Live Fast, Die Young: The Story of the U.S. Navy's Hot-Rod F-16N
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 มิ.ย. 2024
- When you think of the F-16, the U.S. Navy probably isn't what pops into your head, but the truth is that the Air Force's mainstay fighter has a very colorful past serving with the seagoing service in the hands of highly-trained Topgun instructors and fleet adversary pilots. It all started with a purpose-built, stripped-down, hotrod of a Fighting Falcon, the F-16N. This is its fascinating story.
Check out one Naval Aviator's experience flying the F-16N here: www.twz.com/3383/what-it-was-...
Digital Combat Simulator footage from HeatBlur. store.heatblur.com/
The War Zone - also known by the shorthand TWZ - has become an essential resource for the national security community, the defense industry, and the interested public at large since it was launched in 2016.
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Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:05 The F-16N's Origins
3:16 The F-16N's Design Specs
6:56 F-16N Training Ops
12:12 The Navy Says Goodbye To F-16Ns
13:58 Navy Vipers Rise Again
I flew the N in VF-126. What a great airplane! We would fight as adversaries and then go 1v1 guns only "in house". I wonder how we managed to crack those wing spars?
It was great having a radar. In the A-4, we'd tune in the fighter tactical frequency and switch to ADF and follow the #1 needle to the merge. Surprisingly effective!
Everyone rightfully mentions the reclined seat for increased G tolerance, but that only reduced the height of the blood column by a few inches. To me, the design of having the feet almost at hip height was a bigger factor as it effectively reduced the column by a foot or two. With HOTAS, and the reclined seat and elevated feet, it had the perfect seating geometry.
It was like sitting in a lawn chair with two cans of beer and a gatling gun (even though this model didn't have one) - stay off of my lawn!
Great color on the canvas here. Shoot me an email!!!
I totally envy you! I got the opportunity to sit in one in a hangar during a Civil Air Patrol tour in the 90's. I could not believe how GOOD that aircraft felt to sit in. The closest I've come to actually flying one is being boomed at low level by the Red Flag guys sneaking through the bottom of canyons here in Alaska. I'm out there doing mineral surveys along creeks with my head down and all of a su... ==BLAM!== and I'm feeling a whole body slap. ==BLAM!== Geez, there's two of.. =BLAM!== Whoa! =BLAM!= Okay, four, good lord I'm awake now, with the living sh&% slapped right out of me and the bears I was keeping an eye out for are for sure on their way out of the area. Stay off your lawn, indeed!
@@elliotthorum3671
Adee you gusuk man! Give the cheechakos he|| for me. 😁
"It was like sitting in a lawn chair with two cans of beer and a gatling gun (even though this model didn't have one) - stay off of my lawn!" What a description!
"... how we managed to crack those wing spars."
By pulling high acceleration with full load (fuel).
So if Top Gun had been filmed a little later... We could have gotten 'Viper' flying a Viper.
Yep!
Nice
If Viper could terrify hotshot F-14 jocks in a little Scooter, imagine what he would have done to their egos riding this tricked-out F-16N
@@dksl9899 Mav wouldve been dropped from the course in about 5 minutes
Oh hell yea
I was at Miramar when the N first came to TopGun. I had known that it had been retired but I was not aware it was because of the additional stress cause by the adversary role. I was also not aware that the Navy was again flying F-16s as adversaries. Thank you for teaching this old Chief new tricks.
Awesome. That place was incredible back in the day. I was lucky enough to spend some time there right before the transition. 101 was literally packing up when I was there. Very different place now. Glad we could fill you in on the N's backstory.
I retired while stationed at Miramar AIMD in January 97. It was turning into a ghost town. Didn't have a retirement ceremony because all my friends were gone.
I remember seeing in a podcast episode where an adversary pilot from VF-43 was being interviewed (namely about his experiences with the Kfir up at Oceana), and it was stated at one point that these folks would be flying at least once per day, nearly year-round.
The biggest reason being that these guys were dedicated full-time adversaries. Modern adversary squadrons (namely after budget cuts to the USN) ended up causing a majority to be sundowned, leaving only NSAWC/NAWDC and part-time Navy/Marine reserve adversary squadrons (they still do a fantastic job)
I was in Miramar in 1987 when the first f16Ns were delivered,beautiful aircraft!
Indirectly, they save the Air Force a lot of money and aircraft theAir Force study these aircraft what failed in the bulkheads and F-16s built after this, and a bunch of other stuff corrected to prevent it from happening and older jets had modifications done also, they tone down and put restrictions on certain maneuvers
'Stealth is king.'
"Yes, but I see you and can outmanuver you."
I've always loved this 'little' jet.
This presentation gets it. The beauty of the N is not that it was simply the most agile and capable dogfighter in the sky, but that it had such a broad performance envelope, it could be flown in a manner that replicated the flight characteristics of any lesser fighter....which is all of them. Absolutely invaluable.
Glad we are on the same page! Thanks for taking the time to watch it.
The whole VIPER platform is an amazing jet.
And with 50 years of upgrades, it is still a threat to ANY plane in the sky.
Not the best for multi role, as it does have a limited capability to fly with bombs, but these is a reason Russia screamed like a baby for Ukraine getting them.
Nice documentary on the F-16N. I learned about it during my aero engineering studies in college and have ended up flying if for about 17 years now (Block 25, 30, 32, 40, 42, and 50). The F-16N had such a short lifespan and developed longeron/wings spar cracks due to pilots either not knowing about or potentially disregarding technical order limitations on the air frame. The jet will go over 9 g’s during an AOA overshoot, but the real problem is what’s known as an asymmetric over-G. Simply put, you can’t pull 9 G and roll at the same time. This causes a massive amount of torque on the air frame and subjects the wing going upward relative to the air frame to much more than 9G’s. If that happens, maintenance has to pull the motor and inspect practically all the bulkheads for cracks (ask me how I know). Back then, both Air Force and Navy pilots were probably under the impression that the jet wouldn’t allow any sort of over-G, but the FLCS only tries to stop the jet from going over 9. Tech order guidance has a much lower limit for asymmetric G’s. The limits for asymmetric G's are easy to find in the tech order, but the exact amount of roll rate required to consider G as asymmetric is not so easily found and is actually very low.
As you mentioned, the Air Force jets didn’t have cracks developed nearly as quickly, which can be attributed to doing more Air-Ground and less chances to violate those asymmetric limits. Also, weight underneath the wing helps relieve stress on the wing, so it’s harder to damage the air frame by accidental over-G. Air Force air-to-air missions are generally flown with more underwing stores and a center-line tank which, although not the intended effect, helps reduce stress on the air frame during maneuvering and more closely simulates combat conditions for dogfighting (i.e. you just jettisoned your bombs, but still retain things like missiles, pylons, jamming pods, etc.). You can see in a lot of F-16N videos (especially gun camera footage) that pilots are rolling and pulling at high G a lot of the time in a close in fight. This is not necessary to win a fight against a Tomcat or Hornet, but I’m guessing no one ever told them that doing such things was very bad for the air frame.
Nice that you mentioned about the Block 25s at the end. The unit I fly for donated our oldest Block 25s a year or two ago. Kind of bittersweet, but we got big mouth Block 30s to replace them.
This documentary was really well put together and I look forward to more. Easy subscribe.
Fantastic info here. Thank you! Yeah I was talking to someone involved with support for the N and they touched on the 'unique onset events' or something like that in terms of stress on the airframe. We briefly touched on a simplified version of the over stress that happened briefly at 9+. If you ever want to share some thoughts, hit us up, our little growing audience would love to here from you.
Very interesting. Never really thought about it but that makes a ton of sense. It's like trying to corner under hard braking. You can do it, but it's not ideal...something's got to give.
As a General Dynamics structural flight test engineer on F-16 from Day 1, I was pleasantly surprised by the accuracy of the F-16N structural problems description. I would like to add a little more to the story. As mentioned, F-16 structure was designed for about 50/50 air to ground and air to ait missions. When GD structural engineers looked at adapting to Navy air combat training, it was clear some mods would be required. Because budget and schedule were limiting factors, the only improvement made was to use titanium instead of aluminum for the wing to fuselage lower attach brackets. As expected, that's where the cracks first began to appear. USAF and Navy use different approaches to handling cracked structure. AF uses Fracture Mechanics to track crack growth and then repairs or replaces parts when the crack grows to a conservative specified length. Navy uses Fatigue technology that says if a crack appears, the structure has failed and may not fly again. Fracture Mechanics, although costly, allows years of safe flying to follow crack appearance. If the F-16Ns had been AF airplanes, they likely could have stayed in service for years.
Actually, there is an example of what you're describing; the Hellenic Air Force Block 32 F-16Cs, which are from the same production line the F-16Ns were. They have "survived" and are still in flyable condition today, because they had a 50/50 ACM - A/G role.
I'm kind of surprised the F-16N didn't come with the Delta wings that are more famous for Europe forces and have a better abilities
Just found your channel. This is like a Dark Skies video, except better edited, researched, has pictures and film actually relevant to the plane being talked about, isn't shown a clickbait thumbnail, has smoother voice overs and better music. So yeah...I mean besides being 500% better, just like a Dark Skies video. Lol. Subscribed
Welcome! I am so glad you liked it. We put a ton into it. Some will be shorter, some will be about this long.
That's how i felt with Dark Skies and clipbait formula. Its titles sound like information is an updated but it seems it read off from a Wiki article. Most Aviation fans would already know these info. example - "A10 Warthog is receiving new upgrades" in the title and instead ths clip talked about the fighter has a gatling gun
I grew up during the 80s in Rancho Penasquitos and Poway, which next to Mira Mesa or Carroll Canyon are the closest areas of San Diego to Miramar and its legendary airfield. We used to be able to drive down the 15 and watch these guys take off towards the east where they'd do most of their dogfighting (nearer to Julian, Ramona, and part of the Cleveland National Forrest. The yearly Airshow each September was quite the treat, as it was one of the few times that the pilots behind the controls would be allowed to "indulge themselves", when they were given free reign to fly whatever sort of maneuvers and patterns they wanted for the time they were demonstrating. It's sad that they're all at Edward's now (and much, MUCH quieter), and it's only when we get to see the occasional FA-18s, Seastallions or Ospreys (especially in conjunction with the training up at Pendleton), KC-130s, and the ubiquitous F-35s taking off or landing on the east side of the base where the I-15 passes by, that we're reminded of the neat and exciting piece of American military history that once used to take place here.
As a sad little epilogue, they even closed down and dismantled the Marine's "Flying Leatherneck Museum" that used to be on base there at Miramar. It happened during the pandemic, and it was so sad watching them take apart those planes and crate them up that it made my stepdad weep openly for the first that I've ever seen, and we're talking about a tough as nails Vietnam vet who was the heavy gunner in his squad. Hell of thing to see this base wither away into a husk of its former self, especially when one realizes that it was only 30 years ago that it was the crown jewel in a city whose population growth and infrastructure sprawl was directly tied to the gargantuan Naval presence here.
Very stoked for this channel!
for real!!!!
Thanks so much, we are stoked too!
The Navy making the best and most diverse air force in the world. Good to see this content come from TWZ and can't wait for the next one.
Some real gems in NAVAIR history book! We are stoked, more coming every Tuesday.
Hell of a debut video
Thanks so much, a lot went into this one.
Longtime fan - from the early Foxtrot Alpha days, v excited for this next step.
Hyped for everything you're building Tyler & Crew. 🙌
Thanks so much for sticking with me for so long! We are super stoked about this.
Same! FA was a Kinja gem. Thanks to TWZ, it's one of the Kinja remnants I didn't need to long for. I became a member of the TWZ community from its inception. It's a shame how we lost Gawker and the rest of Kinja. Jalopnik remains one of the last sites on that blog I still check in with occasionally. The success of TWZ makes up for all of that more than a bit.
Strong content right out the gate! Look forward to the next video.
Thank you! We have a bunch of different stuff in the works, some history, some new, some shorter, some longer.
This takes me back to watching WINGS back in the day. Super pumped for more videos!
Huge praise!
I loved Wings.
SO SO SO HYPED FOR THIS CHANNEL!!!
US TOO!
I have to compliment Tyler & the TWZ staff on everything about this from the script, technical data, voice over & integration of flight sim vs real world footage; wonderful job. There are a few channels who needlessly show the wrong plane or have a VO artist who is hard to listen to thankfully that is not the case here keep up the great work.
Thank you so much! I can assure you that will never happen, at least systemically (haha), with us. We are very particular about B-roll and Josh, our production lead, is ex-USAF.
Thanks for making this. Good luck with your new channel. I look forward to your next videos.
Thank you! We are aiming for a release every Tuesday
Well done Josh! I’ve been around since FA, and it’s amazing to watch TWZ empire grow!
We are super lucky to have him and thank you for sticking with us!
Nice shot at 13:42 of my squadron's (VF-302) birds launching to go mix it up with the Vipers.....brings back a lot of memoreries....
Welcome to the party pal!
This is my offering to the TH-cam algorithm gods. Excellent quality content. I've been reading Tyler's work since the Aviation Intel days. Great to see this next step with an ever growing team. Excited to see what's to come!
Been waiting years for this channel, brilliant progress
Me too! And THANK YOU!
Now I want to know what Ward Carroll has to say about this!
Ward is a friend of the site, he does great work
To my eyes, the most beautiful jet fighter ever!
US Navy aviators , the best in the world.
F-16 is definitely a looker
Absolutely loving your DCS footage in this. Great work!
It really adds a great element to the story, doesn't it? We hope to be able to get more DCS stuff into our work in the future.
@@thewarzoneIf you ever need any volunteers, Falcon here is one of the best
Congrats on making of the TH-cam channel. FTA alum here
Makes me so happy to see that. Thanks so much for sticking with me for so long.
Quality content.
Keep it up Joshua.
Come along way from aviationintel Tyler.
Thanks man, it really has been quite the journey. Thank you so much for sticking with me!
I've been reading your work for nearly a decade now, and you have excelled in your video debut! Love the production quality and incredible story!
That means the world to me... That people have stuck with me so long. It makes this all worth it. Thank you so much!
I really hope you guys make more videos like this. This is fantastic and i love over looked stories like this Ive never heard of.
Oh we have a ton of stuff lined up, every week on Tuesday! Some shorter, some longer like this, all in-depth
Wow man....phenomenal phenomenal video. I felt like I was in the cockpit twisting and turning. To watch my 6,I just subscribed
Much more of this please. This was an awesome video. Your longform is fantastic!
There is certainly much more to come and we hope you enjoy our future videos as much as you did this one!
What an awesome video! The presentation, information and delivery was very impressive. I’m a big fan of your work! Also the hot rod is undoubtably the coolest of the viper family!
I am so glad you liked it, we put a LOT of time into this one.
Great first video - so excited for you all bringing your content to TH-cam!
We are so stoked!
I'm so glad to see my favorite military news site has a TH-cam Channel!
Keep it coming!!!!
Glad your here!
This is your first full length video? Woah. What an incredible dive coupled with some fantastic footage! This earns a sub, for sure.
Also, man... They played with some beautiful liveries; that white and green Marine two-tone, wow!
Thanks so much for the kind comments and the sub, which is everything for a absolutely tiny channel like ours to get going. Staring up a huge mountain here.
@@thewarzone Hope so! You're off to a strong start, and judging from your reply to another comment: You've got access to good footage.
You're off to a STRONG start.
Excellent video. Thank you.
Thanks for checking it out!
I had the Hasegawa 1/72 boxing of this model as a kid!
Those were the days!
That was awesome and informative! Learned a few things along the way.
That's the goal for us too!
Super informative and entertaining. Well Done!!
Thank you glad you dug it!
Solid information. If you keep offering up videos like this, dense with info..you're gonna get big. Good job bro. Subbed
Well, that is the aim, isn't it? You guys keep watching them and we'll keep making them, and we'll see where this all goes. But, we have big dreams here for the channel!
Solid presentation
fantastic production value! i enjoyed seeing the old 'speedvision' clips you were able to source, and the CGI sim from Heatblur is amazing. this is possibly the best series since Wings on Discovery.
We're all big Discovery Wings enjoyers here at TWZ! Glad we were able to hit that tone for you, because it was part of the plan.
Excellent video. I’m looking forward to more long form from you
Some will be a little shorter some will be about this long yeah. Whatever the topic requires is my motto, we don't stick to length limits.
I cannot begin to tell you how glad I am to finally see a dedicated video that covers the F-16N in great detail! Aside from sone of the testbed and Block 10 Falcons, the F-16N is easily my favorite model!
We really pride ourselves on the deep-dive things you’re not going to find anywhere else. Stay tuned!
Fantastic video guys!
Thank you!
This video is so well made, subbed!
Thanks for the sub!
Love that TWZ has jumped into video ! :)
It was a long time coming, that's for sure. But like we said in the article we posted yesterday, doing it right was more important than just doing it.
Dude! Awesome to see the TWZ breaking onto youtube!
A long time coming!
@@thewarzone Isn't it amazing we have DCS to illustrate actual realistic aerial combat?
Great start to the channel! I had no idea that Top Gun had a new version of the F-16, and like everyone else here, I'm a huge aviation buff! Looking forward to seeing more!
That's high praise and the goal of our little channel here.
Great premier with history & present information. Very good video & graphics, a home run start🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Thanks it was a labor of love!
Awesome fresh content! Love it TWZ 🎉
Thanks so much for the kind feedback! look forward to seeing how you like the next one, and all the ones to come!
Top shelf. Well done.
Thank you!
Looking forward to more!
No, thank you!
Outstanding presentation! Well done. Carry on ... ^v^
Glad I came across this channel. Great video
We're glad you came across the channel too! Thanks for the feedback and hope you enjoy next week's offering, and every one past that, just as much.
Absolutly awesome Video. More pleaseee
More is coming, every Tuesday a new show will be posted!
Awesome channel. Looking forward to more!
Good thing you're looking forward to more, because there is more coming next Tuesday!
Amazing production for a youtube vid, liked, subscribed.
Glad you enjoyed the video! We're always looking to the most high-quality content we can, whether it would air on TH-cam or anywhere else!
Awesome video!!! I love seeing the Vipers fly around Fallon!!!
There's a special place in all of our hearts for Vipers...at least there should be!
TWZ goes TH-cam! Looking forward to your content here ❤
Thanks so much for the comment! We really hope to bring a lot of great content to everyone. We think you'll like what we have in store!
Great video! I just want to point out, the guy doing the voice over at 7:00 sounds like the same guy who did "The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't, by subtracting where it is, from where it isn't, or where it isn't, from where it is, whichever is greater, it obtains a difference, or deviation."
Woohoo! 1st video is live! Can't wait to see what else they have for us!
Lots of stuff in store. More about the channel here: www.twz.com/air/live-fast-die-young-the-story-of-the-navys-f-16n
One video, and already an outstanding channel.
Thanks! We've got some Shorts content up too for more breaking and quick-hitter type things, so be sure to check those out as well!
Awesome video very informative
Thanks! We wanted people to feel exactly that.
Awesome!!! Looking forward to seeing more videos.
And we look forward to bringing you more videos!
Nice Job!
Thank you!
Excellent video thanks. Love TWZ ! 👍🇺🇸
And we love our followers...if it wasn't for you all, we'd just be sitting around talking to ourselves!
@@thewarzone 😂👍🇺🇸
i love reading your articles and now you even have a channel! subscribed without need to check it! never knew that navy have more f16 after the f16n decade
Good to have this channel. God speed
Thank you!
Just liked saved and subscribed. Most bad ass aviation video I’ve seen in awhile!
Hope you think the same about the next video, and the next, and the next... :)
I ❤TWZ
We love that you love TWZ!
I lived near Fallon Naval Air Station in the early 2000s, where they had a part of the Top Gun, we would see the camo painted F-16 flying over all the time. At first i thought they were Air Force jets, but they were Navy F-16s
Yeah the reintroduction of the embargoed Pakistani Vipers was sort of low key.
This was excellent!
Thank you glad you liked it!
Great video. Love the 80s soundtrack.
Thanks so much, 100% the vibe we were going for.
Awesome 1st Video. Learned a ton.... like how there was a version of F-16 I didn't know about beyond the Wikipedia entry
SO much to mine in the F-16's history! Thanks so much for watching and commenting
Just outstanding!
Thank you!
Awesome vid, this channel is going to.. take off
We're hoping the channel doesn't take after the first plane we did a video on and become a Lawn Dart.
Thanks
For your first video, you did a great job 👍
Thanks for the feedback. This is just the first step of the journey, but we think it's a great first step!
謝謝你的介紹
Awesome!
Cool plane and cool music ❤
We need this in DCS!!!
Love to see that USMC liveried Viper live on at least in videos.
It was the best looking N by far.
Ive been to Fallon for TOPGUN (unfortunately as the people behind the scenes, a maintainer) and seeing the 16s rip over is kinda insane. Couple times they would get probably no more than 250ft above the runway, if not lower, easily going 300-400 and then pull as staright a vertical climb as possible. Kinda like watching a motorcycle just fly past on thw highway.
Awesome content! MoAR!!!!
Every Tuesday!
Congrats on growing the brand. YT is a natural extension, as many of your readers probably consume media on here. Maybe do some collabs with SubBrief and CarrolWard… I’m curious to see what the algorithm starts suggesting based on other TWZ YT viewers.
Thank you! Yeah that would be cool. Love both of them.
Getting my place as your 8700ish subscriber. Very interesting video. I can’t wait for more!
NICE!
I soooo pumped you guys are gonna do TH-cam!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
US TOO!
Good first video.
I was in VF 43 when they got the F16N, it was to replace the F 21 kafir. You might want to correct the patch for VF 43, should be a shield with a night's glove closed around a Mig.😊
ya beat me to it...heh
The Kfir/Lion is a whole can of worms unto itself
Such a fascinating plane, and I'm sad I was never able to see one in-person
i live in Fallon and know several people that work on the f-16s, it a love hate relationship with maintainers but damn is it cool to see them fly with navy written on them
And Marines!
Bravo!
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!
The background song is called “Aeon” by Power Glove & PYLOT
They were nice enough to let us use their music for the piece. The song really sets the mood perfectly.
@@thewarzone I love that. Your video was outstanding, I subscribed for sure.
so cool!
We think so!
Well done. I remember well the F5s flying out of Fallon, and often flying in to the Reno Air Races. While the races are sadly no more, I hope that future airshows might also have visitors form Fallon Aggressor squadrons.
It's a real shame the Air Races are gone. They were always a fun time and great to see all the Unlimited warbirds really spread their wings.
The batch of Vipers sold/not sold to Pakistan were then offered to New Zealand, who had aging A-4s at the time - who declined them despite the very favourable pricing.
Yes great element of the story. I want to do a big thing on the Kiwi fighter saga.
@@thewarzone Please do. The newly elected government at the time cancelled the deal last minute despite them being almost completely paid for in the early 2000s. I would have loved to have seen F-16s in RNZAF colours, it's a real shame.
I feel like a video profiling the 160th SOAR would be a natural fit for the channel. Looking forward to all the content you plan on serving up here!
That would be cool great idea
@thewarzone please do one on TACAMO.
GREAT first video and thanks from a former infantryman. :)
We have something coming soon right up your alley
Very cool
We think so!