Why the F-16 was Intentionally Built to be UNSTABLE 

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Pretty sure the reformers hated the F16 at first because of its fancy tech but later took credit for it anyway

Correction, the fighter jet mafia had almost nothing to do with it. I would highly recommend lazerpigs videos on John Boyd and the a-10 for more background but basically these people took credit for a bunch of stuff they didn't do. Often critics of such planes until they proved successful. They are frauds, not engineers, these same people wanted to remove some notable features from the f-15, f-16, and f-18. Those features were things like radars, missiles, ejection seats, radios, and fuel tanks. These same people claim credit for the A-10, when in fact they didn't design it either and the A-10 only remained in service by adding all the features that the fighter jet mafia said were wholly unnecessary. Don't give them credit for this.

The fighter mafia did not invent the unstable design, they simply pushed for small and light fighter with minimal equipment and superior maneuverability. Actual engineers came up with relaxed static stability as a way to enhance maneuverability, which was made possible by fly by wire, which the fighter mafia initially thought was too complicated and expensive. BTW, it's not relaxed negative stability, it's relaxed static stability. This is all about getting the center of gravity further aft so that the tail plane does not have to produce negative lift during turning or supersonic flight (when the center of pressure moves aft). Negative lift at the tail subtracts from the total lift produced by the airplane and therefore reduces the G it can produce. Relaxed static stability basically adds total lift to the airplane, or reduces drag for the amount of lift being produced.

The fighter jet mafia also hated the idea of Air to Air missiles, and would rather the plane carry no smart munitions, have no instruments, and nothing but fuel. Something they still want even in a modern world, all for increased dogfighting capability, something that almost never happens anymore due to over the horizon capabilities. Not to mention that they barely had any influence in the development of the F-16.

So sad to hear anyone giving the fighter mafia credit for anything

Dynamic control systems (the science behind fly by wire) was the most brutal class I took when in college for Aerospace Engineering. Understanding the concepts wasn't hard, but the math required you to be fluent in matrices of LaPlace transforms of imaginary numbers. That said, understanding the concepts of why various systems are stable and/or controllable has been amazingly useful in life. Luckily, I've never needed the math part of it after that class was over.

Noooooo, not Pierre Spray in the photo. That man said so many things in his later years to get on television and claimed he was part of projects he was never in, watch a video about him it’s very interesting

Praising the fighter Mafia for parts of the F-16 design... 😬 1:56

Cool video. I was an F-16 avionics technician for 25 years, and was an avionics instructor for 7 of those. One interesting thing is the gun (which is located on the left shoulder) puts an asymmetrical force on the aircraft as it's being fired. So as soon as you start shooting the gun, it's no longer pointing at the target... Except the gun sends a signal to the DFLCC, and the computer kicks in just a little rudder to keep the jet pointing where it's supposed to.

The fighter mafia are a bunch of clowns and weren’t involved (luckily) in any successful aircraft design.

The Fighter Jet Mafia didn't "design" the f-16, they just stood around criticising every good design aspect of fighter jets and then taking credit for any plane that went right, even if the final design included everything they criticised. They took credit for the f-16 when in reality, the design process probably would have gone better and faster if they didn't exist.

I thought the fighter plane mafia was just a pack of idiot (and not engineers, just assistants to third party defence contractors that knew someone in the Pentagon) and had nothing to do with the F-14, F-15, F-16, A-10, F-22 or what ever plane they decided was their idea this week out side of a few ideas for the F-15 (like removing the ejector seat to save weight) and the F-16 was designed for as a cheaper option when sending an F-15 was overkill and used many of the technology's of the F-15 to speed up development.

3:22 THEY CAN'T KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH IT

I am really sorry but in reality the fighter mafia has nothing to do with the design of the viper

So far I still think F-16 looks the coolest. The single air intake underneath the main body gives it a very unique look. Don't know why but it just looks COOL as hell.

"Fighter Mafia" 💀

When amazing planes get associated with the Fight Mafia, it is 100% a accurate assumption they had nothing to do with the plane, and took credit for it. As per their usual routine.

TLDR: the fighter mafia did not contribute to anything, the have never been engineers Funny story, a man in the fighter mafia, Pierre spray, claimed to have designed the f-15, f-16, a10, and more. (Note, Northrop Grumman and Fairchild republic are different companies) the only official documentation of any involvement in any of these programs is during a meeting on the f-15 he barged in the room and demanded a list of things be removed from the f-15 (he was laughed out the room) The reason he shows up in various news articles is because he was on the new channel “Russia today” to be broadcasted in English The reason he’s in this video is because he’s on Wikipedia The reason he’s on Wikipedia is because a man named John Boyd was writing an autobiography, died, and a new author Finished his biography. This new author asked his friends questions, including Pierre Spray. Pierre claims that he worked on various successful aircraft, the book gets finished, the requirements for Wikipedia is that something is written in a book, and now Wikipedia is a credible source.

To be fair, the 747 airframe is basically perfectly able to go almost to mach 1 in level flight. That is a substantial amount of speed for such a big plane. Not that they really need that ability as shown by the more modest speed of modern jet flights.

The F16 is my favorite aircraft. I was stationed in Germany from 1984 to 1987 on a base with F16s. I went to Turkey TDY supporting these guys there. We lost a pilot during training there, because they didn't have the ground avoidence tech. He blacked out. Got stuck in the mudd.

From the moment it rolled off the production line, it’s been weighed down by tanks, CFTs, bombs, and other AG weapons. It’s now a light plane with tons of added weight. The irony is that the F-16 was effectively off the table as a dogfighter when it was built, as the F-15 was designed as the primary air superiority aircraft for the USAF. The Viper has effectively become a bomber over the years, though it’s still capable of AA and dogfighting. It’s just that it’s been superseded at nearly every turn by other planes. What it provides is rather amusing-it’s cheaper to fly than other aircraft in terms of cost per flight hour. It’s more useful as a strike platform that can self defend, filling multiple roles, rather than having single role aircraft in a battlespace. But by definition, it has become anything other than the originally-intended lightweight fighter.

I think the best example of an unstable jet was the F117 Nighthawk. Without constant adjustments by the software to control its flight surfaces, it couldn't fly. Just looking at its shape, I'm still amazed it was successful.

Yeah thw fighter Mafia took credit for other engineers work, hard to research for a weekly video but they were just the loudest kids outside the meetings they weren't actually invited too. Some of them are borderline crazy if you hear them talk in their weird circle conversations

2:32 **talks about mig 21*: *proceeds to show sukhoi su 22**

10:37 He went from 16000' to 10360' in 7.94 seconds, which is approx 42 000 feet per minute... that means he had about 13 seconds left before hitting the ground. Crazy. Edit: even less than 13 seconds, as he was accelerating...

I might be dead wrong, but my armchair-part-time-aeronautical-historian-limited-research-characterization of the Fighter Mafia is that they were a group of pure stick and rudder fans with no time to waste on fancy-schmancy hoodoo - inherent instability and/or computer assisted flight control.

The fighter mafia had nothing to do with the F-16

Interesting point about the bicycle experiment you mentioned. Bikes are also designed to be inherently more unstable than necessary to make turning feel natural. I don't know the exact terminology for the science here but if you move the wheel behind the steering axis by turning the fork backwards, the bike will be much more stable when you do that hill experiment.

"Fly-by-wire" never seems to be able to impart just how complex a system this is. Something like fly-by-computer would do the job better imo. Fly-by-wire sounds like an electronic version of the old hydraulic systems and whatnot. When the real fundamental change is the computer inbetween the pilot and the control surfaces. That is the gamechanger.

Really? Giving the "Fighter Mafia" credits? Their claims for credit in the F-15 and F-16 are incredible, as in NOT CREDIBLE.

While it’s true that the F-16 uses the Pratt F-100 engine, the engine shown at 9:23 is the General Electric F-110. They’re used fairly interchangeably on the F-16 airframe. Easy ways to spot the different is the duct orthogrid on GE vs isogrid on PW. When installed on airframe you can spot the difference by the amount of struts and architecture of the actuating nozzle support.

I normally insta-upvote NWYT, but I can't in good conscience let them get away with that much praise for the Fighter Mafia. They revel in this kind of history revisionism which gives them undue credit.

I think Lazerpig has something to say about this video

Fun fact: When nasa was developing digital fly wire in the early 70s, they started with modifying an F-8 crusader. Now, it's 1972, you need a small, lightweight, powerful computer capable of running this control loop in real time. And you're at NASA. So of course, they used an Apollo Guidance Computer.

I had no idea the USA lost 3700 planes in combat in Vietnam, that is an insane statistic

When I was a kid I saw three f16's flying next to one another while sitting in traffic on the Dan Ryan expressway in Chicago, it was easy to see the planes shaking around when they were flying in formation close to one another, I never knew the reason until this video. You don't notice the erratic flight of these planes when they fly alone. Thanks Dad for taking the long way home from that road trip!

Fly by wire came along while college students were still programming on punch cards fed into computers the size of large refrigerators.

Real Engineering did a great video on fighter instability. It's basically an energy problem in that a highly stable aircraft takes more energy to move away from straight and level flight which equates to worse maneuverability than a less stable aircraft.... Interesting bit of physics

At 13:09 Viper.... Those that wanted to call it "Viper"did not choose that because it looked like a snake....that what's the official excuse. They actually choose the name viper because it looked like The fighter in the television series Battlestar Galactica....

The Fighter Jet Mafia's credibility on military aircraft is the equates to a old Jazz Musician being considered as a military expert *points at Pierre Sprey*

Pierre Sprey: Angry old man and record producer.😂

Just a couple of additions. In a conventional aircraft, the positive stability of a nose heavy design requires a tail surface that pushes down at the back of the airplane. This down force is substantial and has to be overcome by lift from the wing. So, for example, if you push down on the tail with 1000 lbs of force (an oversimplification, but good for illustration) the wing has to produce an extra 1000 lbs of lift. This detracts from maneuverability. In negatively stable aircraft, this isn't necessary. Also, the response time and pitch rates can increase due to the more aft CG. I flew the F-16N in the Navy and it was completely seamless getting into the F-16 to fly. I think it took 5 minutes to feel completely at home in the airplane (other than the somewhat complex, but capable features of the HOTAS). It was like sitting on a lawn chair with two cans of beer! And, while the tilted back seat no doubt helped with G-tolerance, I think it was the raised feet that REALLY shortened the column of blood. Also, full rudder throw was 1/4 of an inch! So, you could really stretch out. The only downside was it was harder to use a "piddle-pack" (for some guys - NOT me of course! 😁).

Why my mental health was designed to be unstable

When I was a teenager I said I wanted to fly F-16s... I was told they'd likely be replaced by the time I was old enough to fly them... I'm 40 this year, never joined the air force, but it's nice to see the F-16 still flying.

Years ago, one of our RC modelers built a F-18, RC. He contacted McDonald-Duglass to get info on center of gravity. They said they don't really know, three flight computers make it flyable. They suggested building a small glider and make that fly, then start there with the RC version. None of today's aircraft have actual CGs, computers do the work and keep them flyable.

11:20 "Can't say the same about the birds though - they aren't F-16-proof ... yet!" i find that very funny

10:03 the seat wasn't designed to tilt back; it is the only fighter in the world with an already reclined seat

Incredible timing for this video to come out as while I was watching I could hear the roars of a USAF (F-16) Thunderbird doing area acclamation exercises for this weekend's airshow being held at the nearby U.S. Air Reserve Base. Fyi: the aforementioned base, designated "March A.R.B." (formerly "March A.F.B." which began as "March Field" under the U.S. Army Air Corps) is, as indicated, a US Air Force Reserves training base, and so keeps and maintains (usually) two F-16 Fighting Falcons for training sessions.

Just found this channel a few weeks ago LOVE IT!!

The F-16 is the prettiest plane ever made, and you cannot change my mind. It is sleek, graceful, beautiful, and deadly. The femme fatale of planes.

every time he says ”but it’s not what you think”, it almost always is exactly what you thought

My father-in-law was one of the engineers who designed the flight control systems for the F-16 (he also worked on the F-111). While "Flight #0" did indeed cause a Pilot Induced Oscillation, the reason was not because the plane was unstable. The PIO happened because of the gain settings on the fly-by-wire control system. The test pilot, Phil Oestricher, did an amazing job saving not only the aircraft, but also likely the F-16 program. The powers-that-be were not that impressed with fly-by-wire, and were ready to kill the program at any moment. A crash would've been all the evidence they needed. The goal that day was a high-speed taxi, where Phil planned to lift off about 1' or so before setting back down and easing back. When the PIO started, he struggled to gain control, and once it started leaving the runway and heading toward the grass, he stopped fighting the controls and the plane took off. He later told my FIL that the plane "wanted to fly", and he hardly touched the controls once it was airborne. They made some changes to the gain setting on the control systems, and two weeks later had the first official test flight.

Small addition. The wings and fuselage were designed so that if the computers couldn’t adequately compensate they could move the wing forward a station and greatly improve stability.

I made a plane in KSP that's yaw unstable during high speed taxi and takeoff, and trying to fix it was really annoying. Hearing how the F-16, a really cool plane, experienced something like that makes me feel better even though it isn't really the same thing lol.

That was a great video, thank you!

I've read that the "Viper" nickname was adopted by pilots because of the resemblance to the eponymous spacecraft in Battlestar Galactica.

It is like the eurofighter typhoon if i understood correctly because this fighter is also unstable build because of the delta wing type and is very agile even one of the best in the Air right now.

So the F-16 is basicly the Lancia Stratos of fighter jets.

13:12 velociraptors are widely known for their great ability to fly, hence the name of the f-22, raptor

I love this channel, never fails to be entertaining and very informative. Hope u can continue for years!

It was not the first military jet, that was intentionally built to be unstable. So was the F-104 Starfighter, which was hard to keep up in the sky without the 3 axis automatic stabiliser. Most if not all of todays Fightgerjets are built "unstable", simply to increase extreme maneuverability, which is needed especially in air to air combat situations. Greetings, Wulf "Buddy" Beeck, ex. F-104 Navy Pilot, German Navy.

So I'm not actually a pilot but I play MSFS2020 a lot and we all know that it's pretty much the most realistic flight simulator you can get at the time. I play the F-16 a lot and can say that it's very instabil. Most of you might know those videos of a takeoff of the F-16 going streight up after takeoff. That isn't as easy as it sounds because you need enought speed for that and most importantly: very precised maneuvers because if you pull the stick to the left or right just slightly too much you'll lose control. Still, that instability gives the F-16 a high maneuverability wich makes the F-16 so beautiful.

"Passenger airliners are built for stable flight." MD-11: "If you turn off the stability control system I will literally do a Cobra."

if the "fighter mafia" had their way and *did* come up with a unstable design (which they didn't), they would have rejected the idea of fly-by-wire as they hated any new advancement of technology and blamed any crashes from it on the pilot. most never had to see real combat or fly real missions, all they had to do was throw up ideas until one *sounds* close enough to relate to a jet the military made and claim credit for it. if they had their way, the best plane they would have made would probably be a swept wing biplane with a jet strapped to it.

During the 747 section all i could think about was that guy that really tested/pushed the limits of those big planes when he hijacked one and did a loop with it

i can lazerpig's infuriated screaming from here

you know a fighter jet is so unstable when it needs the 80s equivalent of a super computer to keep it straight

If the fighter jet Mafia got their way the F-16 wouldn't have had it's radar, missiles, afterburner, fuel, and likely it's flares and ejection seat would've been gone too.

Seeing that GCAS pull up and save the pilot still gets me. I mean you are looking at a dead man there without that system.

That was a very clean Segway into the AG1 spot

Yeah, the fighter mafia didn't actually do a damn thing. They just happened to swoop in and take credit.

Another well-written and presented piece - great!

Re: the best paper planes being overstable? I disagree. The ideal paper plane, very much like the ideal regular plane, is very close to neutral stability. You don't want to make an arrow or lawn dart plane. You want it to require the least amount of pitch up you can to fly straight, and this is achieved with near neutral stability.

I seriously question that the F-16 was 'The First Fighter Jet Designed to be UNSTABLE'. Waaaay before fly-by-wire had any control of jet fighters, there were two schools of thought on stability. The USA school was that jets should be basically stable and rely on massively strong hydraulic assisted controls to break the planes out of straight and level. The British approach was that the jet should be on the edge of stability and lower powered (or even un-powered) systems should be employed where the pilot could drive the craft to either side of the edge.

What a nice experience to fly one of those beast !

10:40 - It is not GCAS. It is AGCAS - Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System. Many aircrafts have GCAS which warns pilot to aviod colision and advices him what to do. AGCAS was implemented F-16 Block 40/50. The older F-16 blocks don't have AGCAS.

I always love your videos, but I think you give too much credit to the fighter mafia, the fighter mafia came up with the concept of the f-16, but the f-16 turned out way different than they wanted, for example they didn’t want the thing to have a radar, and wanted it to fly into combat zones with drop tanks that could be ditched which would leave the f-16 with just enough fuel to win a dogfight, military, the fighter mafia was a branch of military reformists, aka the people that advocated for stuff like keeping the m113 over adopting the Bradley, as well as being the same people that claimed the m60 was a better tank than the m1 abrams because it had been combat tested, regardless its a good video, keep up the good work!

Story time: I was lucky enough to be in a troop with a scout master that was a Lt. Col. in the AF. I was like 15 on the field at Tyndall watching them scramble 16’s from the far part of the runway where they had their own setup. We camped on the outskirts and it was around surplus equipment tents, big ones, filled with random shit. My scout master likely outranks your opinion and he said I could keep the trinkets I found. I met the scramble pilots and when I saw I could have my name on the side of one these things I was hooked. But I was like 15, pretty soon after came the extracurricular fun of women and parties so that never came to be. Saw norad or whatever the big room with all the screens was too, some stupid acronym. Boy Scouts get a bad rep but it was the best time of of my developmental years

Me: Hearing fighter mafia. Also Me: *check comment section*

I design paper airplanes (my pfp is one of my models) and some things that people get wrong about paper planes is that folding a plane with a lock, it might be more difficult but it helps a ton. Also the wings must be at an anhedral position (like how boats shape can help it stay upright), and if it pitches down then you need to add up elevator (like a real plane) by bending the back edges up slightly and vice versa. With roll or yaw bend the opposite back edge up or the other down and vice versa. This will drastically improve your plane and make it fly straight every time

Actually f-4 wasn’t designed for dogfights. So it is not surprising. They never thought that he would win in dogfight, they thought it isn’t relevant

Lmao I recognise the lecture hall at 1:49. That's lecture hall A at aerospace engineering at the TU Delft. This is a lecture about stability where the teacher gives out handouts with very complex stability equations to scare the class, only to then at the end of the class ask everyone to fold it into an airplane to show the concept of stability. Great times

US Military: *Names a fighter jet after a bird, instead of a slithering reptile* Also US Military: *Names an attack helicopter after a slithering reptile*

3:57 _They just pulled an Apple_ I'm savin' that one... 🤣

To say the fighter mafia is a bit of a contentious issue is an understatement. On the one hand they did some really scummy PR stunts by claiming every successful American fighter was the product of their genius. But on the other hand I feel like some of the hate they get is just a tad overblown. I think at least at the start they had genuinely good intentions, but their uncompromising nature and desperation to maintain relevancy would inevitability send them on a downward spiral of self destruction they were never going to recover from.

The fighter mafia had nothing to do with it but just took credit for it anyways.

The reason why that YF-16 in the initial tests had exhibited those rolling oscillations, was due to a combination between the pilot's inexeprience with a pressure stick and some flight control logics constants (dampening) that had to be corrected later using the flight data. The moment "instability", is split into these major categories: 1. "Static instability" 2. "Dynamic instability" 3. "Aerodynamic instability" Each of these types is relative to one of the three types of rotations: pitch, roll, yaw. We now already have 9 types of "instabilites". The dynamic stability is again split into two submodes: rapid modes and slow modes. Therefore we have a total of 12 = 9+3 types of instability behaviors. The only type of instability exhibited by an F-16, F-22, F-35, Su-27 family, Su-57, Mirage 2000, Eurofighter, Jas-39, JF-17, etc..., is only related to pitching moments, as static and aerodynamic combined instabilities. -pitch only..., all of them- None of them exhibit, roll or yaw instabilities as that is undesirable and useless. How is the pitch static instability defined? The short variant: "The variation of the pitching moment versus AoA with the pitch control surfaces at zero deflection". A pitching moment increase towards a positive value, as the AoA increases with pitch controls neutral, defines a statically unstable mode. A pitching moment increase towards a negative value, as the AoA increases with neutral pitch controls, defines a statically stable mode. The aerodynamic instability is almost always present although the static instability has the greater factor. The aerodynamic instability defines the rate at which the static instability varies with AoA. To give a fact and clear example of how the pitch static instability affects an F-16C fighter, I will explain it as follows: At zero AoA (close to zero, yet pozitive lift on the wings), mid subsonic speed, the pilot commands a small pitch up G amount (cause the FBW actually tries to give a constant G as output) and so the elevators are deflected for pitch up by a given needed amount. Arbitrary, let's say they deflect 4 degrees up. Let's consider that the IAS (indicated airspeed) never varies. The AoA is now going to a constant 5 degrees. Now, the pilot pitches up a bit more, the deflection goes to 8 degrees, but the AoA doesn't go double as well (as it would happen for a statically stable mode), and instead of 10, it reaches 12 AoA. The pilot pitches up again and the elevators deflection goes to 16 degrees (doubling again). The AoA now goes to let's say, 30 degrees..., again much more than 24 (double). This is the static instability in pitch. For a constant/linear pitch up deflection of the pitch controls surfaces, the AoA increases exponentially more and there is also a limit of AoA (usually a positive AoA limit for modern fighters) above which the plane will pitch on it's own without any more input from the pilot and at some higher AoA, even with full opposite pitch deflection (let's say a pitch down input), the plane still pitches up or is unable to pitch down anymore, an undesirable state known as "deep stall". Up to the point or better said AoA, at which the plane starts pitching up on it's own, the plane is much more precisely controlled via FBW, but it doesn't mean that it CANNOT BE DIRECTLY CONTROLLED by the pilot as many "know very little about everything" tend to believe. For example, up to 30 degrees of AoA, the F-16 can be flown even with no FBW, but it's just too twitchy or too sensitive in responses and a bit difficult, but not impossible to control. At least to AoA's of up to positive 20 degrees, the pilot is able to fly an F-16, fly it around and land it safely. It's just that the precision in expected responses according to the inputs suffers, but the plane is flyable.

Although superseded by the F-35 Lightning II (Aka; The Panther), the F-16 will still be one of my favorite 4th generation fighter introduced I'm hoping the PAF will choose it for their MRF program which will complement the FA-50PH Fighting Eagle used as both a Light Combat Aircraft/Lead-In Fighter Trainer.

The mess made on your kitchen counter top by the AG1 as you dramatically pour it into its container is not what you think!

2:20 With recent advancements in long-range guided missile and radar technology, the US envisioned air engagements of the future occurring outside of visual range, so the F-14 "fighter" wasn't truly a fighter, it was actually just an interceptor purposed as a fighter, which is why it was bulky, slow, and didn't even have a machine gun. In Vietnam, unreliable IFF systems and crowded airspace basically required visual confirmation before engagement, making the F-14 almost useless. Its missile were designed to target high-flying, slow-moving bombers, and had about a 14% hit rate.

Great work maybe the best episode ever ❤

Long story short. Unstable = maneuverability at the hands of a capable pilot.

1:54 I actually did make quite of bit of them and frequently win distance contests. I'd make a square nose (mostly for weight), small wing profile, and elevatore from folding the end of the wings up. You throw the plane up at a 70-80° angle and watch it fly. The nose forced the plane to pitch forward, turning altitude into speed, and when your speed became too much the pressure on the elevators forced the pitch back up. It would restart over and over until most of the stored energy was consumed and could no longer pitch back up. It worked like a flywheel or maybe newton's cradle better describes it. Ugly as shit, slow, no bitches, but flew extremely far. Also, if it catches a good headwind and the elevators hold it will seemingly never stop.

I once had a die-cast Matchbox version of the YF-16 that was my favorite

It cannot accelerate at 9g, that would be 3 times higher than a space shuttle rocket booster. It can however corner slightly above 9g.

Love the content

I love this guy’s voice! It’s like a Simpson’s construct of a far Eastern Charles Bronson. Superb.

I always thought that the F-16 is what a fighter jet is supposed to look like. One of the best looking plane ever made.👍

"lightweight-" NOOO NOO PLEASE GOD NO "fighter-" NOOOOOOOOOOOO- "Mafia" AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-