User manual

Aerosoft F-16 Fighting Falcon 1.00 Manual

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F-16 FIGHTING FALCON HISTORY

Started as a project to construct a small high maneuverable light fighter, and at lower costs than ever

before the Tactical Fighter Requirements Division of Air Force Headquarters funded a study in the early

seventies for the preliminary design and analysis of several configurations for a lightweight fighter.

Amongst other aims they wanted low wing loading and high thrust loading; knowing that this was very

difficult because of the contradistinction: low wing loading means larger wings thus more weight and

more drag and high thrust loading (thus more powerful engines) means higher fuel consumption and

thus short range. The Air Force needed a lower-cost alternative to the F-15 in modernizing and

expanding its air force and due to the political and economic situation at this time (oil crisis!!) the United

States needed a low cost fighter for export to replace a large number of aging aircraft of NATO member

countries.

PROGRAM

General Dynamics and Northrop were the finalists out of the ten competitors for the competition in

April 1972. They received about $40 each million to create two prototypes. General Dynamics had the

first one (Model 401) completed in December 1973 in Fort Worth and it was transported to Edwards

AFB, California, on January 8

1974. Phil Oestricher, the test pilot Of General Dynamics flew the YF-16

on January, 20 1974 for its maiden flight, continued by its first official flight on February 2

. Northop

rolled out the P-600 in April 1974 at Hawthorne, California and named it YF-17. It made its first flight at

Edwards Air Force Base on Mat 9

. December 1974 the competition ended and in 1975, on January the

the Secretary of the Air Force John McLucas assigned the YF-16 from General Dynamics as the

winner: “The airplane with the best performance at the lowest cost.” (Secretary of Defense James

Schlesinger).

TECHNOLOGY

Compared with the YF-17 the YF-16 had a mission radius advantage of 200 nautical miles; a sustained

turn rate advantage of 0.5 degree/second at Mach 1.2 at 30.000 feet, a fifteen second accelerating

advantage from Mach 0.9 to Mach 1.2 at 30.000 feet and a ferry range advantage of 350 nautical miles.

The most important piece of the YF-16 is the Electronic Flight Control System. For the first time ever an

aircraft was not flown by cables linking the stick to the flight control surfaces, but the complete system

was electronic and used servos to control the rudder, ailerons etc. These fly-by-wire flight controls allow

much more precise control of the aircraft than the heavy and more complex hydro mechanical flight

control system. Not only the flying qualities improved, but safety as well, because it imposes g limits to

keep the pilot from overstressing the airframe and angle of attack limits to prevent stall and departing.

The aircraft will (try to) protect the pilot from dangerous commands. In this day and age of digital

aircrafts (most obviously the Airbus aircraft were designed with this in mind) it is hard to imagine what a

revolution fly-by wire was.

Conventional aircraft require constant downward loads on the horizontal tail to maintain their flight

level. The F-16 FCS however is designed with “relaxed static stability”: high speed computers (however,

compared to the machine you run your simulator on they seem incredibly slow) stabilize the aircraft at

any desired cruise speed or maneuver condition by making quick, small adjustments to the control

surfaces so controlled flight is maintained. Without the computer the aircraft cannot be flown. Even the

best pilot would not be fast enough to react.