Forum: General F-16 forum

Let's forget about technical specs, performance and capabilities for a second here. What in your eyes makes the F-16 a pretty fighter?

Me, I just love its sleekness. It's got some sharp edges to it, but it's also round. Most of the newer generation jets just look too.....busy.

Unfortunately, the newer F-16s look pretty ugly to me. I don't doubt that they are far superior to the older F-16s. From a purely aesthetic point of view though, they are nasty! All those tanks and gadgets on there make them look like they ate a few too many potato chips and got fat.

But maybe you could look at it like they hit the gym and added muscle Rolling Eyes

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Hi Icemaverick:
I tend to agree with you. I particularly love the shape of the Yf-16 prototypes as they have a superb clean form. I have no doubt that Harry Hillaker made sure the shape was right easthetically. I do not mind the F-16 with the small tailplane, specially in a 3/4 frontal view and planform. It looks superb from that angle.
The rest of the versions look ok but have too many things added to it.

How about the fact the back half of the Viper is completely motor!

In Love

TEG

...and some of it is NAKED motor...

Best Regards,

My favorite in terms of aesthetics is block 40 with big tail and big mouth and with an GE engine. (sorry TEG Wink

)

What is better for me is a D model of above lady with 2 x 370 and 1 x 300 fuel tanks, 2x3 Mavericks, 2 x winders at 2&8, 2xslammers at 1&9, and finally LANTIRN.
It is a powerful workhorse but still very, very beautiful...

I mean something like this:

http://www.cavok-aviation-photos.net/F1 ... 900023.jpg

As a retired weapons loader, I love all those things hanging on a Viper - otherwise it's just an fast, expensive airliner that can strafe.

My favorite bad-a$$ load would be 120's 1 & 9, 9X's 2 & 8, HARMS 3 & 7 (watch out for all the sharp fins), tanks, HTS and ECM pod.

Love our old block 40 loads at Aviano .. my favorite two were

120's 1-9 120's 1-9
9M's 2-8 9M's 2-8
GBU-10/12 3-7 GBU-10/12 on TER 7
LANTIRN 5A-5B LAU-131 on TER 3
ALQ-131 on 5 LANTIRN 5A-5B
ALQ-131 on 5

And naturally we carried 370's on 4 and 6

In Col John Boyd's biography, he complained about the larger radome. He wanted to keep it simple and the size that was on the "Y" versions...
However I guess my heart will always be the lines of the block 15's. The gold dome of the block 25's didnt seem to do much for me when we got
them.

For looks make mine either a desert or Artic camo aggressor with the black radome and black turkey feathers of a -229.

For War I'll take a blk 50 with conformals, 120s on 1&9, 9xs on 2&8, HARMS on 3&7, GBU-24 on 4&8 with that new dark and lovely 5th gen have glass paint. I think it will get off the ground but gimme some runway lol. Not sure if this would be an approved or useful config but it sure would look badass.

Loader2088 wrote:

As a retired weapons loader, I love all those things hanging on a Viper - otherwise it's just an fast, expensive airliner that can strafe.

My first assignment was as a weapons tester at Eglin. Hanging in our office was a sign that said "Without weapons, an Air Force is just another unscheduled airline"

TimmayMan wrote:

For War I'll take a blk 50 with conformals, 120s on 1&9, 9xs on 2&8, HARMS on 3&7, GBU-24 on 4&8 with that new dark and lovely 5th gen have glass paint.

I'll take that one too! Dual guidance GBU-31s in place of the 24s a good choice also.

TimmayMan wrote:

Not sure if this would be an approved or useful config

Heck yeah it'll be useful! Fight your way in performing your own SEAD and then drop your own hot pickles would be very satisfying. Not to mention not needing as large a strike package / support.

The blended wing / body and the LERX make the F-16 the prettiest fighter in the sky. That was so futuristic when the F-16 came on the scene. Before that, every jet had wings stuck onto the fuselage at right angles.

The F-16A is the best looking. The fat tail on the F-16C is clunky. And I think the uniform light grey of Norwegian F-16As show off the shape of the jet better.

I actually like the newer models, I think they look very high-tech and beefed up with the spine and CFTs Smile

Forum: General F-16 forum

F-16 aesthetics....