I read a story today in my news feed that the first production Block 70 F-16's were rolling off the new assembly line in Greeneville, NC. 40 of them are slated to be delivered to Bahrain. As each one is built and tested, apparently each one takes off and simply flies straight to Bahrain (I assume with refueling stops and pee breaks) from North Carolina. It made me wonder what that trip was like for the transport pilots.

All that got me thinking about the F-16 and what an amazing fighter aircraft it has been for the United states and our allies. The YF-16 achieved it's first supersonic flight on February 5th, 1974. I was 12 years old and a big Popular Science and Popular Mechanics reader. I remember reading about it and thinking that it was the most futuristic badass thing I had ever seen. That was 50 years ago. Depending on which source you look at there are about 3000 F-16's currently in use around the World. The US has about 1000 in service in our Air Force. And we are still innovating and upgrading them.

What an amazing aircraft. I read where Lockheed - Martin says they will be in operation through the 2060's.

"New production F-16s leverage structural and capability upgrades that ensure the international F-16 fleet can operate to 2060 and beyond."

More reading for those interested...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting_Falcon

i know the F-35 is badass, but if you were a smaller country and wanted the most bang for your buck and wanted something easy to maintain and relatively low cost with a 12,000 air frame, the F-16 is still the deal.

Thought I'd throw in a picture, because everybody loves pics...