks like in the technology development and program management process appears below:

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(Diagram courtesy of the author)

This type of diagram, supplemented with numerous other management planning and scheduling of milestones charts, is commonly kept in a program control room and kept up to date with periodic (bi-weekly or monthly) updates. Milestones that are slipping are marked in red. An actual achieved milestone is marked in green on the chart when the phase is completed. The program management at both the performing contractor facility and at the contracting program office can better visualize how each of the major elements of the program is progressing in their development according to the planned schedule. When hot spots are identified they are typically given closer attention, especially if it requires additional tests of some type to address an unknown (an unk) which has surfaced unexpectedly during a test. The more troublesome type surprises to accommodate are the emergence of unknown-unknowns (the unk-unks) for which planning schedules and funding changes must be adjusted in a logical and affordable work-around manner.

A more complete explanation is contained in the first book by this author, describing the several phases in the development of a prototype aircraft. But it seemed to the author to be an efficient transition to use the development chart to be a bridge between the two books by the author in order to show how the Lightweight Fighter, which was flight tested thoroughly in a competitive fly-off with combat-relevant flight test objectives, blended in with performance goals testing, evolved into the F-16 Air Combat Fighter multinational weapon system. This second book describes that legacy and subsequent genealogy of the several descendants from the first USAF YF-16 Lightweight Fighter.

The F-16 design has been missionized and eventually the F-16 Fighting Falcon saw operational service in the fighter aircraft inventories of twenty-six countries world-wide as this book will describe. Readers who have read Inside History of the USAF Lightweight Fighters, 1900 to 1975 and found it informative and interesting will find that reading this book, The F-16 Fighting Falcon Multinational Weapon System, 1972 to 2019, will be an even more fascinating account on how big the tree grew in the forty-seven years following its conception as an advanced technology demonstrator. Whereas there were only two USAF YF-16 Lightweight Fighters developed as advanced technology demonstrators, there were over 4,550 F-16s produced of several variants and in Block number upgrades in capability which have seen service in the fighter aircraft inventory of twenty-six countries world-wide for more than forty years.

The two books are each written in stand-alone content and such that the last few chapters of the first book essentially overlap the first few chapters of the second book to provide the continuity in As the twig is bent, so shall the tree grow. The first book covers the period from 1900 to 1975 (the end of the Lightweight Fighter Program) and this book covers the period from 1963 (when the Lightweight Fighter concept was first conceived in the Boyd/Hillaker Advanced Day Fighter study) to 2019 – a fifty-six-year time span describing the F-16 – much like the battery-powered bunny that keeps going on and on. As is evident, the nine-years’ overlap period from 1967 to 1976 will contain much the same factual material but with a slight variation for this book to include the influence that four European NATO countries had on the USAF LWF program morphing, from a fly-off of the General Dynamics single-engine YF-16 advanced technology demonstrator versus the Northrop two-engine YF-17, to a competition of which design could be missionized best to be the next USAF Air Combat Fighter.

The first book can also be characterized as being told by an outsider looking at the inside of the first seventy-five years of USAF fighter aircraft design, and this second book being told by that same author as an insider describing the most recent fifty years of USAF fighter aircraft design.

In both of these books, the author has used a large number of charts from briefings given at the Pentagon, at HQ Air Force Systems Command, and at Wright-Patterson AFB (in the acquisition offices and in the technology-generating laboratories of the Air Force Research Laboratories) as well as at national symposia, to identify the need for a low-cost, affordable and light-weight fighter (approximately 20,000 pounds at start of combat). Where possible, photographs are shown to better visually illustrate the external configuration changes made in the F-16 design.

The first part of the first book describes the geopolitical world events and the achievement in advancing flight technologies (aerodynamics, propulsion, flight control, materials and equipment, airborne weapons, and cockpit human factors) as a part of the game of technology ‘leap-frog’ to always maintain technological superiority over enemy aircraft.

The first book also reflected on how the concept of the Lightweight Fighter, envisioned by John Boyd and Harry Hillaker, placed initial emphasis on being an advanced technology demonstrator with high emphasis on its external configuration and aerodynamics and stability properties, becoming the first operational fighter with an all-electric, fly-by-wire flight control system, with a cockpit designed for the pilot, and all wrapped around a very high-thrust engine developed for the F-15 Eagle, giving it a very credible multi-mode capability.

Briefing charts and extracted diagrams from technical papers used in the two books to describe promising emerging technologies for the USAF Lightweight Fighter are complemented in this book with photographs taken of actual models embodying those emerging technologies in three-dimensional physical form undergoing ground tests of a wide variety, being manufactured in prototype form for flight testing to validate the system of added technological capabilities being demonstrated, and then being selected to be produced as the USAF F-16 Fighting Falcon multi-mode, multi-national weapon system having capabilities of vital importance to the free-world.

After the first chapter describing how the Lightweight Fighter program came to be, this book then continues in the time period of the flight testing of the General Dynamics YF-16s in a competitive (but not head-to-head) competition with the Northrop YF-17 Lightweight Fighters. About six months into the planned one-year LWF flight test program, four NATO countries in Europe immediately saw the outstanding light-weight, affordable, agile YF-16 and YF-17 demonstrating their un-paralleled capabilities in both air-to-air and air-to-ground modes of flight. In May 1974, the Ministers of Defense of the four NATO countries (Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway) made their high interest known to then-Deputy Secretary of Defense David Packard (of the Hewlett-Packard electronics business empire) as a potential replacement for their aging and lesser-capable F-104 Starfighter. Very shortly after that expression of interest by Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway, Deputy Secretary of Defense Packard directed the USAF to establish the USAF Air Combat Fighter Program Office and announced that the winner of the Lightweight Fighter flight test program would be further developed into the USAF Air Combat Fighter. A six-month-long transition activity for missionizing of the advanced technology demonstrators into full scale development of an operational-capable aircraft was initiated and will be described in detail later in this book.

A major activity in that transition contract was a parallel fly-off between Hughes and Westinghouse for a much-needed radar (with state-of-the-art detection, tracking, and fire-control system) to convert the advanced technology demonstrator with a token radar for gun-firing testing into an all-weather, day-or-night, multi-mode fighter with an up-to-date avionics system.

In hindsight (from the present time of 2019), the original visions of John Boyd and Harry Hillaker have been totally vindicated as, during the forty years period from 1976 to the present, 4,558 operational F-16s were produced. They were invaluable to the defense needs of over twenty-five countries world-wide as well as in the inventory of the US military. The visions of Deputy Secretary of Defense David Packard in 1974, and bolstered by then-Secretary of the Air Force John L. McLucas, to acquire the F-16 Air Combat Fighter as a complement to the USAF F-15 Eagle in an affordable high-low mix arrangement and with his design-to-performance and design-to-cost goals, and fly-before-buy acquisition philosophies, are now legendary in USAF military aircraft acquisition history.

This book hopefully describes in an adequate manner the convoluted recounting of how the F-16A multi-national weapon system came to be – but almost did not - as no other book or report yet published has done. As in the first book, the author has presented all of the significant multiple factors in the design, test, and manufacturing process and the thinking by people – from ‘Rosie the riveter’ to the Secretary of Defense - used in the government and contractor world of aircraft development and acquisition with a goal of providing those readers who are (or plan to in the near future) embarking on a career path through some aspect of that process. Those readers who have been looking for a set of war stories about the F-16 in this book may be disappointed as that continuation of the F-16 story must be left to the pilots of the Viper to tell their stories. Many have already done so – and the author has read many of those actual accountings of the F-16 operational history as told by the gifted pilots of the fighter pilots’ fighter. Knowing that all the ilities that many persons struggled very dedicatedly and professionally to integrate operational capabilities into the 4,558 F-16s, which were operated to their design limits under unbelievably harsh environmental conditions and brought so many Viper pilots home safely from most hazardous missions, is the most meaningful recognition fighter aircraft development teams seek – but seldom get.

Appendix 1 at the end of this book contains the biographies of the five persons to whom this book is dedicated – Colonel John Boyd, Harry Hillaker, then-Colonel Lyle W. Cameron, Bill Dietz, and Phil Oestricher. If the analogy of a mix of concrete is considered, the five persons whose biographies are shown are analogous to the importance of water in a concrete mix. It was with the water in the mix represented by the efforts of the five, to whom this book is co-dedicated, that brought the strength to the mix, just as a dry mix of aggregate, sand, and concrete without water will have no strength until the water is added and the entire mix forms a high-strength structure.

Appendix 2 at the end of this book contains a chronological history of the F-16 from its conception in 1978 to the final (4,558th) F-16 manufactured in September 2017 at the Fort Worth facility of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics (formerly operated by General Dynamics). Within appendix 2 is compiled, in chronological order, a set of accomplishments no other fighter aircraft in the world can boast to have equaled – as well as some of the operational victories the Viper has garnered over its more than forty years of operational history.

Appendix 3 at the end of this book has been included for special reasons and for reading by that small segment of the readers of this book who are newly embarking on a career in engineering. Breaking from convention, it must first be clarified how the information in appendix 3 is not to be interpreted – and then subsequently will be described how the information in appendix 3 is to be interpreted. It was felt useful to show a career path that one person followed successfully for an entire career span of forty-two years, not as a model of how a typical career path should be rigidly followed to conform to all the career planning that may be done at the start of a career, but rather as an example that the path actually taken in almost all careers will barely resemble that which was originally planned. With experience will come the ability to convert challenges into opportunities.

During the span of any forty-plus year career, there will be events happening in remote corners of the world that could not have been foreseen. Those events will spawn challenges as well as opportunities, and it is left to every individual to revise his/her career path to either take advantage of the opportunities or allow them to pass unfulfilled. By reading the events that happened as described in this book and overlaying the career path of the author as an example, it can be seen that the author’s career was adapted to ‘go with the flow’ of opportunity rather than to allow it to bypass. If, at the end of a career with many way-point changes, the traveler can remark WOW, what a ride!, only then can the career be judged as having been a success. It takes inspiration, dedication, and perspiration to achieve a successful one.

Contents

Opening Remarks

Disclaimer

Preface

Chapter 1 Origin of LWF, EIRT Safety of Flight, Manufacture of LWFs (1970 to 1973)

Chapter 2 Edwards AFB Joint Test Team, LWF flight tests, LWF winner announcement, Paris Air Show (1974 to 1975)

Chapter 3 EPGs, Transition Contract, USAF ACF Proposals, and USN NACF Proposals (1974)

Chapter 4 F-16 ACF award, YF-17 drag, F-17 NACF, F-16 NACF

Chapter 5 F-16 ACF Design, F-16 Aircraft PDR, Cockpit PDR and CDR, FSD Testing, F-16 A/B Production Plan (1975-1976)

Chapter 6 F-16A/B Blocks 1-20, F-16C/D production plan, F-16C/D Blocks 30-32, Blue Two Visit to PACAF (1977-1989)

Chapter 7 F-16C/D Blocks 40/42, 50/52; F16E/F Blocks 60-70; Operational Usage, F-16V (1989-2019)

Closing Remarks

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Appendix 3

Chapter 1 Origin of LWF, EIRT Safety of Flight, Manufacture of LWFs (1970 to 1973)

In October 2018, the author published a first book titled Inside History of the USAF Lightweight Fighters, 1900 to 1975 in which is described the creative genious and persistence of John Boyd and how they were combined with the brilliant design engineering talents of Harry Hillaker of General Dynamics to create the YF-16 Light Weight Fighter (LWF). For that reason, the Inside History of the Lightweight Fighter book was co-dedicated to John Boyd and Harry Hillaker. The author was the USAF Chief System Engineer for the USAF Lightweight Fighter program and for the USAF F-16 Air Combat Fighter program (later to be officially named the USAF F-16 Fighting Falcon) and is one of only two or three living persons from the LWF program office able to reveal the inside history of those two programs.

It was the efforts of three additional persons, USAF Colonel Lyle Cameron (USAF Protoypes Programs Director), and General Dynamics William Dietz (Director of Engineering) and Philip Oestricher (chief test pilot), assisted by the entire General Dynamics manufacturing and test team, that created the Boyd/Hillaker YF-16 design with its demonstrated combat relevant capabilities and developed that into the F-16 Fighting Falcon multinational weapon system. Accordingly, this book The F-16 Fighting Falcon Multinational Weapon System, 1972 to 2019 has been co-dedicated to all five of those persons – Colonel John Boyd, Harry Hillaker, Colonel Lyle Cameron, Bill Dietz, and Phil Oestricher. The author has compiled biographies of all five of them and those five biographies are included in appendix 1 near the end of this book.

It cannot be assumed that readers of this book The F-16 Fighting Falcon Multinational Weapon System, 1972 to 2019 have read the first book about the inside history of the YF-16 Lightweight Fighter by this same author. It is felt that some of the important highlights from the first book need to be presented here in an overlapping manner with this second book to set the stage for the reading of this second book. With that overlap, both books are more stand-alone in content to tell their stories of As the twig is bent (first book), so shall the tree grow (second book).

After a tour in the Korean war flying the F-86 Sabre Jet, John Boyd’s talent as a gifted fighter pilot was revealed in his development of a paper he created at Eglin AFB during his off-duty hours titled Aerial Attack Study. In that classic report, Boyd (who allowed only his closest associates to refer to him by only his last name) detailed about 35-40 tactical maneuvers for other fighter pilots to use when engaged in aerial attacks and defenses against adversary aircraft. The Aerial Attack Study was adopted nearly verbatim as the training syllabus for fighter pilots at the USAF Fighter Weapons School at Nellis AFB.

After being assigned to be the Director of Academics at the USAF Fighter Weapon School, Boyd claimed that he could defeat any adversary (Boyd instead referred to defeating an adversary as having hosed the bastard) in under forty seconds. He earned the nickname Forty-seconds Boyd because he was challenged by over-100 pilots in their fighter aircraft and Boyd hosed them all in air-to-air engagements – over 100 hoses without one loss and each within the forty seconds as he boasted he could do. The book Boyd by Robert Coram contains many humorous – and many sad - accounts of Boyd’s activities both in his family life and in his military life.

One story not in Coram’s book is appropriate to be told here. Boyd and one of his mafia associates (not known who but most probably it was Colonel Everett Rich Riccioni) went to a movie theater in Gaithersburg, Maryland, to see the classic movie The Battle of Britain that took place during early World War II. There were numerous scenes showing British RAF Spitfire pilots shooting-down the German Luftwaffe Messerschmitts and Heinkels. In every engagement, Boyd placed himself in the Spitfire cockpit and moved in his theater seat with violent jerking motions in synch with the Spitfire pilot’s movement in the cockpit being shown on the screen. The theater screen was Boyd’s cockpit head-up display (HUD). Although he grunted a lot, he contained himself fairly well vocally until one scene where he could not resist taking the shot. Boyd roared out to the Spitfire pilot - Hose that sonofabitch!- at about 180 decibels. The theater patrons within a ten-seat radius of Boyd moved to other sections of the theater, leaving Boyd seemingly having an epileptic fit, and whoever was there with Boyd crouched down in his seat as if he didn’t know the ranting madman seated next to him.

But it was Boyd being Boyd – everything he did was done with the utmost passion. In later years, personnel in the Pentagon referred to Boyd as the mad Colonel. Readers might appreciate knowing that Boyd had been taught, as a boy by his salesman father in Erie, Pennsylvania, that It is the squeaky wheel that gets the grease. The origin of that expression is cited in early American history as having been originated by the pioneers moving west in their conestoga wagons. The technology of ball-bearings to reduce the friction of wheels rotating on axles had not yet been created, and when an axle of the American pioneers’ wagons made a grinding noise it was an ominous warning the axle would fail if it did not get lubricated with animal grease. Pioneers dare not ignore the axle noise because if the axle failed completely, their goal was lost.

In the early 1960s, Major Boyd began a pioneering-like campaign for the USAF to generate a light-weight, low-cost, highly-maneuverable fighter aircraft but he fought an up-hill battle with the Pentagon who resisted any new fighter aircraft development program that might divert funding from the F-15 Eagle program being developed. The following chart was one of two primary charts chart Boyd used in most of his aggressive engagements at the Pentagon. Likewise, pioneer Boyd’s vocal noises at the Pentagon ultimately got the grease, as described later in this book.

Boyd convincingly illustrated that the trend of weight of US made-fighter aircraft (with the only exception being the Northrop F-5A) was atrocious compared to that of Soviet-made aircraft. He had participated in the definition of the tactical aspects of the USAF F-X program, which led to the development of the F-15 Eagle, but argued that his concept of the F-X air superiority fighter was that it needed to be smaller, of half-the-weight and to have no less than the unprecedented high thrust-to-weight ratio being proposed by McDonnell Douglas for the two-engine F-X design. Boyd always claimed that a fighter aircraft having two engines doubles the weight, doubles the cost, and reduces the affordability of the aircraft when in production. That was the exact opposite of what the star-rank officers at USAF Headquarters wanted to hear – and Boyd became persona non grata in the Pentagon. His peers at the Pentagon, such as Colonel Riccioni, Pierre Sprey, and Chuck Meyers knew however that what Boyd was claiming was very credible – based on experiences with the USAF and USN F-4E Phantom II in the Vietnam war.

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Weight growth of US-made and Soviet-made aircraft (Source: USAF engineering files)

His suggestions were largely ignored and the start-of-combat weight for the F-15 Eagle is seen on the above weight-growth-trend chart to have weighed over 42,000 pounds in 1971 and was struggling to contain its already high cost. Boyd continued on his campaign that there was a need for a light-weight, single-engine fighter (shown on the chart as LWF) that would weigh about 20,000 to 25,000 pounds at start of combat, and that the LWF would feature combat relevant advanced technologies superior to those integrated into the F-15 Eagle design. In most of his presentations, Boyd would state Counting a lot of fighter noses on the flight-ready line was far more effective than having only a few very expensive and unaffordable gee-whiz bomber-size fighters. His campaign took on the aura of there being a mandate for a high/low" mix of the F-15 Eagle and his lighter, lower-cost LWF.

The second chart used by Boyd was one he and a trusted mathematician (Tom Christie at Eglin AFB) had developed using a mathematical approach for comparing one fighter aircraft design against another using the comparison factor of thrust (T) minus drag (D) divided by weight (W). Boyd had introduced that factor in fighter aircraft design in his development of a concept he referred to as energy-maneuverability. Those three variables of T, D, and W are established by flight testing of a specific aircraft and their combined capability to generate a high load-factor G that determines the turn-radius and turn-rate of a fighter aircraft in a combat maneuvering flight mode. The energy-maneuverability concept, created by Boyd and with the mathematical assistance of Tom Christie (when both Boyd and Christie were at Eglin AFB in the 1960s), is based on the principles of motion developed, from observation and intuition, by the physicist Isaac Newton in the late 1600s.

On a humorous note, a former F-16 fighter pilot whom the author has befriended asked for an explanation of Boyd’s energy-maneuverability concept (which the author will describe in the next few pages of this book). After giving a very nerdy explanation, the former F-16 pilot stated All I asked was simply ‘What time is it?’, and you took an hour explaining how a clock is built. The author can now make another attempt at explaining the energy-maneuverability concept to readers (with pre-apology if the question only was What time is it?).

The scientist Isaac Newton originally stated his observations as an object in motion tends to remain in motion, but later that verbal definition was expressed mathematically as F = m a where F is the external force being applied to a mass m and causes the mass m to accelerate at an acceleration rate a. Christie substituted the thrust T minus the drag D of the airplane as the external force F defined by Newton, and substituted the weight W divided by the gravitational constant g for the mass m in Newton’s equation of motion. Those substitutions were applied to Newton’s law of motion and rearranged to apply to the motion of a fighter aircraft. The ratio of the acceleration a of the aircraft to the gravitational constant g is more commonly referred to by pilots as G’s. The resulting equation applied to a fighter aircraft being accelerated is shown as:

(T – D) / W = a / g = G

The G, termed as load factor, is capitalized to distinguish it from the gravitational constant g (32.17 feet per second per second). In this form of accelerated linear motion of the aircraft, the term G is used in a different sense, although mathematically equivalent, than that referred to by pilots as pulling G’s in curvilinear motion. The G’s the pilots refer to is the ratio of the acceleration of the aircraft mass perpendicular (along the z-axis in a three-dimensional axis system defined as having x-y-z axes) to the flight path of the airplane when in a turning maneuver referenced to the gravitational acceleration g (32.17 feet per second per second in aeronautical engineering of flight vehicles within the near-Earth atmosphere).

Boyd had earned an engineering degree (at Georgia Tech) and had learned in Physics 101 the Newton’s laws of motion and the principle of power. The author will mercifully not attempt to give a professorial lecture in physics to readers, but will use the challenge to prove the derivation of a mathematical principle seen in college-level physics textbooks as the simple proof is left to the simple student – or something close to that. Boyd learned in his Physics 101 course that the definition of power basically meant to apply a force to a mass and to move that mass through a distance in a period of time. Applying the above equation Christie had developed with Boyd, Boyd saw that the airplane velocity, substituted for the distance in a period of time in the definition of power above, would result in the new equation defined as a measure of power. Boyd termed the equation to be specific excess power and assigned the symbol Ps to the equation, resulting in the form:

Specific excess power, Ps = V (T – D) / W

Readers are asked to remember this specific excess power equation for having the variables V, T, D, and W as they will be the inputs to a graphical representation describing how a fighter pilot pulling G’s to some elevated number (e.g., 9-G’s) depends on the specific excess power characteristics of his/her aircraft. This equation was used extensively by Boyd when he served as the Director of Academics instructing air combat tactics to fighter pilots at the USAF Fighter Weapons School at Nellis AFB.

For the purposes of this book, the author will simply state that when a pilot is pulling G’s (along the z-axis), he/she will be pressed downward into the pilot’s seat by those G’s being pulled. (Pilots sometimes refer to this as flying by the seat of their pants. Fighter pilots more crudely describe high-G’s as being a pain in the ass because they commonly develop sore ‘tail-bones’ [coccyx]. Readers should be aware that a pilot whose upper torso weight is 160 pounds at 1-G conditions will be subjected to the 160 pounds when multiplied by 9-G’s becoming 1,450 pounds pressing his/her torso into the seat bottom.) The LWF aircraft was aerodynamically designed to not exceed a limit of 9-G’s which is a very large acceleration for the human body to endure. The short-term effect of G’s on the pilot’s respiratory and blood circulation systems is very different from the long-term cumulative effects of G’s on the vertebrae in the pilot’s cervical and lumbar spinal structure. That significant difference in the human factors aspect of cockpit design, pilot G-tolerance, and design of the pilot’s seat system is discussed later in this book.

Fighter pilots fly their airplanes in very curvilinear flight-paths most of the time (mostly linear in take-offs, cruise, and landings), and are trained to maintain control of their airplane at all times even when at extreme G’s- either negative or positive. Boyd attempted to use the mathematics of his energy-maneuverability concept to numerically convince fighter pilots in training that know both yours and the enemy’s capability equates to knowing where the best combat arena should be to attack the enemy fighter aircraft for a kill. Here again, Tom Christie manipulated the equations of motion in curvilinear motion to relate the turn radius and turn rate of the motion to the speed (Mach number) and altitude at which the pilot commands the turning maneuver at an elevated-G level. The difference in acceleration between that in linear motion and that in curvilinear motion is best illustrated for the geometry and vector velocities shown in the next diagram (from Physics 101 textbooks), used in the design and construction of centrifuges.

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Using his mathematical talents and wizardry, and performing Olympic-class mathematical gymnastics (again leaving the proof to the simple student), Tom Christie derived the turn rate and associated turn radius to which the pilot can maneuver his/her fighter and at the Mach number and G level the pilot can generate in his aircraft.

1) Turn radius, r = (a² / 36,976) x (M² / G)

2) Turn rate, ωdot = (1092 / a) x (G / M)

After readers regain consciousness, the author suggests there be no attempt to memorize these equations (or need to create a cheat-sheet) as there will be no final exam at the end of this chapter. The author has mathematically verified that Tom Christie had correctly derived the numbers in the large constants shown in his two equations for conversion of angular variables from radians to degrees. It is verified Christie also correctly converted the speed of the aircraft from velocity (in knots) to a Mach number corresponding to the speed of sound a (in knots), used in aeronautical engineering analysis, at the altitude of the maneuver. Regrettably, the speed of sound is assigned the same symbol a and should not be confused to be the same a which is used in Newton’s definition of acceleration in the basic law of motion F = m a.

When fully conscious, readers are asked to observe that the turn radius (shown mathematically in the first equation) is proportional to the Mach number to exponent 2 and inversely proportional to the number of G’s being pulled. Fighter pilots are trained to conduct a turn with minimum radius (measured in decimal fractions of a nautical mile) and get inside the adversary aircraft by pulling as many G’s as possible (i.e., within the highest specific excess power capability of the aircraft) to achieve a small-radius turn and do so at the lowest Mach number at which the attack maneuver is conducted.

Similarly, the second equation shows that the turn rate (in degrees per second) is linearly proportional to the G’s capable of being pulled and inversely proportional to the Mach number. That also is part of pilot training admittedly in a more practical hands-on manner and not by any mathematical nerdometry.

So, what does this all mean? The importance of having a low weight W and high thrust-to-weight ratio T / W is inherent in the pilot’s ability to pull high-G’s and maneuver at high turn-rate, and with a small turn-radius, but all of the above mathematical gymnastics are transparent to the pilot when maneuvering. Boyd and Christie converted the low-entertainment mathematics into graphical form that relate the importance of the Boyd energy-maneuverability and specific excess power concepts that Boyd used in his campaigning for a light-weight, small-size fighter with a high thrust-to-weight ratio.

It is considered best to show the graphical chart used by Boyd and Christie and then explain how it was created and its importance. The chart shown next was done in two parts and was first used extensively during the Vietnam war to assess why there was a low kill-ratio of F-4E Phantom II aircraft in engagements with the Soviet MiG-21. As can be seen, the MiG-21 (red overlay) had superior turn-rate and smaller turn-radius capability than the F-4E Phantom II (blue overlay) in the typical air combat arena between Mach 0.7 and Mach 0.9 at about 30,000 to 38,000 feet altitude. The chart was subsequently used to define the performance goals for a new light-weight fighter (LWF) (green overlay) to achieve a higher turn-rate and smaller turn-radius than the MiG-21.

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Boyd and Christie energy-maneuverability comparison overlays (Source: USAF engineering files)

The first step was to calculate the black lines comprising the warped spider-web background of the chart. This was done by varying the G and the M in the equations derived above that were used to calculate the turn-radius and turn-rate as they were affected by the selected G and M. The chart is for an altitude of 36,089 feet (10,000 meters) which determines the speed of sound (a in the equations, in knots) for international standard-day atmospheric conditions (temperature and pressure). Speed of sound is proportional to the temperature of the surrounding air. The temperature at 36,089 feet and above is -65 degrees Fahrenheit and corresponding speed of sound is 573 knots. At sea level standard temperature (59 degrees Fahrenheit), the speed of sound is 661 knots.

The true value of the chart lies in the overlaying of a colored line on top of the warped spider-web representing the (T – D) / W characteristics of a fighter aircraft at the Mach number and altitude selected for the chart. Those variables of T, D, and W are obtained from a reliable source, usually the manufacturer of the aircraft and are based on engineering (for W) and flight test validation (T and D) during testing in the aircraft development phase. The T, D, and W for the Soviet MiG-21 were obtained from the USAF Foreign Technology Division who did exploitation testing (at the mysterious Area 51 in Nevada) of a borrowed MiG-21 with the code name HAVE DOUGHNUT. Readers who are interested in the details of this test program of high intrigue will find the details on the internet in the file named The MiGs of Nevada. Obviously, at the time (first six months of 1969) the entire Foreign Technology Division program for the Soviet MiG-21 and two MiG-15s was highly classified, but the above data has long-since been declassified and approved for release to the public. The author participated as an aerodynamics engineer evaluating one of the MiG-15s during the exploitation tests at Area 51.

As mentioned, the chart shown above was generated during the Vietnam war created the question to be asked Why was the kill ratio of the USAF and USN F-4s against the Soviet MiG-21 so low (about 1:1) despite the USAF and USN having better trained pilots than those flying Soviet aircraft. Aeropropulsion analysts at the time identified that the poorly-matched fixed-ramp inlet of the F-4E and combustor in the J79 engine not only produced smoke in the Mach 0.6 to Mach 1.1 flight range but the mismatch also produced less net thrust. Further, at other critical flight conditions, the fixed inlet ramp caused some air entering the inlet to be excessive for the engine airflow needs and the excess air to spill outside the inlet and create spill drag.The inlet ramp was re-designed to be a movable-ramp which reduced the smoke trail, significantly improved the thrust in that Mach 0.6 to Mach 1.1 flight regime, and eliminated the spill drag. The improved thrust and reduced total drag (less inlet spill- drag) reduced the difference shown in the chart between the red and the blue overlays such that late in the Vietnam war, the kill ratio of the F-4E versus the MiG-21