Since the first YF-16 was unveiled to the public in December 1973 during a ceremony in Fort Worth, the single-engine type has been the most sought-after fighter of the post-Vietnam era.
Credit: Lockheed Martin
The first flight of the F-16 on Jan. 20, 1974, came by accident, the freak result of a high-speed taxi test gone slightly awry. But the purpose of the then-General Dynamics creation was clear: leverage the mathematics of John Boyd’s and Thomas P. Christie’s energy-maneuverability theory to produce a...
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