Today, fifty years after its premiere, there is no more widely recognizable military aircraft in the world than the F-16.

In its various versions the F-16 Fighting Falcon – or Viper, its official nickname – after all, it is the aircraft that serves with the largest numbers in the Greek Air Force. The lean and airy looking “Hawk” that defends the airspace of Greece every day has today its official birthday and 1974 seems far away.

Then as General Dynamics YF-16 the aircraft won in a duel against the other prototype Northrop YF-17 with a relatively specific mission. In the end, the fighter wanted by then senior officials of the US PA, the “Fighter Mafia” as it went down in history, crowned the winner of the competition.

The… accidental first flight and the record

The official first flight of the General Dynamics YF-16 took place on February 2, 1974.

The F-16 is a fighter that was born from the experiences of the US in the Vietnam War but also the development of technology since it was the first aircraft to be powered by electronic rather than mechanical systems and thus became incredibly flexible.

As the F-4 Phantoms struggled in the air in Vietnam, the US finally followed the idea of ​​some of the country’s PA officials (including the Fighter Mafia) and changed everything. The new priorities called for companies to create one cheap, light aircraft which will have huge energy for close range dogfights.

Other air superiority missions would be undertaken by the also new, heavy twin-engine F-15 Eagle fighter. So in 1974 the Northrop YF-17 entered the fray. With the victory of the second, the first F-16As entered service in 1980 while the two-seater version took the code F-16B. The F-16s have evolved so much over the years that they can do almost every… job of a fighter aircraft and at a reasonable cost of use.

To be completely maneuverable the aerodynamically unstable F-16 was based on automatic operation of a new one Flight Control System with the then innovative fly-by-wire system thanks to which the pilot does not move the aircraft with hydraulic technology but with “current”.

This gave both reliability and safety as computers worked together with the pilot’s hand to make a Falcon fly within limits. The pilot changes direction with a quirky control on the sides and the now famous Hands-On Throttle and Stick (HOTAS) system and flies with ease. After that, every other new fighter in the western world was designed with this logic…

A Falcon best seller

One of the reasons the F-16 is celebrating its 50th birthday is that it was one of the most “affordable” fighters from 1974 to today. From the first flight to the present day the Viper has become extremely popular with around 3000 of each version of the approximately 4600 F-16s built still flying in some 28 countries while 140 additional F-16s are on order from various countries.

Today the fighter is produced in Greenville, South Carolina with the Block 70/72 version being built for Bahrain, Slovakia and Bulgaria while 66 new Vipers have been ordered by Taiwan and another 12 Block 70s will be delivered by Jordan among others. Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea and of course Greece are upgrading their planes to Block 70 F-16V.

The US Air Force has about 900 aircraft in service that will operate after 2040.

The secret mission “Operation Opera”

The aircraft’s capabilities were evident early. In 1982 Israeli F-15s and brand new F-16As engaged Syrian fighters over the Bekaa Valley and Israeli F-16As shot down 44 Syrian MiG-21s and -23s without any losses. A year earlier, however, the fighter’s secret combat debut took place. So in 1981 eight F-16As that had just been delivered from the factory in Israel bombed the Osirak nuclear power plant under construction near Baghdad with 16 Mark 84 simple iron bombs ending Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program.

The operation took place on June 7, 1981 17 kilometers from the capital of Iraq with a bold design that would not have been possible without the F-16s for the Israeli Air Force. The attack even established the Begin Doctrine which explicitly states that the strike was not an anomaly compared to a normal war but “a precedent for any future Israeli government” regarding nuclear weapons. How the F-16A performed the mission has been a design example for years.

The ace

Steven De Vries, the famous “Vrieske” of the Belgian Air Force was the first F-16 pilot outside the US who surpassed 5,000 flights in the mighty Viper. He is the sixth pilot in the world and the first non-American to surpass this mark in an F-16. Vrieske of the Air Force Base’s ‘Tigers’ Squadron began his F-16 career at 21 and as a Belgian F-16 Demonstrator Pilot for 2022-2024 was recently at a Greek air show in Greece where he showcased his ultimate flying skills 50-year-old fighter.

The Belgian F-16 ace who, in addition to being a demonstration pilot of the F-16 Dream Viper, is a pilot-instructor and has been flying operational F-16 aircraft since 1995, spoke on the radio of APE-MPE “Agency 104.9FM”. “In 2021 I became an F-16 Demonstration Pilot. It’s quite a different role as it’s not just a flying job. You meet a lot of people, you have to talk to the media, you have to satisfy the public, of course, but you also have to excite young people, manage to get them excited about aircraft and flying and Aviation in general! That’s what we’re trying to do, plant the “seed” and expect it to grow and see people wanting to come into the Air Force,” he said, stressing that his relationship with the F-16 is an exciting relationship since every demonstration of the flying capabilities of the aircraft reminds him “how visionary the designers of the fighter were” many years ago.

Vrieske called flying the F-16 an “exciting job”, and explained that for young people at the age of 14-15 there is Air Scouting as an introduction to flying so that “they can have a taste of what it means to be in the Air Force, to be an aircraft operator…”. As for Greece and its PA? “I have only good things to say. I love Greece, I love it for its food, as well as for its world… I know some Greek pilots from Fighter Squadrons, which has also happened through the Tiger Meet meetings and I appreciate them deeply”, he commented.

All this before entering the cockpit of his “Hawk” and as another F-16, 50 years after the first flight, it rolls off the production line in Greenville, America…